Pubs and reviews - strategic thinking in 2014

This article was prompted by a tweet....

Fair enough, you might think; well done for encouraging trade. But wait: this pub is right slap bang in the middle of one of the most popular tourist cities on the planet...

So we embarked on some research: we visited a dozen pubs in the area at lunchtime and the results came as a major shock: they were all experiencing the same marked lull in trade. We spoke to managers and they all confirmed that it 'was the same every summer'.

Let's recap...

• 12 pubs within walking distance of major tourist attractions (museums/art galleries/shops)
• All great pubs (great atmosphere, good food offerings)

So what are pubs doing wrong? 

It can't be the prices or the hours lunch is available that's putting them off

Not on Google or any of the pubic sites

On a Thursday in July we sent our researchers to all the 'dining' pubs within 500 metres of the Science Museum (an area which also happens to contain the V&A, the Natural History Museum, the Albert Hall and about 12,000 of London's hotel rooms). What we found was profoundly shocking: in the pubs surveyed - all between 1 and 2 pm - there were an average of 5.4 people dining; and from pubs with dedicated dining facilities with seating for an average of 50. That's the potential to feed over 700 people at a single sitting, and they were feeding less than 60. Nearly all of the pubs surveyed keep their dining rooms open 12pm-10pm, so we have to assume they are actively looking for lunctime dining trade.

To make the point in another way: all the pubs between the Kings Road in Chelsea, through South Kensington, right up to Kensington Gore are feeding less than 100 people for lunch on a Thursday in July.

If we assume that tourists are not specifically avoiding the great London pub, there has to be another reason (the chain restaurants in the vicinity of each of these pubs - and in the same price bracket - were packed out). 

Imagine for a moment that you are a tourist: you have just staggered out of the Victoria and Albert Museum (or one of the dozens of hotels within walking distance) and you want lunch. You have heard of that great British institution, so into your smartphone you type 'pub South Kensington', let's see what you get...

We did the same exercise for 'pub Oxford' and the results were so similar as to be indistinguishable, so it's not a problem unique to West London

The average Google score for the top six pubs listed is 3.7, which in terms of any subjective judgement of rankings is truly awful*. It is enough to put any self-respecting tourist off, even before they persevere far enough to read some of the prominently displayed negative reviews...
 

The top six reviews - would you eat there? We visited this pub, it was nearly empty at 1 pm on a Thursday, and there was nothing wrong with either the service or the food. The mistake this pub is making is allowing its online reputation to be dominated by half-a-dozen dissatisfied customers

The solution

Pubs have some wonderful resources when it comes to getting great reviews...

• Regular customers 
• Diners

Both these categories are fertile ground when it comes to getting reviews. Invite regular customers and email diners. If you aren't already collecting email addresses, start today:

• Get their email when they book over the phone
• Hand them a card at the end of the meal and ask them to fill in their email address and collect it before they leave
• DO NOT hand them a card asking them to write a review - it does not work
• When you have their email address send them an email including a link to your G+ page (or TripAdvisor page once you have enough reviews on Google*, 50 is a good first target) asking them to write a review

We are not saying this is ALL of the solution (pubs could try introducing menus in popular tourist languages** for a start - we didn't find one), but it must make business sense.

And finally: TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Urbanspoon, Yelp (for anyone doubting that tourists want 'the London pub experience' just check Karla S's reviews) and other specialist sites:  focus on these after you've cracked Google; it's Google that comes up on phones and all research shows that if a business doesn't look good there very few people will bother to research it any further.


*To be really successful at attracting trade you should be aiming at a Google score of 4.7/4.8. Anything less than that will mean you either lose trade to competitors (and these can be any other business in a similar price range, not just a better ranked pub) or the the prospective diner will feel the need to mine down into the individual reviews, where you run the risk that they will be put off by an individual negative review (see above).

A score of 4.5 - 4.7 is a good initial target, but anything less than that (and certainly anything under 4.0) and trade will drop off considerably.

**Most foreign tourists (with the exception of Germans at 64%) do not speak/read English (34% of Italians, less than 1% of Chinese). The top non-English speaking tourists are: French, Germans, Spanish and then the Italians.

Hotels - are you getting your four a week?

This arrived by email from TripAdvisor today...

Sounds a lot doesn't it? Until we remind ourselves that there are currently 1073 hotels listed for London. So that is 3.4 reviews per hotel.

If you are getting less than four reviews a week you need to look hard at your Review Management. For three key reasons:

1. Numbers (volume of reviews) matter. Read this article
2. If you are not proactively inviting reviews you are leaving your reputation in the hands of dissatisfied guests (who are far more likely to write a review unprompted than satisfied guests, by a factor of 15:1)
3. For larger hotels the numbers need to be proportionatly higher. We estimate the average London hotel has just under 100 rooms, so if your hotel has 300 rooms your benchmark needs to be 12 review a week

Using Facebook to engage with guests - a cautionary tale

Those in hospitality thinking that Facebook may be a viable alternative to TripAdvisor might like to delve deeper into this story (Warning! Not for the faint of heart or those offended by bad language):

Points to remember:

1. Facebook is a recurring two-way street, unlike TripAdvisor the 'reviewer' can comment multiple times
2. Anyone else can join in: friends of the 'reviewer', any online passers-by
3. Stories like this have a habit of spreading backwards to more conventional media, in this case to TripAdvisor

Somewhat bizarrely, despite all this, there are still 7 'Speciality lodgings' in Glasgow ranked worse than Bluesky! 

Our (narrow) take on Facebook and other social media...

If you want to attract gushers and ranters, then social media is fine; if you wnat to know what your serious customers think, then you need to give them a channel where they can comment in private (and be assured of getting a response).

Dialogue™ - welcome consumer feedback - all the time

 

This

Or this?

We all welcome customer feedback, don't we? Do we really welcome all the customer calls that we get? Well let's have a closer look...

• The one that interrupted that crucial meeting?
• The one that made you late for your child's first school play?
• The one from 'Mr Angry' - every day for a week?
• The one that means you have to skip lunch - again?

Now, we know just as well as you do that 'every customer's opinion is vital' and 'there's no such thing as unwelcome feedback'. But what if we could show you a way that would manage customer feedback that would...

• be actively welcomed by your customers as an improvement on your current system(s)
• be cost-effective
• be welcomed by your customer services staff
• work 24/7 and 365 days a year (including Christmas Day)
• be used by every category of customer 
• be able to be infinitely tailored and varied - to be used to gain real-time feedback on product/service enhancements, for instance 

There is a reason why some businesses feel that they have to bury the 'contact us' button on their websites, or channel uninvited feedback through multiple-layer phone systems. And it's not because they don't want to provide great customer service; it's because they haven't found a customer feedback solution which, if promoted to the top of their site, won't cause them logistical headaches (jammed phone lines, harassed staff).

There is now

Dialogue performs all the functions above and more; enabling real-time communications in both directions; it's the modern way. Dialogue combines all the best aspects of customer service and best marketing practice.

Dialogue enables your customer...

• to contact you when it suits them (after normal working hours/at weekends, in fact whenever they choose)
• to be immediately reassured that whatever the nature of their communication, it will be dealt with promptly and professionally

 Dialogue enables you...

• to openly invite customer feedback all the time, irrespective of capacity or office hours
• without employing more staff or outside agencies
• to manage response flows: giving essential communications priority
• collect data whenever you want - at the touch of a button 
• to survey customers at will
• to publish verified feedback and results that will drive more business

And let's just dispel one myth: the one where the consumer says "I much prefer dealing with a real-live human being." What they're really saying is "I much prefer getting whatever issue I bought to the business resolved." Did you really object when your GP or garage introduced online appointment booking? Or did you prefer hanging on for a 'human being' whilst listening to musak?

Dialogue will make sure your customer services staff are available to make and take the calls that really matter (and it will feed leads to sales); and it will revolutionise customer feedback in ways that you could only dream of before.

The really probing questions answered

The question that lurks unspoken behind almost all the following questions is "Does our business really need Dialogue?" After you have read these answers we hope you won't need to return to that question again.

• How will our customers react to Dialogue? Very positively indeed, because its obvious that it's there for them; to make their experience of your business better. We have never had a single complaint about Dialogue from one of our clients' customers - ever. Think of the last time you had a mediocre experience with a business, possibly a business that you would ideally have used again, wouldn't you have relished a mechanism like Dialogue?

• Customers should complain direct to us:  A fair enough comment, but in the real world people are increasingly conditioned to online communication (Google and the review sites). Your customers will, in the main, use the avenue that makes it easiest for them; and you should want some control over that avenue. We had the example of a London 5* deluxe hotel that protested that all their guests were checked out 'in-room' where they were asked if there was any tiny little thing that the hotel could have done better during their stay; we then showed them their TripAdvisor listing where over one in seven of their guests had posted a negative review
  

• Why does Dialogue have to be on our website? Because you want more business and one of Dialogue's key functions is to drive business through your website. There are very few businesses who don't always need this - if you think you fall into that category then we would respectfully direct you to the next question

• Will it work if it's not on our website? Some businesses don't want new customers (they simply don't have the spare capacity) but they do need to retain their existing customers, for them Dialogue can work 'blind' (without being shown on their website) 

• Can we get something similar elsewhere for less? Currently HelpHound is the only business providing this service; there will doubtless be imitators in the near future, but we aim to retain our clients by maintaining the lead we have already established and continuing to provide a great service that delivers. Don't confuse review management with reputation management

• What is the difference between review management and reputation management? It could fill a small book, but the basic difference is that review management is all about promoting the positive and reputation management is about suppressing the negative (which often means flooding the web with selective positives). With effective review management the negatives will be brought to you in private so you won't ever need reputation management

• Why do we need to ask our customers to post to Google? Everyone who looks up your business online is shown Google reviews (if you have them). They are also shown your competitors reviews; you simply need to look good by comparison

• Then why not ask our customers to post direct to Google? For two very important reasons, first you need those reviews on your own website (to drive new business and provide early warning of customer dissatisfaction) and second, you cannot be 100% sure you will be inviting happy customers to post to Google unless you select who you invite and any selection means filtering which erodes that credibility which is so essential in driving new business.

• Early warning of customer dissatisfaction? One of the first responses received by a recent estate agent client (a landlord) said 'Many thanks for inviting me to write this review, I was thinking of changing agents..."

• What will happen if we delay introducing Dialogue? You'll save our fee! But, seriously, you risk losing new and existing customers and falling behind your competitors online

• Not many people look at our website - is Dialogue relevant then? If one person looks at your website and is influenced to contact you by Dialogue and then becomes a customer, Dialogue's done its job. If, like an estate agent we spoke to recently you haven't checked you analytics recently (they said "We're the only people who look at our website, the analytics, when they checked them showed 3000 visits a month).

• We already survey our customers, do we need Dialogue as well? Dialogue is all about driving new business and retaining existing customers; of course, the feedback it generates can be hugely useful (and may make Dialogue look like a customer survey tool) but it is secondary to Dialogue's primary role in directly driving revenue to your bottom line.

• We already have a company reporting what our customers say about us on the web, do we need Dialogue as well? It is essential to know what's being said about your business on the web, but we would argue that it's even more important as a business to give you customers a channel that they will actively use in preference to other review sites so they say what they think (especially if it's sometimes not entirely complimentary) to you before they say it on the web.

• Why is it important to have Dialogue (as opposed to something of our own) on our website? Dialogue enables your prospective customers to read verified reviews. These have credibility - the essential ingredient that drives prospective customers to make contact, whether by picking up the phone or enquiring through your website

And now for the 'big daddy of them all...

• How do we know Dialogue will make our business money? It is easy to quantify whether or not Dialogue is working for you as long a your staff are focused on understanding your sources of business. All our clients alert their staff to ask this question at first contact. It's also one of the reasons that our own client retention and satisfaction rates are so high. The answer may be subtly different for each type of business (for hotels: the effect on their rankings and scores, for estate agencies: the minimising of online complaints form tenants, and so on) but the overarching promise we make to all our clients is that Dialogue will impact on their bottom lines.

Responding to negative reviews - a template for hoteliers

Even the Ritz!

The one- or two-star review - one of the many banes of a hotelier's life. If you are a client, these will have reduced by about three-quarters, but they still pose a key question: how to deal with them? 

With our experience of reading and responding to many thousands of reviews a month on behalf of our Feedback Manager clients, here is our advice:

First:

All negative reviews will fall into two categories: those who have already complained in-hotel and those who did not and instead waited to post [on TripAdvisor/on Google etc.].

So:

Do your utmost to discover which category the reviewer falls into. There are always clues: in the username, in the date, in the photographs and in the content of the review.

Then:

Use the relevant template (altering at least one line to personalise your response):

Complained whilst in-hotel: 

Dear 'Username'*

Thank you for taking the trouble to post your review on [TripAdvisor/Google] and for allowing us the opportunity to apologise here for the issues which made your stay with us** less than perfect.

As [name and position of staff member] discussed with you during your stay [here address ALL*** the specific issues raised, explaining politely why each event happened, and, most important of all, what action has been taken].

I hope this clarifies matters; we do try very hard to make sure all our guests' stays exceed their expectations. If there is anything else I can do please do email me or telephone me; both my email address and direct line are available at reception****.

We very much look forward to welcoming you back* in the near future.

With best wishes

NAME and POSITION*****


Complained post-stay: 

Dear 'Username'*

Thank you for taking the trouble to post your review on [TripAdvisor/Google] and for allowing us the opportunity to apologise here for the issues which made your stay with us** less than perfect.

[here address ALL*** the specific issues raised, explaining politely why each event happened, and, most important of all, what action has been taken].

I hope this clarifies matters; we do try very hard to make sure all our guests' stays exceed their expectations. If there is anything else I can do please do email me or telephone me; both my email address and direct line are available at reception****.

We very much look forward to welcoming you back* in the near future, and if any issues arise then please do ask for me by name.

With best wishes

NAME and POSITION*****


Notes

*1 Not the guest's real name, even if you know it, and not 'Dear Guest'

**1 (not with XYZ hotels - you don't really want this spidered by Google and returned in searches)

*** 'ALL': so many responses on TripAdvisor simply include a generic apology but fail to address the specific issues mentioned in the review. Besides being seen by the individual reviewer as 'lazy' this runs a significant risk that a potential guest will see that a point that concerns them (e.g. air-conditioning faulty) has not been addressed.

**** Don't give out your email address or direct phone number in a response, they are a gift to spammers.

***** How often do we see 'JimB' (or, worse: 'GM' or 'FoH') and no position? It's partly because responses on TripAdvisor are automatically assigned to the first person who registered the hotel, make sure this is current and conforms.

A very important postscript

To answer the question that must be in the minds of many readers (after all, only one in twelve reviews on TripAdvisor is responded to): 'Why bother at all?'

And this for a review of a tiny establishment, half way up a mountain in the middle of nowhere!

Interestingly enough, the review of the Ritz at the top of this page is as good an example as any:

1. Reviews ARE read (see above), negative reviews are read MORE (the average traveller consults seven websites before booking)
2. Many (if not most) reviewers see the review as a direct communication to the hotel, not a 'review' to inform others. If it were an email (or a letter) we are sure the Ritz would have responded. We recommend to all our clients that they respond to all reviews, without exception
3. All negative reviews have the potential to deflect business. If the reader only sees the guests' side of the story, then the hotel will lose business as a result
4. The reader doesn't know that the guest writing the review was wrong; if you don't correct misapprehensions, whether they be about price or 'lack of air-conditioning' then they will stand as fact
5. You will never know if you have lost business as a result: no-one is going to phone a hotel and say "I was going to stay with you, but..."
6. TripAdvisor's own research states that people favour hotels who respond to reviews
7. Guests are less likely to write a negative review if they know they will receive a response

Review Management defined

Over the past handful of years Review Management has emerged as a professional branch of marketing. Here we define this new (but essential) tool, by describing just what it is and, just as importantly, is not.

Reviews - some history

There's nothing new about reviews. They have been around since the dawn of journalism - whether the subject under review was the latest play, the local restaurant, then everything from holidays to washing-machines. In your daily paper, on TV.

Occasionally consumers might even be consulted (by polling or phone-ins). But then came the web.

The web and reviews

Reviews on the web were initially simply web versions of other media reviews, but then new technology emerged (it was called Web 2.0) that allowed consumers to answer back, and to voice their own opinions.

Initially using the 'forum' format that continues today, soon specific review sites began to emerge. These allowed anyone (often anyone at all) to post a comment (a review) about a business. Any comment about any business. Or any comment about a specific kind of business.

Initial impact

Consumers loved the concept, they wrote reviews and, more importantly, they read other people's reviews. Sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, written off in their infancy by professional marketeers as 'the rantings of the rabble' grew exponentially. 

Engaging with business

Some of the very early sites (like Angie's list) reckoned that they added so much value for the consumer that the consumer would pay to read their reviews.

Others realised that businesses would pay for two things:

• Site traffic - if X,000 people visited the site, then businesses would pay to advertise on that site
• Leads - if the reviews attracted potential customers, businesses would pay for those leads

As these businesses grew and matured the correlation between the number of reviews they were able to host and the business's worth (share price) became defined. The drive for reviews was well and truly ignited.

And...?

 

It was put smack bang on top of my competitor's listing!

The double-edged sword

This was clear from day one; businesses love reading positive consumer comments but dread negatives. But does the review site really care? The answer, in the overwhelming majority of cases is a resounding 'No'. 

If it were otherwise then the review sites could very easily build in a mechanism to allow consumers to interact with the business offline when they have an issue that needs addressing or an outright complaint, but no, the review gets published, however unfair or damaging to the business.

Why? For many important reasons: first, the 'volume' issue explained above; every published review is another cent on the share price. Second, people love reading negative reviews, so the sites recognise that negative reviews drive traffic - and the review sites can sell that traffic to advertisers; third, and most contentiously, many review sites' sales pitches are thinly veiled blackmail: 'pay for our services and we'll see if we can do something about the negatives'.

So where are we today?

Review sites are here to stay. Most important of all, since Google realised the extraordinary consumer demand for reviews back in 2008-9, they have been refining and boosting their own review offerings, first in natural search and second (and probably most fundamentally important of all for the medium to long term) through their own review mechanism.

Business reaction

So far businesses have reacted right across the spectrum from outright denial (ignoring reviews completely) to engagement (responding where they can) to adopting proactive review management strategies.

We should examine all three of these strategies in more detail:

• Denial: is not a viable long-term strategy. Not engaging with reviewers is tantamount to not listening to your customers; but, worse than that, it is effectively saying, out-loud and as publicly as can be "We don't listen to our customers. We don't care what they are saying." Reviews must (where the mechanism exists) be responded to, at a minimum
• Engagement: is a great first step. Simply responding to reviews, politely and professionally, will show your business in a much better light than standing aloof and allowing comments to go unanswered
• Proactive strategies: the next logical step; seeing a customer writing a review in exactly the same light as a customer sending your business an email or contacting someone in your customer service department has to be the first step in establishing and effective review management strategy

At this stage we expect most readers are nodding in agreement; so the question is "Why have less than 1% of UK businesses adopted that course of action so far?

The answer is a combination of two things: fear of the unknown and resources.

To (probably mis-) quote Milton Friedman: "The business of business is business." To adapt this to our own ends we see this as meaning that if you run a hotel your business is looking after your guests, if you run an estate agency your business is selling houses and if you are a doctor your business is treating your patients.

So is it any wonder professional services exist; very few of any of the above file their own accounts, litigate on their own behalves or self-insure; so why would they want to do their own review management?

The answer, in the main, has been because until now there just haven't been the review management professionals to do the job for them. This eliminates the 'fear of the unknown' and makes concrete the issue of 'resources'.

What will a Review Management professional do?

The simple answer is: 'everything to do with reviews', let us break this down:

1. Get your business the reviews it needs
2. Enable you to promote those reviews - credibly - to prospective customers
3. Enable you to manage any negative reviews in private
4. Advise on strategies to maximise the effective distribution of those review across the web
5. Advise on individual strategies to address specific damaging or unfair reviews

Numbers 4 and 5 could (and often do) include drafting individual responses.

Professional review management is one of the most effective new business drivers available to businesses today. All recent research indicates that it will pay for itself many times over in lead and new business generation as well as existing customer retention.

What is not Review Management?

Sometimes it looks, at first glance, like review management (you may even have googled 'review management' and been served it in results), but it is not...

• Testimonials: they're not reviews - they haven't been independently verified and they've probably been filtered (whoever saw a negative testimonial?) so they will lack credibility in the eyes of your prospective customer
• Reputation management: can get you loads of reviews, at a price, but does not address the core issue - effective (credible) feedback from all your customers
• DIY: however effective in-house systems may be (and some are great) they will always lack credibility without independent verification

The next steps

We don't meet a prospective client without conducting a Review Management Audit these days. This will include:

1. Identifying current review coverage (or lack thereof)
2. Recommending an initial strategy to address lack of (or gaps in) coverage 
3. Recommending a medium to long-term strategy to enable the business's management and staff to rest easy in the knowledge that they have a robust solution in place

We look forward to a long and mutually rewarding relationship - after all, we wouldn't want you posting anything less than a 5* review about us!

References:

1. The impact of reviews on consumer decisions
2. Google's own take on reviews
3. Wiki: Review Sites
4. Wiki: Web 2.0
5. Wiki: Reputation Management 
6. Wall Street Journal: beware of reputation management
7. Survey: Reviews v. Personal Recommendation
8. Fake reviews: the Guardian
9. Harvard Business Review: "User reviews are front and center"
10. Bad reviews are costing businesses millions