7 tips for collecting good customer reviews for your restaurant

More and more French people are reading reviews left by customers on platforms like Google My Business, TripAdvisor or Yelp to choose a restaurant.

In view of their influence, it becomes crucial for professionals of the sector to deploy an adapted strategy to obtain reviews for their restaurant. The challenge is of course to collect them but also to know how to answer them. We explain you how to do it, follow the guide!

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1. Familiarize yourself with the concept of e-reputation

According to IFOP, 9 out of 10 French people say they consult online reviews before making a decision hence the importance of taking care of your e-reputation. What do we mean by this? It refers to the impact of reviews on consumers.

Good reviews are particularly useful marketing tools to develop your business. Positive reviews are also very effective free advertising. Potential customers naturally trust the reviews of previous customers more than your advertisements. They are therefore a social proof and a strong marketing lever that can attract many consumers. 

Collecting reviews is also a great way to improve your SEO and gain visibility on the internet. On Google, the more stars and reviews your restaurant has, the more likely it is to appear at the top of the rankings. 

Collecting reviews is obviously taking the risk of getting negative feedback. You can't control every experience, mistake or circumstance a customer has. However, these bad reviews are not insurmountable! By responding to unhappy customers in an appropriate manner (don't panic, we'll explain everything below), you can turn these comments into an opportunity or even change their opinion.

👉 Going further: restaurant: how to advertise on Facebook?

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2. Select the right platforms to get reviews

There is no point in positioning yourself on all the existing review platforms, especially at the beginning. It is better to concentrate your efforts on a few and manage them well than to be present on a large number of sites and be overwhelmed. You have probably already heard of : 

• Google My Business accessible from Google Maps,
• Facebook,
• Yellow Pages,
• TripAdvisor,
• Yelp,
• TheFork formerly The Fork.

Leaving a review on Google literally takes 2 minutes, where some platforms like TripAdvisor or TheFork are more demanding with a lower conversion rate. Only the most engaged customers will go through with it. 

The ideal is to seek a balance by positioning yourself on a platform where it is easy to leave a comment and another more selective one to have more elaborate reviews.

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3. Adopt a strategy to collect regular reviews

Review platforms tend to highlight the most recent reviews. In terms of SEO and credibility, one review per week for 1 year will be more effective than 50 reviews in one day. But how do you ensure this constant flow of positive reviews? 

Ask orally 

If the opportunity arises during the meal, you can perfectly invite the customers you consider satisfied to leave you a review. Be careful to choose the right moment to do so and don't hesitate to do it with a touch of humor so as not to risk spoiling their experience.

Suggest a QR code

The QR code is a slightly more subtle way to encourage your customers to share their review online. It can be placed on the dessert menu. Thus, with a few clicks, they can leave you a review while waiting for their crème brûlée or chocolate mousse. You can also place the QR code on the receipt or any other advertising present in the establishment. To generate a QR code, nothing could be easier. Just go to this site and enter the URL of your review platform.

👉 Why adopt the QR code in your restaurant?

Ask for an advice by sms or email

You can also ask your customers to leave you a review after their departure by sms or email. To do this, you must have collected the number or email address of each customer at the time of booking. To make it easier for them, don't hesitate to create and share a link specific to your establishment. 

This method usually excludes customers without reservations, as it is much more awkward to ask them for their contact information in the middle of the meal or during payment.

Take advantage of digital booking platforms

Digital booking platforms can be great allies when it comes to collecting feedbacks. Indeed, these tools take care of soliciting feedback by email, a few hours or days after the experience. These emails are generally not personalized, so don't hesitate to talk about it with your customers at the time of payment for example. They will thus put a face and an emotion behind these generic emails.

Post an invitation to give feedback

There are customers who simply don't want to give their opinion, for lack of time in particular, and there are those who just don't have the reflex, who don't think about it. To convince the latter, a reminder can be enough. This can take the form of a note on the table or a poster on the back of the door.

Make a commercial gesture 

An effective technique to get a review of your restaurant is to offer something in return. This could be a coffee, a glass of wine, a gesture on the next order, etc. Bring the subject lightly: "You will give it back to us thanks to your reviews on this or that platform".

The Burger King chain invites its customers to leave their comments in an online questionnaire Bkvousecoute.fr. A code is then sent to them, allowing them to get a free dessert on their next visit.

Keep in mind that a review left on Google Maps does not have the same value as a review left on TripAdvisor or TheFork, which requires the creation of an account and the writing of a full review. By doing this, you hope for something in return, but it is not about buying your customers either. They are not your suppliers and will not be obliged to review you in any way.

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4. Don't fall for fake customer reviews

It is sometimes tempting, especially if you are starting your restaurant, to write fake reviews to boost the e-reputation of your establishment. The comments of your friends and family will of course be welcome at the beginning, but it is not recommended to use platforms that generate automatic reviews.

First of all, because these comments do not reflect the reality of your restaurant. They do not describe the real experience of a customer. The situation described may be the opposite of the one experienced by your real customers, who have actually eaten at your restaurant. 

Moreover, these messages are usually generic and unoriginal. So unauthentic that some people can immediately discern that they are fake reviews. And that's a blow to your credibility!

Finally, the evaluation platforms are not fooled. Companies that use these practices are generally sanctioned and penalized in terms of referencing (downgrading). In theory, deceptive commercial practices such as these can be punished by two years of imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 euros.

TripAdvisor, for example, carries out a real internal investigation to identify this type of practice and sanctions them in various ways:

• unable to obtain the Travelers Choice Award,
• Inability to appear in TripAdvisor press releases,
• falls in the ranking to the bottom of the list,
• display of the Red Badge clearly visible at the top of its form.

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5. Anticipate to avoid negative reviews 

To avoid negative reviews, you need to use your common sense and do everything possible to ensure that your customers have no reason to complain.

Here are a few tips to help you make the most of your chances: 

• Adopt a professional attitude (politeness, availability, responsiveness, etc.),
• take care of your restaurant's image,
• serve quality meals, in line with the positioning of the establishment,
• offer a unique experience,
• be irreproachable in terms of hygiene,
• Anticipate customer needs (bread, water) and show empathy (every gesture counts). 

Despite this, it is unfortunately impossible to satisfy 100% of your customers. Errors, whether human, material or technological, are part of everyday life in the restaurant business. You can certainly reduce their number and impact, but they remain a reality.

By the way, have you thought about digital technology to facilitate order taking, preparation and payment?

By serving your customers quickly with no errors in their order, you drastically increase your chances of providing them with the best experience possible!

👉 To go further: Discover our digital solutions dedicated to the fast food industry

Also, one of your challenges is to identify unhappy customers to better protect yourself from them. It is up to you to encourage them in this sense by gently asking them for their opinion during their experience. If it is negative, you will have the opportunity to rectify the situation before they leave. Not only will you avoid a crisis, but they may leave you with a positive review for handling the situation well.

Despite all your efforts, some customers will remain dissatisfied. So, to limit the damage, encourage them to give you their opinion in person. They will be relieved to have done so and will not necessarily feel the need to do it online. 

As you can see, the key is to regularly ask your customers if their experience is going well. That way you'll know who to ask for feedback from and who not to. Listening at the right time will save you from bad feedback.

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6. Read and respond to negative reviews

To improve customer perception

As you can see, by adopting the right behavior when customers are in your establishment (listening and reactivity in case of problem), many negative reviews can be avoided. 

However, it is impossible to anticipate them all. There are customers who have not found a sympathetic ear during their experience, those who do not seek it and prefer to complain afterwards, those who cannot reach the support, those who have had bad experiences in the past and for whom you are the last straw, etc. 

In all these cases, it is important to take the time to respond. By doing so, you are demonstrating:

• your ability to listen,
• your professionalism,
• your involvement in solving the problem,
• your credibility,
• the added value of your customer service.

This increases the confidence of potential customers as you prove to them that you are aware of the problem and that you are doing everything possible to solve it.

To optimize the management of your restaurant

Some negative comments, even if they are detrimental to the image of your establishment, can be very useful. It is therefore extremely important to be aware of them and especially to consider them as opportunities to improve your customers' experience.

But satisfied customers are above all customers who come back and talk about it around them (word of mouth, online reviews, etc.). Indeed, these reviews can be extremely constructive for your restaurant. Some customers will draw your attention to the hygiene of the sanitary facilities, others to the fact that the dishes arrive cold and others to the mistakes made when taking the order. All of this can be quickly corrected by increasing the frequency of cleaning, reducing the waiting time for food in the kitchen, training your staff and digitizing your restaurant.

Responding to negative comments is good, taking them into account is even better. This will prevent other similar comments from tarnishing your e-reputation.

In this way, you can turn a negative comment into a real opportunity for your customers or your restaurant.

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7. Process all notices received

In an ideal world, restaurants would take the time torespond to every message, even positive ones , just by thanking the authors for taking the time to write them. In reality, there is rarely enough time to do this. In this case, you have to concentrate on the messages with open questions and seriously negative comments. These messages are usually the most read, and it shows that you are paying attention to the opinions. According to a 2022 Partoo study, 93% of Internet users view company responses to negative reviews.

To be notified of new notices, you can enable push notifications internally. You will be informed in real time on Slack, by email, by sms, etc.

You need to be responsive and respond quickly. What reaction(s) should you adopt?

• Understand what the customer wants and why in order to formulate a personalized response using their first name or nickname, relevant, concise and distant . Never take a comment personally and remain polite.

• Thank them for taking the time to share their feedback, which is a valuable source of improvement for a restaurant owner, and apologize for the inconvenience.

• Attempt to resolve the problem if it is still possible. Example: Refund a promotion that was not applied.

• Explain what happened during the customer's visit and why it impacted their experience. For example: a stove failure caused a delay in the preparation of the meal, the unexpected absence of a waiter caused an additional delay in service, etc.

• Talk about the solutions implemented to prevent the problem from recurring. Example: the volume was turned down, a rude server was reprimanded, the vegetable supplier was changed, etc.

• Offer compensation, a promotional code or a restitution in case you are at fault. Once the compensation has been made, you can eventually invite the formerly unhappy customer to change his mind, without forcing him.

Remember, when you respond to a comment, you are not addressing a customer, but all the people likely to frequent your establishment. Here, the mistake would be not to answer or to simply apologize, in which case you would only satisfy (and partially) the unhappy customer.

Finally, note that the reviews you answer are more likely to be valued by the algorithm, so think about answering a few positive reviews to make them go up in the standard display of reviews. You can even share these comments on your site in the testimonials section and on your social networks. It is also an excellent way to value your customers and make them come back! 

👉 To go further: customer loyalty: 6 ideas for your restaurant