• Restaurant Marketing
  • WiFi Analytics
  • WiFi Marketing

How to Get TripAdvisor Ratings and Reviews for Your Restaurant

by: Robin Johnston
3 min read

How to Get Reviews on TripAdvisor for Your Restaurant.jpgOne of the best tools available to restaurant owners is online review sites. More and more these days, people are turning to sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp! to help them decide which restaurants they go to. Having a good rating on one of these sites could be the difference between bringing in a large number of new customers or having your numbers shrink.

But in terms of marketing, there isn’t much you can do to improve your standing. For instance, with your SEO strategy, there are things you can do to improve your standing within search engines. But with review sites, it all comes down to how well you serve your customers. That being said, the more reviews you can gather, the better. To do this, there are a few proven strategies you can try, that will encourage more people to leave a review on sites like TripAdvisor, and ultimately bring in more customers.

Ask Your Customers While They Visit

If your customers don’t know you want reviews on TripAdvisor, they are less likely to give you one. Not everyone is inclined to leave a review after they eat, and they need a little prodding. There are several ways you can go about politely asking for customers to leave a review.

First, hang up a sign by the register, near the exit, or on individual tables. All it needs is the name of your restaurant, a link to your page on TripAdvisor (or Yelp!), and a short message asking customers to leave a review.

It’s also not a bad idea to have your wait staff mention TripAdvisor at the end of the meal. Have them direct attention to the signs on the table, or simply mention how they can leave a review. Having your staff deliver the message makes it more personable, and doesn’t take up much of the customer’s time.

Finally, you could offer a discount or other reward for leaving a review. This gives your customers an added incentive, making it much more likely that they’ll leave a review. Just be sure you aren’t offering anything in exchange for a positive review, as this is against the terms of service for TripAdvisor. Even if your customer decides to leave a negative review, they should still receive the incentive, as long as their feedback was honest.

Leverage Your Wi-Fi

Another way to ask your customers is through your Wi-Fi landing page. If you provide free Wi-Fi to your customers, there is likely an initial page that each customer sees when they first log in. On this page you could include a message asking for a review, and a link to TripAdvisor. This is a great time to ask for a review, as it immediately follows a good experience (free Wi-Fi), and your customers are already on the Internet.

Wi-fi analytics systems have become so advanced that they can detect when guests are in your restaurant, and automatically send a request to write a review after they visit.

Share Links on Social Media

Besides asking the customers while they are in the restaurant, you could ask them via social media. Often, if someone likes your restaurant, they will follow your social media accounts to keep up to date on the latest specials, events, and discounts. Your social media accounts are a great place to provide a periodic link to TripAdvisor, asking for past customers to leave a review.

Advertise on Review Sites

Your last option is to advertise directly on sites like TripAdvisor. People viewing these sites are people who have an interest in reviews and are therefore more likely to leave one of their own. They might stumble across an ad for your restaurant, and having been there before, decide to leave a review. It’s a great way to catch those people who enjoy leaving restaurant reviews after they have left your place of business.

However you decide to go about it, be sure you make restaurant reviews a main component of your marketing strategy. Setting up a profile on these sites doesn’t take a lot of time, nor does directing people to leave a review, making it a great use of your resources.

Restaurant Marketing FAQs

What is 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.

Learn More About Restaurant Marketing Here

What is WiFi Marketing?

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.

Learn More About WiFi Marketing Here

What is Restaurant Reputation Management?

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.

Learn More About Restaurant Reputation Management Here

How Does Bloom Identify and Bring Back Lost Customers?

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.

Learn More About Saving At-Risk Customers Here

SAVE TIME, INCREASE CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUES, CREATE NEW CUSTOMERS

What our happy customers
are saying

“SaaS that covered so many bases for us instead of having to use multiple software products. Bloom Intelligence has simplified our responses to reviews, customer feedback, and more. I highly recommend Bloom Intelligence.”

Robert Sanderson

“Bloom Intelligence really is a step ahead in terms of marketing software and metrics. Their product is reliable, fast and innovative and has helped the company I work for really grow.”

John Marchetti

“Working with Bloom Intelligence has been amazing. They assist you every step of the way and work with you hand in hand to make sure you are optimizing your advertising potential. We are excited to use this tool to help learn more about our customers so that we can personally engage with them and understand our strengths/weaknesses.”

Ariel Ramirez

“In these challenging times, it has been a pleasure working with Bloom Intelligence to help facilitate our service offering to our clients. They were extremely responsive and provided support to mitigate risk and minimize revenue loss. Great partner!”

Stefan Kim

“We’re extremely pleased with the wealth of customer data that we’re able to gather, at a very attractive price.  In addition, we’re able to communicate our new product promotions by using  the landing page as a digital billboard.  A “no-brainer” for anyone working with limited Marketing $$.”

Bob Cross, Vice President of Operations

Subscribe Here for the Latest Updates

Never miss a post! We'll keep you up-to-date on the latest restaurant and retail WiFi marketing information.

Drop us a line!

We would love to hear from you! If you have any questions, comments or ideas about our restaurant marketing blog, drop us a line and let us know.

Or call us at 727-877-8181.

Contact Us