Category: Ratings and Reviews

No matter what business you are running, finding new customers at the lowest cost possible is extremely important – especially for restaurants. 

The competition is high, and consumers are unpredictable. So, you need to find low-cost ways to get your brand in front of those consumers as much as possible. 

Now, more than ever, consumers are turning to the internet to help them make their dining decisions. Perhaps the most visited sites for this purpose are Google and Facebook. 

They give you an amazing opportunity to show local consumers what others are saying about your restaurant, providing valuable social proof. And the better your ratings and reviews, the more likely people are to give you their business. 

Using Google to Find New Customers

Have you ever been searching for something on Google and come across a result that is displaying a star rating and the number of votes? This is great social proof because the ratings come directly from customers who have left a rating on Google.  

This is called rating schema, or structured data. It is a standardized format for providing search engines information about a web page and classifying the page content. If you’re new to structured data, you can learn more about how structured data works here. 

It calls attention to your search result, leading to more visibility and clicks to your website. 

It can be complicated for most restaurateurs. So, Bloom Intelligence has made it very easy for restaurant owners and webmasters to display rating schema on their search engine results. 

Attracting New Customers Using Google My Business

Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool offered by Google that helps businesses manage their online presence in Google Search Results and Google Maps. It also makes it easier to communicate and interact with your customers. 

According to a recent article from Hootsuite: 

A Google My Business profile lends credibility to your company. Need proof? Customers are 70% more likely to visit businesses with a Google My Business listing. 

Another study found that businesses with complete listings on Google are twice as likely to earn trust from customers. 

Trust is a crucial factor when it comes to making purchase decisions. The more confident a consumer feels, the more likely they are to buy. Credibility gained from Google is enough to sway people to be 38% more likely to visit your store and 29% more likely to buy something. 

Google My Business reviews help build trust, too. Research by Think With Google finds that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 

When someone searches for your business or terms related to your business, Google My Business will present them with extra information. This info includes your address and contact information, hours of operation, customer ratings and reviews, and more. 

For example, if you do a Google search for Subway, you will see a local map of Subways near your location and a section on the right side of the main search results with more information. 

In the image below, you can see: 

• a description of the company 
• other company information (phone, headquarters, etc.) 
• nutrition information of menu items 
• company motto 
• information about sandwich sizes 
• information about “sandwich artists” 
• social media links

Take Advantage of Free Tools

This search result can make your search result in Google much more attractive and informational for potential customers.  

Likewise, it can be a great local marketing tool for your business. 

When people search for companies near them, Google almost always displays GMB information for businesses nearby. That is why it is essential to create, configure, and maintain a search-friendly GMB account for your company. 

Imagine owning a small seafood restaurant and popping up at the top of local search results for “seafood restaurants near me” – a great example of free marketing, which is vital in today’s challenging and competitive marketplace. 

As you can see, learning what Google My Business is for your business can make a big difference when used and configured correctly. 

Attracting New Customers Using Facebook Business Listings

Facebook is essential for business for good reasons. Facebook is by far the most popular and most used social media site, with over 2.7 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2020. 

It is the largest social network in the world. 

Years ago, restaurants began to experiment with Facebook to attract new customers and provide customer service.  

However, today, it’s no longer an option. Unarguably, social media engagement is a necessity in 2021. 

Increasing customer activity on Facebook can increase influencers’ visibility, therefore gaining more new customers. 

At the same time, over 1 billion people use Instagram every month. The social media platform has grown immensely over the last few years and is now one of the most powerful social media channels in the world. 

Consider these statistics (as of January 2021): 

• Instagram is the sixth-most visited website in the world 
• It is the 9th most popular Google query 
• It has the 4th most users of any mobile app 
• 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile daily 
• 81% of people use Instagram to help research products and services 
• 130 million Instagram users tap on shopping posts every month 

Indeed, with these kinds of numbers, it only makes sense for businesses to use Instagram for customer engagement and marketing. 

Bloom Intelligence can help you manage your Google My Business and Facebook business listings easily – all in one place. 

How Bloom Intelligence Makes It Easy

Bloom Intelligence can save you time by helping you manage your business listings all in one place. 

Bloom services now include the ability to create your restaurant’s business profile in your Bloom dashboard and connect your Google My Business & Facebook business accounts. 

This means that moving forward, you only need to update your Bloom business listings, push save, and it will then sync your restaurant’s locations business information to both Google & Facebook.  

Discover Bloom Intelligence

Bloom Intelligence has multiple powerful restaurant marketing tools to help grow your restaurant business. Quickly grow a large clean customer database, improve ratings and reviews, create social proof, increase foot traffic and customer lifetime values, identify, and bring back lost customers, and so much more. 

To see everything Bloom Intelligence has to offer, call us to schedule a demo at 727-877-8181 or click here to schedule a demo online and we’ll show you exactly how it’s done! 

Successful companies collect and analyze data from customers to identify customer sentiments, which can be used to identify areas of improvement and strengths.

Customer sentiment analysis is a powerful tool that gives insight into the thoughts and feelings of consumers. By understanding how your company is perceived by its customers you can make adjustments to improve it or find out what aspects are most valued by your target audience.

Here we will learn more about the different ways restaurants can use sentiment analysis, such as analyzing online ratings and reviews, to see if they are meeting customers’ needs.

Using Ratings and Reviews to Measure Customer Sentiment

Not only are ratings and reviews good for your bottom line, but they are also great for spotting trends and measuring customer sentiment.

Measuring customer sentiment can give you very deep insight into your customer base. It tells you not only what customers like and dislike, but the reasoning behind the way they feel that way.

This allows for actionable insight to improve the customer experience, manage complaints better, spot trends, spot new opportunities — all of which can increase brand loyalty and repeat customers.

Examples of Using Customer Sentiment to Improve Business

For example, you may discover consistent negative reviews about a certain menu item being too salty or not large enough in portion size – so you change the recipe and increase portion size. This is a great example of being able to make positive changes based on customer sentiment.

It is valuable unsolicited customer feedback at no cost whatsoever. It tells you what customers like and dislike about your product or service, but it also provides you with extremely valuable information on why they feel that way.

Customer sentiment analysis is the process of obtaining and analyzing this feedback from customers.

To get the most out of your data, you need to be able to focus on the big picture while also looking at specific details. In using sentiment analysis tools, customer feedback becomes clear and useful information that can help you make targeted changes to improve your marketing, operations, and overall customer experience.

Use a Word Cloud to Spot Sentiment More Easily

Bloom Intelligence offers great customer sentiment tools to help you optimize your marketing and operations.

Bloom is integrated with Google and Facebook. Using Google and Facebook ratings and reviews, Bloom allows you to read, manage, and respond to all reviews in one centralized platform.

Moreover, the platform will analyze all of your ratings and provide you with an AI-driven word cloud to show a graphical image of positive, neutral, and negative words and phrases from all of your reviews on Google and Facebook.

In the image above, green is positive, grey is neutral, and red is negative.

You can easily see what your customers like about your place of business, and what could use improvement. For instance, using the example above, you can see that customers enjoy your food, but are frequently upset by your limited parking and long wait times.

Respond To All Reviews

It is also very important that you respond to your reviews to help build positive customer sentiment.

If a review is great, thank the reviewer and tell them you hope to see them again soon. If the review is positive, but not glowing, try to see if you can spot something that would have made their experience better.

Responding to negative reviews is also very important. Your response to a negative review can actually influence and impress potential future customers.

Make sure to respond in a positive tone and provide an effective solution to the issues that caused the negativity.

This shows that you are actively listening to your customers and that you commit yourself and your company to making things better. Make sure and take action to resolve the issue.

These are just a few examples of using customer reviews to make your customer experience and sentiment better – the options are endless.

By monitoring and evaluating customer sentiment, and then taking action based on it, you can keep your restaurant top-of-mind of your local consumers, build that five-star reputation, and watch your business grow.

You work hard to keep your restaurant business alive and growing. Part of that effort includes monitoring and improving your restaurant’s online ratings and reviews. All of this energy and determination makes it so much more upsetting when you visit one of the popular online ratings websites to see a scathing, negative review.

Your first inclination will most likely be to fire back with a defensive message. But doing so could have long-lasting damaging effects on the way the public views you and your business. Instead of quickly defending yourself and risking the appearance of not caring about your customers, take a deep breath, relax, and respond with TACT.

“Bad reviews actually give you power… they give you an opportunity to use your brand voice to right your wrongs and to deliver stellar customer service – and to do it publicly, where potential customers can see it.”  – Tara Johnson, Journalist

Responding to Negative Reviews with TACT

TACT is an acronym which stands for:

• Thank them
• Apologize
• Continue the conversation offline
• Treat them

First, thank the customer for bringing the issue to your attention. As Jay Baer says, “embrace that feedback as a gift.” Visualize not only the person complaining, but other customers who may have had the same experience but have not left a review online.

Next, you need to apologize, not necessarily for the way things are, but for the way things affected that guest’s experience at your location. Have the mindset of owning the issue that is being raised to you. Recognize that the issue is that person’s perception, and if you want to be seen as valuing your customers, then you should recognize that their perception has reality in their eyes. Apologize either for the condition, or for their experience as a result of the condition.

The next important piece of the TACT flow is to continue the conversation offline. Encourage the guest to dialog with you, but in a non-public forum. Make sure in your response, that it is apparent to the public that you wish to continue the conversation with the customer. This applies that you are going to do your best to make things right for the customer.

Finally, treat the guest to a return visit. You want the customer to come back through your doors and experience your restaurant in a different, more positive way. Perhaps it was simply an “off” day for your staff, or you may have been out of an important food item, or there was some sort of functional challenge at your location on that particular day. Whatever the issue, you want the guest to come back and experience things the way you expect them to be.  

It is important to recognize that you are providing an incentive to persuade them to come back to your restaurant, not to change their review.

As an example, let’s say you found a negative review from a guest whose order came to the table incorrectly. A great TACT response would be:

Hi John, thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I want to personally apologize for the negative experience at our restaurant. Please view my private message, or call me at 555-1212 at your earliest convenience. I’d like to make sure we not only make things right, but that we exceed your expectations. Warm regards, Allen Graves, Restaurant Manager.

Even the best restaurants will eventually run into a negative online review. It’s simply the nature of the internet. Just remember that it is how you respond to the negative reviews that can either make you look like you genuinely care about your customers, or that you wouldn’t care if they ever came back.

Online customer ratings and reviews are extremely powerful, and they can literally make or break your restaurant business. Responding to negative reviews with TACT could be the difference between the success or the failure of your business.

To learn more about the effects of positive and negative online reviews, download our free ebook by clicking the banner below.

In today’s wired world where everyone has immediate access to the internet, it’s no secret that customer reviews and ratings are hugely important to any business, especially in the restaurant industry. These ratings can bring a wealth of valuable information to informed restaurant owners who understand how to respond to them.

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Customer ratings and reviews can have a significant impact on your business. Whether good or bad, these reviews provide priceless feedback you can use to improve your overall customer experience. They allow you to recognize specific things that customers love, and those that need improvement.

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