To be honest, I am a dedicated user of Zomato app. When I look for a new place to eat, I find it on Zomato. When I want to know if a restaurant is worth spending money on, I look for the restaurant reviews on Zomato. I was once so curious with this new All-you-can-eat BBQ restaurant near my living place because I found it on Instagram and I think people were so hyped up because the restaurant went all out for the Instagram ads. However, with so many good reviews on Instagram, when I saw the reviews on Zomato, I was taken aback by the bad reviews. I mean, it was so different than what appears on Instagram. This made me feel in doubt whether I should go there or not. Therefore, if you ask me whether restaurant reviews matter or not; yes, they matter. If you have a restaurant business, keep in mind that reviews from your customers are one of the most important aspects in your business’ decision makings. Also, if you are hiring an agency to do SEO services for you, reviews are helpful for improving your SEO as well. Research says that 60% of restaurant-goers read online reviews before going out for a meal. Also, customer-written reviews on websites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Zomato are preferred by 25% more people than reviews written by professional food critics. In short, reviews encourage customers to decide whether or not they should try your food. Aside from that, the better the reviews, the better your chance to get values from search engine like Google. Your restaurant reviews can play a part in local search visibility, especially in Google Reviews, as now Google My Business listing is very important for local search. Therefore, make sure you claim you Google My Business page. With that in mind, how can you improve your restaurant reviews? Keep reading this article to find out!
Promote your restaurant’s presence on online review sites
Well, to get started, before improving your restaurant review itself, get as many reviews as possible. You can ask for reviews to your customers who are currently dining in your restaurant. Another way to do that is by promoting your restaurant’s presence on online review sites through your official social media accounts, website, email newsletters, blog, business cards, brochures, receipts, etc.
Learn from your mistakes
I have seen online shop or restaurant owners end up getting angry at those who delivered bad reviews about their business. Well, bad reviews are there to remind you that you are not perfect. You should be glad that they ask you to improve sooner before it’s too late. Therefore, when you see bad reviews, filter the messages and find out what is still wrong about your business and what you can improve from that. Write all the negative parts and what lacks from your services and menu. Learn from those mistakes and improve your services.
Use your social media business accounts
If your restaurant already got many bad reviews that you ended up with the rate below 3.0 (per 5.0), social media platform is the best way to get attention again from both new potential customers and your previous customers (perhaps those who wrote bad reviews about your restaurant too). Increase your brand awareness more effectively using Instagram ads as well. Hire several professionals who can take high quality photos and videos of your food and restaurant and post it to Instagram story and post ads. This will improve your restaurant reliability and surely catch people’s attention.
Hire social media influencers
Okay, this might be a little over budget, but a little help from social media influencers can boost your restaurant reliability and quality in the eyes of your customers. Not all social media influencers are expensive. Okay, maybe you can hire the expensive one but the rest of them are the ones with no more than 20k followers. As for the popular one, maybe you can hire a social media influencer with 300-500k followers, but that’s it. If you have more in your budget, you can choose your own social media influencers. I recommend those who are focused on culinary and food topics in their page.
Yes, that’s how you improve your restaurant reviews. It may not immediately improve the rating; after all, it depends on your restaurant quality as well. Remember that bad reviews are not always bad. It simply reminds you to improve your quality for a better restaurant business. If you need more improvement on this, you can contact us now and let our team help you.