Engage Negative Customer Ratings and Reviews – With T.A.C.T.
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.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Common Questions About Restaurant Marketing
Restaurant marketing is the process of getting people to visit your restaurants. Restaurant marketing creates loyalty, provides data to research, analytics, and allows restaurants to gain a better understanding of their ideal customer profile. It utilizes all customer channels: guest WiFi, website, social, rating sites, mobile apps, email, text, and advertising.
WiFi marketing is a marketing technique that uses guest WiFi to collect & clean customer data such as names, emails, phone numbers, customer behavior, and demographics. This data is used to personalize marketing campaigns to increase customer loyalty, build online reviews, and save at-risk customers. The performance of every campaign can be tracked down to the tangible ROI of a customer walking back in your door.
Restaurant reputation management is the process for restaurants to manage customer feedback and creating systems to improve customer experiences, passively build positive online reviews, and save at-risk customers. It is a very important aspect of running a successful restaurant business.
A restaurant customer data platform (CDP) is a unified software system that collects, consolidates, and activates guest data from multiple sources including WiFi networks, POS systems, online ordering platforms, reservation systems, websites, loyalty platforns, event platforms, and review sites. Unlike generic CDPs built for e-commerce or SaaS companies, restaurant CDPs are purpose-built to handle restaurant-specific data sources and create actionable guest intelligence that drives personalized marketing, operational improvements, and revenue growth automatically.
Bloom Intelligence uses machine learning to identify at-risk customers. When one is recognized, the system will send them a message with an incentive to get them to return and re-establish their visit pattern. Bloom users are seeing up to 37% of churning customers return.
Ready to Turn Your Guest Data Into Revenue?
Join 1,000+ restaurant locations using Bloom Intelligence to recover lost guests, automate marketing, and drive measurable revenue growth.
Keep Reading
View All Posts →8 in 10 Restaurant Guests Never Come Back. Here’s What That’s Costing You.
Key Takeaway Eight in ten restaurant guests who have ever visited your location have never returned, creating a measurable revenue...
Your Restaurant Reputation Management Software Only Does 10% of the Job. Here’s What It’s Missing.
Key Takeaway Most restaurant reputation management software only handles review responses. That's just 10% of the value your guest sentiment...
The 13x Guest: How Restaurant Data Analytics Reveals Your Most Valuable Customers
Key Takeaway Your most loyal restaurant guests spend 13 times more than first-time visitors — but most restaurants can't identify,...