Hi there. My name is Andrew and I am the founder of Review Booster.
I built and ran seven hospitality businesses, restaurants and take away shops. So the idea of reputation management is very dear to my heart.
I must admit that I was terrible at managing reviews in my early years. A bad review brought the world down around my ears. I had no idea how to respond and it was soul-crushing, knowing that a negative review was there for all to see, specially given that my staff and I put our heart and soul in to making our businesses great.
What I have learned over the years is that every business gets negative feedback. I changed my mindset somewhat over the years and turned a negative in to a positive.
Review sites allow the business to reply. That wasn’t the case in the early days. Now, it is fascinating reading reviews for businesses that I am researching and a negative review can pale in to insignificance when the business replies in a professional manner.
I clearly remember a time when I wanted to remove my business from a particular review site because I was too scared about getting negative reviews. Better no reviews than one negative one, was my thinking.
Now, having researched reviews as a consumer and as part of developing Review Booster, the thing I have come to realise is that negative reviews are part of doing business. The key is to get reviews. As many as you can. As a consumer, I trust a business that has a score of 4.2 but has 10,000 reviews compared to a 5 star business with only 10 reviews. Interesting isn’t it.
I do skip to the negative reviews and where a business has promptly replied to the bad review and placated the customer, it loses its bite. I seem to have trust in the business where they have provided a good reply.
So, the key message here is that as an experienced hospitality business owner, I can honestly say to you that the most important thing you can do is encourage reviews and build that credibility. Don’t be frightened of negative reviews. When they come along, and they will, reply to them promptly and professionally. If there was a complaint about a dirty table, tell them that you have conducted staff training to make sure tables are checked prior to seating guests. Speak in plain english and address the problem head on.
A lot of reviews are about poor service. For some reason, people like to air their grievances on review sites when they had a bad service experience. Let’s face it, nobody is perfect. Every employee will have a bad day. A reply to such a review could go down the lines, “Thanks very much for providing us the feedback. We apologise for your poor experience. We have spoken with our team and the day in question was a particulalry trying one, given we had 2 staff that were not well and that put a lot of pressure back on our team. They acknowledge that this should not affect the customer’s experience. Thank you once again and we ask that you give us another try in the near future.”
Review Booster is unique because negative reviews are kept in-house and we obtain the email address of the customer (providing they opt in to share their email). This allows you as the business owner or manager, to reply directly to the aggrieved customer and offer them an incentive to come back. A free meal or coffee is always a great reason for a customer to come back and give your business another go.
So, a few key points. The key to managing your reputation is to encourage customers to leave a review, don’t fear negative reviews, reply to reviews promptly and professionally and where you do get a negative review, explain what you have done to remedy the situation and give them a reason to come back.
Review Booster is the perfect tool to assist you with encouraging reviews and managing bad reviews. For more infomration, navigate our site. We offer a free 30 day trial for new customers so sign up now.
