A restaurant’s online reviews have huge power in making or breaking a restaurant’s success. Recent surveys showed that 72% of customers who were asked to write reviews went to do so. Positive reviews can draw in new customers, while constructive criticism helps you find areas that need improvements. Knowing how to encourage online reviews is important. Let’s learn effective ways to lift up your restaurant’s reputation and turn happy customers into your business promoters.
How to Encourage Customers to Leave Reviews
Customer reviews provide analytical opportunities for your restaurant’s growth. According to some recent searches:
- 46% of diners prefer to check Google reviews before selecting a restaurant.
- 23% of foodies check Yelp reviews to choose where to dine.
- 9% of people rely on Trip Advisor to discover restaurants.
It means that your customers still believe in getting word-of-mouth referrals. Therefore, you need to encourage people who dine at your restaurant to write reviews for you. Here’re some of the ways to do it effectively.
1. Give Outstanding Customer Service
- Train Your Staff Properly: Train your team to make them knowledgeable and friendly to satisfy customers with their services.
- Offer Tailored Services: Consider customers’ behavior and preferences to provide them with a tailored service and make them feel valued.
2. Focus on Service and Ambiance
- Enhance the Decor: Invest in enhancing the decor, seating arrangements, and lighting of your interior to create a pleasant atmosphere for your customers.
- Give Fresh and Quality Food: Serve quality food. Garnish them properly to make the dishes look attractive.
- Maintain Cleanliness: Make sure your kitchen utensils and the space where your guest will visit is clean.
3. Ask for Reviews
- Request Reviews: Ask your satisfied customers to write reviews for you in a polite way.
- Get Reviews After They Dine: Request them for reviews at the end of their dining when the experience is still fresh.
- Keep Review Cards on Tables: Place review cards on tables so that they can immediately share their experience with ease.
4. Make the Review Writing Process Easy
- Add Your Link: Link your restaurant’s profiles to various online review platforms.
- Use QR Codes: Let customers scan through QR codes using cards to direct customers to review pages.
- Review on Various Online Platforms: Allow customers to leave reviews for you on different platforms like your website, social media, review platforms, etc.
5. Offer Incentives
- Entice with Discounts: Offer a free dish or a small discount on their next visit for giving reviews.
- Reward Points: Run loyalty programs to reward points for each review.
- Exclusive Access: Ensure easy access to new dishes, or events to customers who write a review for you.
6. Engage Customers on Social Media
- Display Positive Reviews: Share your positive reviews on your different social media platforms.
- Communicate: Ensure that your customers are engaging with you by communicating with them sometimes. If they feel you value them, they will surely leave your restaurant’s online reviews.
- Create Engaging Posts: Engage your audience by creating engaging posts like polls, quiz, etc.
7. Respond to Reviews
- Thank Customers: Appreciate customers who leave good reviews for your restaurant.
- Respond Quickly: Respond promptly or professionally to negative feedback too. It will show your commitment to improvement.
- Encourage More Engagement: Invite reviewers to visit you again and write more reviews for you. In return, reward them for their efforts.
8. Host Special Events
- Held Events: Organize special events or themed dinners to encourage restaurant reviews.
- Promote New Dishes: Create new dishes and host events for those dishes and ask attendees to taste and review the dishes.
- Host Workshops or Cooking Lessons: This can be a fun and innovative way to ask the attendees to share their experience online.
9. Leverage Email Marketing
- Shoot Follow-up Emails: Send follow-up emails to customers to thank them for their visit and request a review.
- Add Review Site Links: Place links to review sites in the body of emails for directing customers there.
- Create a Review Campaign: Start an email campaign where you will highlight the value their reviews can generate.
10. Feedback Monitoring and Analysis
- Keep Eyes on Review Sites: Monitor different review sites regularly to understand the needs and sentiment of customers.
- Consider Reviews to Improve: Use your restaurant’s online reviews to find loopholes and make improvements in your services.
11. Reach Food Bloggers and Influencers for Collaboration
- Engage: Like and share social media posts of your selected influencers and food bloggers to engage with them before reaching out.
- Offer a Free Meal: Host food bloggers or local influencers for a meal and ask them to share online their experiences at your restaurant.
- Give Exclusive Deals: Provide exclusive deals for influencers to make their visit worthy.
Implement these strategies to build a strong review profile, enhancing your restaurant’s reputation. However, using a restaurant review plugin can relieve you from the burden of choosing and displaying reviews from different sites on your website. If you want to know how restaurant review plugins can arrange reviews on your WordPress website, scroll down to our next section.
How Restaurant Review Can Grow Your Business
A restaurant review gives you full control over the reviews you display on your WordPress website. Here’re some of the ways to accelerate your food business growth through reviews.
Adds Credibility
Showing positive reviews from real customers will help you get more traffic. Providing social proof will drive customers to make decisions in your favor.
Increases Engagement
Allowing customers to write reviews directly on your website encourages engagement and makes the customers feel you value their opinions.
Boosts Customer Loyalty
Making customers see that their reviews have been featured on your website increases their loyalty for you, leading to more word-of-mouth referrals.
Gives Valuable Insights
Knowing what your customers prefer will give you an insight into the areas that need improvements. Accordingly, you can work on those areas catering to the needs of your customers better.
Why Choose a Restaurant Review Plugin?
A restaurant review plugin can go a long way to take your review management to the next level. If you’re interested in using a plugin, you can consider the Restaurant Review plugin of WP Food Manager. Our plugin is user-friendly and customizable. Moreover, it has some other amazing features, which are described below.
- Integration of rating system
- Add new reviews
- Edit or delete reviews
- Easy-to-use review forms
- Customizable forms
- Shortcodes to display both your Google and Zomato reviews
You don’t have to be technically sound to use our plugins. Further, we update our plugins regularly to enhance its functionalities. Our plugin, thus, will enable you to leverage ongoing innovations in review management and make your restaurant thrive quickly.
Wrapping Up
Restaurant’s online reviews can strengthen your online presence. Implement the above-discussed 11 strategies to create a loop of positive feedback to drive customer engagement. Prioritize customer reviews to not only improve your service but to create advocates of your food business, who can bring in more traffic.
