By Margo Ovsiienko, Contributor
Imagine you have visited a new city and want to go for dinner. Doing research on Google and checking online reviews of local restaurants is one of the quickest ways to pick a decent place. The better the reviews are, the better chance a restaurant business stands to attract a customer.
But here is the thing — even the top-rated restaurants with Michelin stars can occasionally get a couple of bad reviews. By responding to negative reviews the right way, restaurant owners and managers can continue attracting new visitors and maintain a strong business reputation.
So how do you write a response to a negative review and turn an unhappy customer into a happier one? We are explaining in this article.
How to Respond to Negative Restaurant Reviews Online
Ignoring negative reviews can result in more customers passing on your establishment. That’s because people can filter reviews by the lowest when doing their research on Google.
The good news is that apart from reading a review itself, people often check a restaurant’s response as well. By providing a professional response to negative feedback, you can offset the damage bad reviews make to your business reputation. There are few things to remember when writing a response — let’s check them out.
Tip 1: Apologize
People who are extremely dissatisfied with your service can decide to post negative reviews on multiple review platforms and social media. By ignoring their reviews or even worse — retaliating — you can get these customers even more furious.
The first step to preventing the damage to your business is apologizing, no matter if the review is fair or not. You need to reply not only to public comments or private messages, but even to Facebook Ads comments so others can see you took a proactive approach.
Check out this example of a review below to get an idea on writing an apology.
Tip 2: Make the Response Personalized
You can use a custom template to respond to all negative reviews. However, canned responses can make an impression that a business doesn’t take a review seriously. To maintain an image of a customer-centric business, you should personalize your messages.
It will help you calm down a customer who has shared a bad review and simultaneously save your face.
By taking your time and writing a proper response, you can show your perspective on the problem and clarify the situation to everyone reading your response online.
Read this negative review and a response from a manager to learn how personalization can work.
Tip 3: Take Feedback Seriously
Receiving honest feedback from guests gives you a great opportunity to improve on your service and offer better customer experience. It also helps make your restaurant a better fit for the local market.
Writing a response to a negative review is the first step to it. The next one is acting on your customer feedback — making a plan on what should be done to prevent similar reviews from appearing online in the future.
Whenever a customer leaves a bad review, carefully analyze if it’s objective and true. Surely, not all negative reviews require instant action. Imagine one of your customers complaining about prices and 99% of others being content with your offering. Surely, in this situation, it makes no sense to lower your prices immediately.
To find out if the problem a customer describes is worth acting on, analyze facts — ask your staff about the customer, watch camera footage, check your customer’s receipt history if the case requires it.
Sometimes, you have to put yourself in the detective’s boots to back up your response.
Tip 4: Ask Them to Share More Details
Some customers are quite laconic at describing the issue — they write only a few words in their review or simply leave one star with no explanation. While these reviews might not always be fair and objective, you shouldn’t ignore them.
The best thing you can do about them is getting authors to explain their problem and give you a chance to improve your service. To get them to talk, write a response that encourages them to get back to you by email. That’s how the manager writing a review response below approached the situation.
Tip 5: Create a Process
Responding to negative reviews fast is key to managing a conflict with an unhappy customer and improving their opinion about your business.
By apologizing right away, you can prevent customers from spreading a bad word about your business when their emotions are still high.
To respond to reviews faster, make sure you get notifications about new online reviews appearing on your business profile and can write back within a few hours.
If you are not available, make sure someone on your team can do it for you. If you outsource this process to a manager or another role, they should understand the guidelines of dealing with negative reviews.
Tip 6: Don’t Get Personal
Reading a negative review can hurt — every restaurant owner puts in a considerable amount of effort and time to build a business that delights customers. That’s why it’s easy to get carried away and take things personally online.
However, attacking your customer online can only make it worse. Unfortunately, you won’t prove yourself right — neither in the eyes of that customer or future customers.
If you take it personal, anyone reading your review can find your answer impolite or mean. That’s the opposite impression to what your review response should make on a reader online.
Make sure you avoid responding to your visitors' reviews this way.
Instead of taking things personal, always approach reviews in a professional way, with personal feelings put aside.
Wrapping up
No one can avoid bad reviews, but the way you respond to them helps save your reputation.
In the long-term, ignoring negative reviews can only harm you. By providing a quick and supporting answer to a customer review online can help calm down an emotional customer and, in some situations, regain their trust.
By implementing the tips we have shared, writing a professional response to a negative review will become a much simpler and more controlled process.
