Why do the restaurant multiples ignore the power of reviews?

  Last time it was Jamie's Italian, this time it is the Casual Dining Group

Regular readers will have seen this topic covered before, but we make no apology for raising it again.

Do the owners of these chains not realise what impact reviews have? That looking great can drive business through their doors? That looking 'not so great' has the opposite effect?

Well, if they do, we have seen few signs. Let's look at the first five Cafe Rouge outlets served in search...

...all scoring less than 4 on Google (who cares about any other sites these days?). All allowing a tiny minority to totally dominate their online images.

That 'tiny minority' - just how 'tiny'? Let's look at the first of these restaurants: Victoria Place - it scores 3.7 (a score that any millennial will tell you 'No way am I even considering that!') but just how many of its customers have led to that disastrous score? Nineteen. Nineteen, over a period of seven years - seven years since Google Local Guide Kenny Stoltz left their first review...

...and did they thank him? Did they ask him what they could have done to make him happier? No, of course they didn't - after all, they were piling in the customers in those days - why get involved with reviews?

That nineteen is under three negative reviews a year! Just two unhappy customers a year have destroyed that Cafe Rouge's online reputation. Bringing it below the Google filter and putting off countless potential customers.

What should Cafe Rouge have done? And what are the lessons for other businesses like them?

Assuming they have the product and the pricing roughly right - and we've eaten there and we reckon they probably tick those boxes in their marketplace (so did Jamie's Italian 'tho) they have made the following mistakes...

• they have not engaged with reviews - by inviting customers for their feedback
• they have not engaged with Google, by responding to all their reviews there

If they had engaged?

All their restaurants would be scoring north of 4.0, some by a slim margin, the better ones by a considerable margin. They would be looking like this...

...and, we're guessing - but it's a very educated guess indeed - not making headlines on the front page of the Sunday Times' business section.

For the cynics and sceptics...

We are not going to waste your - or our - time arguing just how influential reviews are in today's marketplace (we can hear the cries of 'they've been brought low by changes in spending habits' or 'it's the crippling rents in UK high streets that's doing it'). 

It costs so little to address a situation such as the one we are looking at here we would simply suggest doing it. Adopting review management and seeing the results for yourselves.

Jamie's Italian - should they be taking reviews (more) seriously?

 

We're going to make a couple of what may seem glaringly obvious comments here...

First: reviews matter. No business can blithely ignore Google reviews any more, TripAdvisor, Yelp or Zagat (in the restaurant space) perhaps, but certainly not Google. 

Second: Millenials (and many older consumers) refer to reviews all the time.

Now, let us look at Jamie's Italian scores on Google (we've limited ourselves to their London outlets, there is no discernible difference in the pattern UK-wide)...

These are shocking - shocking enough to deflect diners in numbers. But more shocking is the complete absence of action being taken by Jamie's to address the issue.

Now let's look at just two reviews from the last of these (Greenwich) and then we will make some more comments:

 

What can they tell us? All restaurants have their problems (and their problem customers), so we are not going to do a 'Gordon Ramsay' here; we will simply confine ourselves to what Jamie's Italian could do better in the context of their review management.

1. They should respond to their reviews - they could thank the likes of Paul Spicer (surely they realise that people who take the trouble to post a positive review are more likely to return if the restaurant bothers to tank them for their review?) and they could apologise to Jos Bodewes (the guy took 45 - yes, forty-five - people to their Greenwich restaurant and it never crossed their mind to either a) say 'Sorry' or b) put their side of the story
2. They should take action to ensure that more of their happy customers post reviews. The very act of inviting a review will show customers that Jamie's cares - and that in itself would be a positive step forwards 

Now you see them, now you don't 

Are Jamie's aware of the Google filter? If they are not, they are not alone, but surely if your business is suffering one of the first things you would do is try your very best to look good (we'll settle for 'good' - great might be a bridge to far) in search?


Here's a search on 'Italian Stratford'...

...now, if the very low score has not put the potential customer off, surely the Google filter will show them far better options?

...so it will!


So what would Jamie's in Stratford need to do to pass the Google filter (and look like a good bet for anyone looking for an Italian meal in the area)?

At the moment they are scoring 2.8 with 209 reviews. The answer is in the maths, Simply: they need to get more five star reviews.

The current breakdown of their scores is:

• 67 one stars
• 35 two stars
• 30 three stars
• 36 four stars
• 41 five stars

    Jamie's in Stratford does have its fans - it just needs to mobilise them

...and this shows something very important: that they do have satisfied customers, in fact they have had 77 customers who were so happy that they were motivated to write a positive review without any encouragement from Jamie's. Imagine just how different these numbers would look if Jamie's were to proactively invite reviews? Another 100 five star reviews - just one a week over the last two years - and Jamie's in Stratford would pass the Google filter and be scoring more than 4.0 in search (and the same would go for all their other locations in London). Do we think that would have a positive impact on trade? Of course we do.

So - a simple plan of action

1. Respond to existing reviews
2. Invite customers to write reviews

That's all!

Where does HelpHound come in? 

There's nothing stopping Jamie's - or any other restaurant business for that matter - from mobilising their customers to write reviews. But the key advantage HelpHound offers any business is Resolution™ - our moderation mechanism, which, besides formalising the whole review gathering process, goes as far as is feasably possible towards ensuring that malicious or factually inaccurate reviews are not posted.

Pinnacles restaurant responds to reviews - and how!

Here's an example:

...and here is their listing on TripAdvisor. When you have finished laughing (or crying, depending on your take) there are serious lessons to be learned.

Lessons?

The first is that if a fish and chip shop can make the time and take the effort, so can any business. It is now accepted fact that consumers will choose a business that responds to review over one that does not.

The second is the quality of response. Compare this from the Ritz...

...we are not for one moment suggesting that the Ritz take a leaf out of Pinnacles' book as to tone, but content? Certainly - Pinnacles' responses address the issues raised by their reviewers, and this impresses readers. Mostly the Ritz, when addressing negative reviews, adopts the all-too-common approach of 'we have dealt with this privately' or 'please contact us/we will contact you' which leaves the reader of the review none-the-wiser.

The third? Pinnacles' is not perfect - In common with a huge swathe of the hospitality industry - from hotels to restaurants to B&Bs, Pinnacles' focus is on TripAdvisor. Google has been neglected...

...with a low score and reviews left unanswered. Hospitality would do well to remember that Google reviews are seen first, especially mobile, and give them just as much attention as those on TripAdvisor and the OTAs.

If you are in any doubt as to the mechanics of responding to reviews on Google, or any other platform - or if you feel a review is incorrect or unfair and would like advice on appealing it (as did Nearwater in St Mawes in this interesting case) just call us and we will advise you.

Three reasons to avoid independent review sites

You cannot go anywhere these days without encountering businesses that have signed up to independent review sites. The positive is that businesses are finally waking up to the power of reviews - the negative is that some businesses are being 'sold' review solutions that benefit the review site more than their client.

At HelpHound we have consistently said that 'there is a better way' and those of you who are clients or are regular readers of this blog will know that; but we make no apology for restating the case - and seriously questioning whether any business should commit to an independent review site. 

Why? Read on...

1. You need to own your own reviews - and get them to Google

They are written by your customers about your products and services - so why would you want to give them to someone else? We have seen so many examples of businesses adopting one reviews solution, committing - wasting - time and effort, and then realising that there is a better alternative out there.

 This is a good example of professional review management - with HelpHound and the business working effectively together. the business has over 100 reviews on its own site which are linked to by Google in the knowledge panel ("Reviews from the web") and displayed under its listing in natural search (top left). On top of that over 40 of those reviews have been got to Google, giving the business a great score there too, as well as three great rich snippets (at the bottom of the knowledge panel).

You need your reviews on your own website - and then - almost always, to get them to Google*

*and then Facebook, and just one or two specialists sites (like TripAdvisor if you are in the hospitality business).

2. You need to obey the law - be compliant

So many review sites are not compliant with UK law; either they don't allow anyone to post a review or they only allow someone to post a review at a given time (usually immediately post-purchase). This is against the law - and the onus is on the business to comply. For more detail read this article.

3. Perhaps most important of all - you don't want to be forcing your unhappy customers to post to Google 

Look at this example of a business that decided to commit to an independent review site a year ago:

The independent site in question scores the business 4.5 out of 5, so far so good...

And now look at it on Google:

 A dreadful score - when combined with the negative text of the six one star reviews - gives a terrible first impression of the business (Google reviews are always seen first). We would love to show you the individual reviews, but that would be unfair on the business in question; you will just have to trust us that they wouldn't encourage anyone to use it!

So what has happened? 

Something we see more and more; the business invites its happy customers to post a review to the independent site - leading to a great score (it's not a 'perfect five' simply because the business cannot possibly identify 'happy' customers 100% of the time).

The business's unhappy customers have either not been invited to write a review or they have decided to write it to Google instead - not all of them, but enough to create this negative score and impression.

What should the business have done?

It should have focussed on on its own site and on Google. Here is an example from our latest presentation:

In search...

...and on the business's own site:

 For the full presentation see here

This ticks all three boxes:

• the business owns its own reviews and has got them to google in significant numbers
• its procedures and systems are complaint with the CMA's regulations
• it looks impressive - both in search and on its own site

What more could any business possibly want?

Your reviews solution must be credible (and legal)

Note: this article, by the very nature of its subject, makes frequent reference to the law and rules governing reviews in the UK - the Competition and Markets Authority regulations. If you would like to spend five minutes bringing yourself up-to-date with these there is a guide here.

Regular readers will know that we have issues with many of the reviews solutions currently being promoted to businesses. They usually come under one or more of the following headings:

• They favour the business over the consumer
• They favour the consumer over the business
• They don't moderate their reviews
• They allow businesses to filter reviews
• The enable businesses to look better than they are in reality
• They make businesses look worse than they are in reality 

None of the above are helpful - in either the short or long run, for the business or the consumer. Importantly - all but two are downright illegal (although frequently seen). Let's look at each 'category' in more detail.

• Favouring the business

When businesses first approach the subject of reviews they ask one question more than any other: 'Can we control the reviews that are shown?' and for very good reasons. The larger review sites - and for this purpose we include Google and TripAdvisor as well as pure review sites like Yelp - are notorious, rightly or wrongly, for allowing negative (and even fake) reviews to go unchallenged. And most businesses now understand that even a single well-crafted negative can do untold harm. But sites that allow businesses to challenge any negative review are breaking the rules. Only by adopting really effective review management can a business protect its reputation and comply with the CMA rules.

• Favouring the consumer 

Many sites favour the consumer by adopting a policy of 'the reviewer is always right unless the business can provide incontrovertible proof that what they have said is factually incorrect/libelous and or written with impure motives (they are a competitor or a disgruntled ex-member of staff, for instance). This policy at the main sites - Google and Yelp - has driven many businesses into the arms of sites that are more 'generous' to the business - they will allow the business to appeal a wide range of reviews. At first sight this looks attractive for businesses, that is: until they understand that almost all of these so-called solutions break the rules and therefore the law.

• Un-moderated reviews

You will almost certainly be aware of the recent controversy around Google and YouTube and Facebook allowing un-moderated content - ISIS propaganda and so on - onto their sites. The same applies to reviews. Moderation - for the uninitiated - is the act of checking a review for its source and content. It is an inexact science - if someone wants to fake a review badly enough they will find a way on most sites (not with a negative through HelpHound though - and we have a two strikes rule if a client is caught writing a positive) they mostly will be able to. We see examples of this daily.If your reviews system gains a reputation for hosting irrelevant reviews of any kind - and Yelp and TripAdvsor have both admitted to doing so - that will impact on the credibility of your reviews.

• Allowing filtering

Not a day passes when we don't see another example of a review site and a business doing this. The business has subscribed to the review site and the review site then allows the business to selectively display reviews on their site (as you can imagine, these reviews invariably score the business 5 out of 5). They are both breaking the law. Another version is the business that selectively copies reviews from another site - we have seen examples of this with Google and many others - onto their own site; again: the business is breaking the law. Another variant is the business that takes the score from a well-known site and displays it, but attributes a higher score - believe it or not, it does happen, and we have an archive of screenshots to prove it!

• Making businesses look better than they are

We've already seen examples of this under 'Allowing filtering' above. Any mechanism that allows the business to prevent unhappy customers from writing a review is breaking the rules. We hear businesses every day saying 'But I know Mrs B will give us one out of five.' The only answer to that which will wash with the CMA is one that allows all of your customers to write a review at a time of their own choosing. Mrs B has to be able to write a review, whenever she wants.

• Making businesses look worse 

Interestingly all review sites - Google included - by definition make businesses look worse than they are in reality. That is because unhappy customers are statistically far more likely to write a review online. Studies by both Cornell University and Harvard Business School have confirmed that - and the figures they have produced indicate that this impact is around a factor of fifteen times. To put this in plain English - if you see a business with 100 reviews and ten are negative less than one per cent of that business's customers are, in reality, dissatisfied. It is just that the unhappy ones have taken the trouble to write a review. Just look up any hotel you know and love and you will see this theory in practice.


So - a quick checklist for any system you are considering:

1. Does it in any way favour the business?
2. Does it allow you - the business - to choose which reviews are displayed?
3. Does it give an unfairly favourable impression of your business?
4. Does it allow you - the business - to select who you invite to write a review?
5. Does the reviewer have to wait to be invited to write a review?
6. Is the reviewer prevented from writing a review except by invitation from the business?

If the answer is 'Yes' to even a single one of these questions the system is in contravention of the CMA rules - and the onus for compliance is on you - the business - not on the provider of the reviews system.

The good news is that there is another way - the HelpHound way - adopt professional review management - now.  

All the reasons you need to adopt HelpHound

Here is our latest presentation (click to enlarge the individual slides) - showing our API in action - with added notes...

Please note: Although we have used an estate agent client to illustrate this presentation it applies equally to any business, from accountancy to zoos!

'Professional Review Management' - as with any professional adviser, it should be a lifetime relationship, capable of moving with the times and adapting to change. 

Harness the power of customer opinion and then get it displayed everywhere in search...

 ...as well as on your own website and in all your other marketing - POS, print, email, web

It's these that drive enquiries and business. They do get read by potential customers.

This slide contains all the 'boring but important' things you need to know.

• Own your own reviews - don't give them to another site
• Resolution™ is an important safety feature - for you and your customers; it ensures that inaccurate or misleading reviews don't get posted. Read more about it here.
• Our clients tell us: Google drives visits to your website, your website drives business
• Don't use a system that breaks the law (we are amazed how many do). The onus is on you to comply - more on this here
• You will welcome our support - the world of reviews is constantly evolving and we'll make sure you and your staff are always up-to-date
• You - and your web designers - can incorporate HelpHound into your website exactly as you wish

For more client comments see here...

...and to see how HelpHound increased visits to a clients website by 27% on joining see here.

To see what Rightmove's consumer survey said about the importance of getting reviews to your own site and to Google reviews read this. 

To understand how HelpHound enables businesses to minimise inaccurate, misleading or malicious reviews read this.

Now speak to Fiona or Karen on 0207 100-2233 and they will answer any other questions you may have.

When will restaurants begin to enagage with their customers?

A year on from this:

This:

So we did some homework. Here are Google scores for some of their London outlets:

 Only two of these eight restaurants pass the Google filter - and some of the rich snippets of those six that fail are truly damaging.

Now the questions we are asking ourselves are:

• Do Comptoir Libanais realise the power of reviews - to attract and to deflect custom?
• Do they understand that a score of less than 4.7 by definition contains reviews that may put diners off?
• Do they understand Google's Filters?
• What action should they be taking?

With a relatively low revenue-per-customer (£14) high-turnover model and a customer base among the young new-media-savvy - a group such as this is ideally placed to maximise review flow. So let us assume that each outlet has been open for 12 months and see how many reviews a week they have attracted.

Their accounts don't specify either covers or footfall. But if we (very) conservatively assume a hundred covers a day - if we simply take their group turnover at £21.5m and divide that by the number of restaurants (22) and the average spend (£14) it gives a footfall north of 190 - and then assume just one in twenty of those smart-phone wielding customers is somehow encouraged to write a review, that gives figures of:

35 reviews a week per outlet -  or 1820 reviews a year

It gets better:

If a restaurant is passive it gets proportionately far more negative reviews - Cornell University estimate by a factor of up to fifteen times. This means that by being proactive a restaurant will improve the proportion of positive reviews it receives - so their scores will improve, hopefully to a position where none fail the filter (number 6 will have to put in extra effort!).

What does your restaurant aspire to?

• Great customer service?
• A high percentage of repeat custom?
• 21st century marketing?

If this is true then this is what you should be doing:

1. Harvesting email addresses - from as many customers as possible

"And while I'm taking your card - how many of you would like to register your email?"

Don't say 'We're busy enough without...' - all it takes is a card and a pencil. The cards will cost you pence a day - and you will be pleasantly surprised how many customers complete them. The advantage of using cards is that you can save them and upload the details when the restaurant is not busy. If you like you can increase response by incentivising your staff (a reward for every hundred email addresses collected?).    

A big bonus is that you will soon have a massive mailing list for all your other marketing.              

2. Inviting those customers to write a review - to your own website and to Google

A tiny percentage response will still give you meaningful numbers. Your Google scores should climb by the day. Reviews on your website will always help drive custom, and by inviting them there you will have the added advantage of being able to address errors of fact and misleading comments pre-publication (we call this process Resolution™).

3 . Responding to those reviews

Responses have two effects: they impress potential customers and they make those thinking of writing a negative review pause for just a second before doing so.

Not only will doing the above make you stand right out in any search, it will establish a real bond between you and your customers. 

Then your restaurant will be well on the way to looking like this:

You will have noticed that we have chosen to show a Google score here. Why? Because its your establishment's Google score that every prospective diner sees first...

...not TripAdvisor or TopTable, not FourSquare or Zagat.

It's not rocket science - just plain good review management.

 
Further reading:

• Do restaurants care about reviews? The $64,000 question
• When in Rome - an example of a restaurant getting it right
• A sad story - this restaurant, in central west London, closed recently - why didn't they engage with reviews?
• Not just restaurants - Pubs too
• The Google filter - all you need to know 

Do restaurants care about reviews?

A glance at some of the multiples in the restaurant sector of the hospitality industry might indicate that the answer to the question posed by the title of this article is a resounding 'No'!

Why? Let's first look at the Google scores of two high-profile restaurant groups:

Group 1

Group 2 

Notes:

These bald numbers, shocking - and damaging to trade - as they are, hide even more damaging detail:

Google rich snippets...

  

This restaurant's online reputation has been left in the hands of 99 out of a footfall of tens of thousands of customers - the restaurant needs to engage its happy customers

...even one of which has the power to deflect custom:

 Comments like these - which any restaurant with a Google score of less than 4.5 will have, by definition, will harm business

We can say, without equivocation, that if these restaurants were hotels with similar scores they would be struggling for custom. We predict that, at the first signs of an economic ill-wind, restaurants - and restaurant chains - that fail the Google filter will suffer.

Action needed:

There is now now doubt whatsoever that potential customers are influenced by reviews. Restaurant businesses need to be proactive in encouraging their guests to engage with reviews.

HelpHound for restaurants

We will enable you to invite reviews from all your customers - simply and efficiently. Positive reviews will be posted to your own website and then the reviewers will be automatically invited to copy their review to Google. Negative reviews will be managed pre-publication - either by your in-house CRM team or by HelpHound (through Feedback Manager™).

Your aim should be for all your restaurants to be scoring 4.5 or higher. With HelpHound working alongside your dedicated team in-restaurant they will.

Closed review sites - driving negative comment to Google

As regular readers will know, we have always had issues with 'closed' review sites. 

What is a closed review site?

It is a site where the reviewer must be invited, by the business or the review site, to write a review. On the face of it this logic is flawless: only a verified customer of the business can write a review. If we all lived in a vacuum, where that kind of site was the only option, they would - and still can - have many advantages:

• those reading the reviews know that they are reading genuine reviews, written by real customers
• the business can rest easy in the knowledge that unscrupulous reviewers - competitors or disgruntled ex-employees - cannot write a review and do it harm

The problem, though, is that we don't live in that ideal vacuum, and our customers, whatever the nature of our business, have myriad options if they want to write a review, invited or uninvited.

Perhaps it would help if we looked at two examples: first for hotels:

Two (or more) of you stay in a hotel that you have booked through an online travel agency. On checkout you receive an email inviting a review of your stay. But who, in this example, is 'you'? 'You' is the person who made the booking. Suppose one of you loved the hotel and the other hated it - it does happen - the hotel now has a 50/50 chance of getting a great/awful review. And, more importantly, the second guest must look elsewhere to voice their opinion.

So they go to TripAdvisor or Google.

Next: an estate agent sends a closed invitation to its client. In this case the situation is a little more complex. Just like the hotel, there may be more than one client - but an efficient estate agent will know that and send two invitations. Job done - or is it? 

Unlike staying in a hotel, the relationship an estate agent has with their clients is often - especially in the case of lettings, ongoing. A landlord or tenant who is happy when they receive the closed invitation may not be happy a month - or a year - later. 

We have many examples of sellers who have written glowing reviews on exchange who have come back again to post a negative review. We have reviews from purchasers who have raised issues many months post-purchase. Some of you will be thinking - isn't that a case for a closed system?

 This Google score is for a business that has hundreds of 5 star reviews on a closed site. The have unwittingly driven dissatisfied customers to Google to comment, driving their score down and exposing some really harmful negative reviews to the public gaze on the most high profile and visible of all platforms.

No! Just because the client cannot write a review without being invited does not mean that they won't write a review somewhere else. A decent percentage will - perhaps to one of the specialist open sites - AllAgents for example, but much more likely to Google. We recently audited a great firm of agents who had overwhelmingly positive reviews on a closed review site. But nearly one in six of their reviews on Google were negative. What was happening? By using a closed site they were unconsciously forcing their less than happy clients to resort to posting a Google review.

HelpHound to the rescue:

It is so important to allow everyone to write a review:

• both guests in a hotel
• people who used your spa, restaurant or bar - but did not stay
• every guest in a restaurant
• every tenant in a property
• people who, for whatever reason, considered using your business, but decided not to

But - we hear those of you who are reading this but are yet to be HelpHound clients say - "what about bogus/inaccurate/unfair reviews?" 

That's where HelpHound's Resolution™ comes in: every review is moderated, and all those containing negative scores or comments are first asked to verify their connection with your business. This might, for a hotel, be to identify the precise date of stay and their room number, for an estate agent: the member of staff they were dealing with and the address of the property concerned. If and when the reviewer does verify - and 'fake' reviewers never do, for obvious reasons - their review will then be forwarded to the business so it can engage and respond. It gives both the customer and the business an opportunity to resolve (hence the name 'Resolution') any misunderstandings and to put wrongs right pre-publication - and is extremely popular with consumers and businesses alike. 

  

This client welcomes reviews from anyone and everyone - whatever the time or day of the week, whether they have done business or not. And the result on Google:

So - fear of unfair criticism is not a reason to choose a 'closed' review site. Fear of driving aggrieved customers into the arms of Google is a definite reason to choose review management. Welcome to HelpHound!