Reputation Management for Restaurants

Online reviews wield significant power, especially in the restaurant industry. Potential diners heavily rely on online reviews to make informed decisions about where they will dine. Unfortunately, restaurants often receive some of the harshest online reviews, making it extremely difficult for managers and business owners to respond to them properly.

Understanding how to respond effectively to negative reviews is crucial for business owners looking to protect their online reputation and attract new customers. In this blog, we’ll explore why restaurants should respond to bad reviews and discover some key strategies for crafting great responses.

Should restaurants respond to bad reviews?

Yes! Business owners, especially in the restaurant food industry, should make it a habit to respond to negative reviews. Recent surveys suggest that 95% of unhappy customers will likely publicize their experiences through online review platforms. While it’s impossible to stop people from posting negative reviews on your online platforms, you can lessen their negative effect on your business through well-written and fully-optimized responses.

Sample of a negative restaurant review on Tripadvisor.

To learn more about the effects of negative reviews on businesses, read Don’t Let Negative Reviews Ruin Your Business: Examples & Tips

Why should restaurants respond to bad reviews?

There are numerous reasons why restaurant managers should be diligent in responding to negative reviews regardless of their content. Here are the top three benefits of responding to bad feedback online:

1. Mitigates negative impact
2. Builds trust within the community
3. Improves local SEO

Mitigates negative impact

Negative reviews can severely affect a restaurant’s online reputation and conversion rates. Surveys suggest that a single negative review can deter 22% of potential customers from visiting a restaurant, and this percentage increases to a staggering 59% after reading three negative reviews. Many businesses fail to respond to these reviews, missing a valuable opportunity to provide context and assure potential clients that such experiences don’t happen regularly in their business.

Builds trust within the community

With the rising popularity of online review websites, consumer reviews now hold more weight than traditional food critic reviews. Customers now realize that some popular food website features promotional deals, hindering them from providing unbiased reviews. Aside from this, numerous customers now look towards public listings to see realistic consumer experiences instead of expert ones.

Approximately 25% of diners worldwide rely on consumer reviews on platforms like OpenTable, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. Allocating resources to enhance your online listings and responding to reviews helps build trust and credibility within the community, driving more foot traffic to your restaurant.

Improves local SEO

With 89% of dining research conducted on mobile devices before visiting a restaurant, having a strong online presence is crucial. Reviews and responses to those reviews are considered valuable online content, which can significantly impact local search engine visibility. By responding to reviews, restaurants can boost their online rankings and attract more potential customers.

How do you respond to a negative restaurant review?

Mastering the art of responding to negative reviews is a crucial skill for restaurant managers in today’s digital landscape. To help you with this, we’ve compiled the best practices when responding to negative restaurant reviews:

1. Maintain a fast response time.
2. Promptness is crucial when responding to negative reviews. 53.3% of customers who have written reviews expect a response in 7 days or less. Responding to negative reviews beyond this timeline can be more detrimental to your business. On the other hand, having a fast response time allows you to mend your relationship with the dissatisfied customer.
3. Benjamin steakhouse is one of the top results when you search for “restaurants in Manhattan” in Tripadvisor despite its negative reviews. As you can see, the restaurant doesn’t delay responding to reviews, even the negative ones.

4. Manhattan steakhouse with a good response time on Tripadvisor.

5. Offer apologies and empathize.

6. Research suggests that 51% of bad restaurant reviews are about customer service, and not food quality, something that can be avoided in the first place. With this note in mind, remember to address customer concerns with genuine apologies and empathetic language. Recognize their disappointment and reassure them that their experience is being taken seriously. Most importantly, avoid being excessively defensive.
7. Sample of an apologetic and empathetic response to a Tripadvisor review.

8. In this example, the customer service representative apologized for the inconvenience the diner had experienced, apologized, and opened a dialogue with the customer.

9. Maintain a positive tone.

10. When crafting responses, maintaining a positive and professional tone is essential. Even in the face of harsh feedback, maintaining a courteous demeanor showcases the restaurant’s commitment to customer satisfaction.
11. Example of a positive and confident response to a negative review on Google.

12. In this example, the manager showed positivity and professionalism while explaining the customer’s concerns. Providing clear context like this builds trust among potential clients, allowing you to increase your conversion rate through a negative review.

13. Personalize your response and avoid templates.

14. Each negative review should receive a personalized response as it demonstrates that the restaurant values its customers’ feedback. Avoid using generic templates, as they can come across as insincere and impersonal.
15. Sample of a response template for negative reviews on Google.

16. Using templates for negative reviews will just be like adding salt to a wound, just like in this example.

17. Offer a solution.

18. In addition to expressing remorse, offer a practical solution to rectify the situation. While it may be easy to offer a discount or a complimentary meal to dissatisfied customers, it may even encourage other diners to leave negative reviews. Furthermore, some online listings will see this strategy as a form of compensation for positive reviews, and your listing might be flagged. To know more about this, read Why Buying Google Reviews Hurts Your Business
19. Example of a review response offering a solution for the customer concern.

20. Instead of discounts or gifts, offer an actual solution to the problem raised by the customer. In this example, the manager said that they would be reviewing their offers due to the concern of the customer. Responses like this are more than enough to appease clients, as they would know that their concerns are recognized.

21. Encourage private communication.

22. While it’s essential to respond publicly to the review, encourage the dissatisfied customer to continue the conversation in private. This shows that the restaurant values direct communication and is dedicated to resolving the issue in a more personalized manner.
23. Opening a private dialogue for a sensitive concern.

24. This is especially important for sensitive concerns such as health, sanitation, and financial issues. In this example, the restaurant recognized the weight of the concern and immediately escalated the issue to their operations manager.

25. Don’t forget to respond to local listing reviews.

26. Surveys suggest that 38% of all customer complaints are on social media and review sites. For this reason, businesses must respond not just to reviews on their websites but also to their local listings. Furthermore, these local listings are mostly optimized through their location, so an excellent rating on these platforms, such as Google Reviews, will allow you to reach out to more local customers.
27. Clarifying dining rules through a local listing.
28. In this example, the restaurant owner reached out to a customer and clarified their dining regulations by attending to their local listing reviews.

Respond to negative restaurant reviews easily with MARA AI.

We know that responding to negative restaurant reviews can be challenging. Rushing to maintain a fast response time, being extra careful with your choice of words, maintaining a professional tone towards a foul review, and more! Fortunately, MARA AI writing assistant can help you respond to negative reviews, so you can focus on improving your business.

MARA AI review reply generator uses a Generative AI algorithm to craft human-like responses to customer reviews in a matter of seconds. Instead of using templates, you get engaging responses that address the actual content of your customer reviews. Most importantly, they are fully optimized based on key metrics of the restaurant industry, so each review is not just written for the sake of replying to negative reviews, but they can actively mitigate the impact of the negative feedback and boost your online visibility.

Sample of how MARA AI Review Reply Generator writes responses to negative restaurant reviews.

Here are some of the benefits experienced by MARA users:

• Increased overall star rating on online review websites
• 3x faster response time
• 100% response rate with no effort
• Improved online reputation
• Increased customer engagement

Adding an AI writing assistant like MARA to your review management process can help you alleviate the troubles caused by negative reviews. Click here to register for a FREE ACCOUNT to learn more about MARA’s features.

Final Thought

Restaurant owners and managers should not ignore negative reviews. Instead, you should see them as an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction and improve their online reputation. Responding thoughtfully, promptly, and empathetically can mitigate the negative impact of such reviews, build trust within the community, and ultimately lead to increased foot traffic and positive customer experiences. By employing these strategies and leveraging innovative tools like AI review reply assistants, restaurant managers can master the art of responding to negative reviews and turn them into opportunities for growth and success.