Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Over the last five years, reputation management has become a larger piece of our marketing mix. Of course, when I say reputation management, we're talking about the reviews that diners leave for us online on sites like Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about why they matter so much. We're going to talk about how you can get more and most importantly, we're going to be talking about how you should be responding to those to again, harness and leverage the power of all of those online reviews. Again, reputation management is a really big piece of how we can be successful. We're going to talk about all of that on today's episode of Restaurant Strategy.
There's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown. This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers anyone who's looking.
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close and this is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast dedicated to helping you build a more profitable restaurant. Each week I leverage my 20 plus years in the industry to help you build that more profitable and sustainable, sustainable business. I also work directly with restaurant owners and operators from all over the world in my P3 mastermind program. So this is a group coaching format. I gather hundreds of restaurant owners from all around the world onto calls every single week. Right. To date we've got over 150 different restaurant owners in the program spread across three different groups. So listen, if you got a busy restaurant, you're generating a lot of revenue, but you struggle to to generate consistent, predictable 20% returns, then we want to chat with you. This is what we can fix. We can show you how to put systems into place that can generate that consistent, predictable return. The best way to get started is to Visit our website restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule. Grab some time on the calendar. You'll set up a time to talk with me or one of my other coaches. We'll get to learn more about you and your restaurant. You'll get to ask some questions about the program and we'll see if you are a good fit. Again, you can. You get started by visiting our website restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule and yes, as always, that link is in the show notes.
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Now. Today I just want to spend a few minutes. This is not going to be a huge episode. Short, sweet, to the point. We're going to talk about reputation management.
Reputation management is interesting and important for one very important reason. We get the democratization of criticism, meaning 10, 20, 30 plus years ago we had restaurant critics, right? We have food critics in newspapers, in magazines and they told the public what they should think about a place, right? Was it thumbs up, thumbs down? 1 star, 2 star, 3 stars, 4 stars, 5 stars?
What should you be spending your money on? And the. The answers to that were pretty much curated by a couple of gatekeepers, right? Every city or, or every. Every their own restaurant critic and they told you where you should go eat and where you shouldn't bother to go eat. And I think that was cool, right? The best food critics out there, right? If you go back and you look at, for example, Ruth Reichl, over the course of her time at the New York Times, she sort of highlighted a changing movement, things that were happening within the dining scene with fine dining in New York City. And I think it's fun to look back. Her writing is extraordinary and she really doesn't. She did an incredible job in really mapping out the changing landscape in the fine dining world of New York City.
But when it comes to restaurant criticism, what's to say that one person's opinion will be accepted by everyone? And so this is why I know we like to call Yelp a four letter word. I did an episode about Yelp a long time ago because it's the thorn in a lot of restaurant owners sides.
But the bottom line is that we get not just one person's impression, not just one person's review of a restaurant, but we get a lot of people's perspectives on a restaurant, right? So we can say, if you're the kind of person who likes these restaurants, well, then you're gonna love this restaurant because this person also loves this restaurant, meaning this person who is leaving this review.
But if we, unless we know more about the reviewer, it's hard to tell. So what happens is when a reviewer on Yelp leaves a bunch of different reviews, we can go back and see all of the reviews that person has left and we can get a sense of, oh, they like this, they didn't like that, they didn't like that place. And we could say, oh, I like this place. And I didn't like either of those other two places. So I bet you I have similar taste. This is really, really important because no longer are there a couple of gatekeepers who sort of determine the success or failure of a given restaurant. Now we've got millions and millions of people who add, who add to the entire mosaic, the entire collage of reviews. And again, on sites like Yelp, on TripAdvisor, on Google, this ends up being a powerful thing. So just sheerly, from a criticism and from an aesthetic perspective, I see this as a good thing, right? And it's only going to get better the further we go along.
And just to be, just to be clear, when we talk about how Yelp becomes a place where people just go to complain, it's not 70 to 80% of the reviews that are logged by Yelp or logged on Yelp are actually positive, overwhelmingly positive. And yes, let's be honest, the kind of person who's going to go out of their way to leave a review on Yelp or Google or on TripAdvisor either really, really loved it or really, really hate it. There are very few three and four star reviews. There's very few people that were like, yeah, it was pretty good and I'm going to take time out of my day to tell you it was pretty good. Like, that doesn't happen.
So it's polarizing and we're going to see the raves and we're going to see the actual, the absolute bombshells. Fine, let's just acknowledge that and let's not pretend it's anything different than what it is.
When we talk about reputation management, which is a whole subset of marketing right now, reputation management is how we curate how we manage our reputation online.
These reviews are a huge part of how we do that. So again, number one, just from a restaurant criticism perspective, the idea that we would hear thousands or millions of opinions, I think I choose to see that as a good thing. Certainly better than one restaurant critic giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And we should count our blessings that that's the way the world has gone. Because we don't have to be the best restaurant that ever opened. We can be really good and make a lot of people happy and make a living for ourselves and provide for our families.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Right?
[00:08:39] Speaker A: That's a good thing. Now, when we talk about reputation management, there's also a very technical piece of reputation management that I did an episode about SEO. I did an interview with a woman from Moz.com, which is, which is a very reputable website, and they talk a lot about SEO. Search engine optimization, Right. When we talk about search engine optimization, we're talking about organic search results, right? That sites like Google are in the business of providing relevant answers to the user's questions. So someone goes to Google, types in the search field, best pizza near me, Right. Or best steakhouse in New York City.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: And it's Google's job to provide the most relevant, the best possible answer to that person's query. If they do that, if they provide good answers, then Google becomes a place where people will go to again and again and again. So to be perfectly honest, Google very much wants what we want. If we are the best steakhouse in New York City, then we want Google to know that. Because Google then will let everyone else know that we are the best steakhouse in New York City. Right? So we want what they want, they want what we want, and ultimately we both want what the customer wants. If you've got a great steakhouse in New York City, you believe you're the best steakhouse in New York City. You then you want to be connected with people who are looking for a great steakhouse in New York City, because you're going to make those people happy, right? When you make those people happy, they're going to be more apt to go back to Google, which means you make Google happy. Now, five, 10 years ago, reputation, right? Online reviews was just a small piece of what factored into organic search results.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: How you appear in relevant searches.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: That's a really important thing to note because just five or ten years ago, it was like the 10th or 12th most important thing. And now online reviews are probably like the number three thing that a lot of sites like Google and Bing look for. I want to say that again. They used to be 12th, 13th, 15th in importance behind a whole lot of other factors.
And now.
And now they've become even more important. They're like the number three thing that gets factored into whether Google shows your listing, shows your business to somebody who's looking for a business like yours. That becomes huge.
So we need reviews. We need them on a consistent basis. We need good reviews, and they need to be responded to. They need to be alive. So then if we need reviews, we need lots of reviews, and we need lots of good reviews. The question becomes, and you know, this is where I come from. This is how I come at this stuff. I say, well, then how can we make this actionable?
So, again, first and foremost, why is it important? It's important because more and more people are going to sites like Yelp, Google and TripAdvisor to make their decisions about where to dine, about where to spend their money.
So that alone is reason enough to try to manage those sites.
But then from a very technical perspective, sites like Google and Bing pull from reviews and pull from those star. Those star ratings to determine who gets shown first, second, third, fifth, tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth, right?
So again, from an aesthetic perspective and from a sheerly technical perspective, it is in our best interest to try to generate more reviews. Now, I will say there's the right way and the wrong way to do this, right? So the rest of this time I'm going to spend talking about how we generate reviews and then what we do with the reviews once they're posted. And there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. There is an honest way and a dishonest way of doing this, right?
You need to identify people who love the experience.
They just haven't thought of leaving a review.
So I always say this. This is something I tell all my clients to do.
Make a business card, right? You can get a business card made for a fraction of a penny per business card. Then you get like 5,000 of them printed on the one side. It has your logo, it has the Yelp logo, and it has a QR code that would take someone to your Yelp Page on the other side, it's got your logo, it's got the Google logo, and it's got a QR code that takes them to your Google My business page, right? So you got a business card now with two sides. One takes them to your Yelp page, one takes them to their Google my business page. Now, the wrong way to do it is to offer something in exchange for a good review. The wrong way to do it is to run a contest where all your servers are trying to get as many as possible. You don't need hundreds and hundreds a week, you need a dozen.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Right?
[00:13:38] Speaker A: I want to say that again. You don't need hundreds a week. You need a dozen. Dozen at most.
But you need a dozen great five star reviews that will help your business. So this is what I recommend doing. You take those cards, you give them to your manager or you put them at the podium. You tell all your servers, hey, take care of these tables. Make sure everyone has a great time. When you find someone who is loving the experience, you go tell the manager and they're going to come over and they're going to say, hey, boss, table 32, they're loving their experience.
Now the manager knows to grab a card and go over to table 32 and say, hey, everyone, I just wanted to check in. I want to make sure it looks like you're having a good time. Did you guys enjoy yourselves tonight? And of course they're going to say, oh, my God, the food was great, the service was incredible. We've loved it here, blah, blah, blah. And they're going to gush, right? And the manager's then going to ask more probing questions. Well, what did you have? What was your favorite thing? What were you drinking tonight?
Was the server good?
Again, you're going to ask probing questions and you're gonna get them talking, you're gonna continue them, you're gonna keep them gushing over the experience they just had. And then what happens is the manager says, I'm so thrilled to hear you say that. That literally is why we do what we do. Can I ask a really big favor?
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: As a small business, we are really impacted by online reviews. I've got a card here. It'll take you to our Yelp page and our Google My business page. If you can take two minutes right now just to tell the world what you just told me, literally, just scan this, leave us a five star rating and just leave us a review of what you loved about the place and why you love the place and why you're gonna come back and why you think other people would love it as much as you did, then you could take two minutes and just do that. I would be forever grateful. That would help our small business more than you can possibly imagine.
And then you say thank you. You leave the card and you say, I'll be right back.
And you go away, you make yourself busy for five minutes, and you come back and you say, hey, were you able to do it? Okay? And they're gonna say, oh, my God, yes, I did it. You guys are amazing. I want everyone to know how amazing you guys are. Notice you didn't offer to take money off the check. You didn't send them something extra. You didn't buy them around to drinks. All you did was ask them if they enjoyed it. They. You obviously know the answer to that. They raved about it.
And then you just ask them to tell the world what they just told you. And they will be only too happy to do it because they will still be overwhelmed by the incredible experience they just had. This works at restaurants of every single level. So don't think I'm just talking about some fancy fine dining experience. I'm not. If somebody looks like they're having a great time, you just have to do that script. That's a framework, right? That's a playbook. How do you do this? Now, what happens is all you're looking for is one or two people every single day. That's it. You don't need five, you don't need 10 a day.
You're looking for the one table or maybe the two tables that are having such an incredible experience that they just can't wait to tell people about it. That's all you're looking for. And hopefully, hopefully you get one of those every single day. I got to imagine you do. I gotta imagine that what you do is incredible, and people love what you do. You just have to get better at identifying them and actually asking them for something you need. The thing you need is for them to rave about you to the world.
They do that again. The two biggest sites are Yelp and Google. Now, if TripAdvisor is key to your business, you run a little bed and breakfast, you run a little inn somewhere, and. And it ends up being maybe you're in a heavily touristy area. Well, then, fine. Maybe you make a card that's got Yelp and TripAdvisor, or Google and TripAdvisor. Whatever. The sites that are going to be most impactful. You pick two, you put one on one side, one on the Other side. That's a playbook that will work. And again, if you get one rave five star review every single day, you're going to have 30 by the end of the month, maybe as much as 40 or 50 if you're really getting two on certain days, 40 or 50 five star reviews every single month, that changes your business because it starts elevating your rating now. Really, really important.
And I talk about Yelp and Google for a specific reason, because Google Maps, right? Google obviously pulls mostly from your Google rating, but they do pull from Yelp, Apple Maps, which is the another big search engine that people use, especially when they have iPhones. And Apple Maps pulls from Yelp. If you have less than a four star review on Yelp and or Google, you are invisible to the search engines. Again, I want to say that again, if you have a 3.6, 3.8, 3.9, anything under four stars, you are invisible to the Internet. Apple Maps specifically looks for at least they used to. They look for 4.2 and above.
So if you want to target, you've got to shoot for a 4.2 review or greater on Yelp and Google.
That becomes really important. Let's quantify it. Let's set a specific target. Now you're going to do that. You're going to start collecting reviews every single day. Not tons, just one, maybe two.
Now people are leaving reviews. Obviously the people that you're prompting will leave you reviews and obviously other people will leave reviews as well. Some five stars, some one stars, some three stars, Very few, three stars, mainly five and one.
Now you've got to figure out how to respond to them. And I want to be very, very clear.
You need to respond to each and every online review that gets posted.
I'll repeat, you need to respond to each and every online review that gets posted. You're obviously going to claim your Google My business page. You are going to claim your Yelp page so that you can respond as the owner.
And you're going to respond something like this, right?
The good reviews. You're going to say, thanks so much for the kind words. We love hearing, hearing about our great experiences. We look forward to having you back. Please don't be a stranger.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Something like that. Thanks so much for taking the time to leave us a review. We love reading things like this. So glad you had such a great experience. We can't wait to welcome you back.
Do not copy and paste. Do not post the same one on every review. You have to make it different so it feels like a human being Responding and not a computer. And guess what? You are a human being, not a computer. Right now, on the bad reviews, you're going to go in there and say, I want to thank you for taking the time to share this feedback.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but we appreciate you voicing this because this is how we get better.
Listen, if you don't mind, I'm gonna give you, you know, please email the address listed here, and you're gonna list your email.
If it's okay with you, I'd love to ask a few more questions about your experience just so we can make sure that we improve for the next time.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Right?
[00:21:03] Speaker A: When you respond to the bad reviews, you are not necessarily trying to win back those people who left criticism for you. What you are doing. And think of it this way, you are trying to. You are.
You're presenting yourself in a certain way to everyone else who's visiting the Yelp page in this example to determine if they want to eat there, right? So I don't think anyone expects there to be all rave reviews for a restaurant. Some people aren't going to like it. Some people, you know, statistically are just going to have a bad experience.
But what they care about is how you responded. And when you present yourself as a. As an aware, conscientious, passionate operator who cares about fixing the situation and cares about getting in better, getting better every single day, that. That will resonate with people. Now, remember, way more people read Yelp reviews on your Yelp page. Then we'll leave Yelp reviews on your Yelp page.
So a lot of this is about presenting yourself in a certain way to everybody who's coming to check out. And when they see you responding to every single review, they go, whoa, this person really cares. This person's taking a couple minutes out of their day to go the extra mile. I'm telling you, it makes a difference. So you're going to review. You're going to respond to every single review. Good, bad, ugly. The good ones. Thank you so much. Can't wait if you can call out something in particular. Right. Oh, so glad you got the waffles and ice cream. It's one of our favorites as well. Oh, so glad you tried the tuna tartare. It's been a signature for the last 20 years, on and on.
If you can respond like a human being, you will come across like a very caring human being, which is obviously what we want to be.
So we understand the importance of these reviews. We. We now have a playbook for getting More reviews, and then we have to respond to each and every review. And now you've got a plan to do that. Let me just say here, there is software out there. Marquee.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Right?
[00:23:09] Speaker A: So go check out Marquee. M A R Q I, I. Right. I think it's marquee.com, go check out their software. They have a reputation management tool that aggregates all the reviews from all over the Internet, puts them in one dashboard so you don't have to log into all these different sites. You just check it out, check out on your dashboard and respond right there. And then they will push your responses to the appropriate sites. It's incredibly powerful. They also have an AI tool that will help you sort of like craft responses. So if you need some help doing this, there are obviously tools out there doing it. If you don't need help doing it, then you just need to do it again. Reputation management has become a huge part of how, how we're viewed on the Internet. And we need a plan for, for it. That's it. That's what I wanted to talk about. How we generate more reviews and how we respond to the reviews to help curate our, our digital, our digital reputation, the way that we are perceived across the Internet. That's what I wanted to talk about. I appreciate you guys being here. I say it every single time. I know there's a lot of great podcasts for you to listen to. I appreciate you coming to listen to this one. I hope this helped. I hope you get some sort of value out of this. I'm going to leave you with my request.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Right?
[00:24:26] Speaker A: Just like I'm asking you, right, to ask your guest to leave you reviews, I'm going to ask you to leave me a review. The site that actually makes a huge difference in my business is Apple Podcasts. So if you like this show, if you get any sort of value out of this show, please take a minute right now, go to Apple Podcasts, leave us a five star rating and a review. Just tell people what you love about the show, what you've gotten out of the show and why you think they should listen. That more than anything else will help this my small business. I appreciate all you guys being here and I will see you next time.
