Online Reputation for Restaurants: A Comprehensive Guide to Growing Google Reviews
Most customers will check out your Google reviews before visiting your restaurant. As such, they are vital for your business. Let’s dive into the steps necessary to grow your Google reviews and boost your reputation.
What are Google Reviews? Why are they important?
Google reviews are an integral part of your Google Business profile. This profile identifies your restaurant in Google Search and Google Maps and will always appear with your 5-star scale Google reviews rating.
Brand reputation is key in the food industry. Four out of five people check online reviews before going to a restaurant. And three out of five abandon a reservation if reviews are bad! Google reviews are the main source of information for your potential customers, more so than your social media or platforms like Yelp. 62% of consumers discover restaurants on Google. Plus, Google reviews make you visible on both Google Maps and Google Search. The more positive reviews you have, the better your online visibility is. Not to mention that reviews are a great way to receive feedback, too.
The ultimate tool to know how are you doing in terms of Google reviews: sunday’s top 150 ranking
We compiled the top 150 best-rated restaurants through Google reviews for Atlanta, New York, Chicago and other cities. It’s never been so easy for you to understand how you compare with your competitors! Over half of Atlanta’s top 15 restaurants use sunday to boost their Google reviews, including El Vinedo Local, Del Bar, and Bula Gastro Bar. Check out the best-rated restaurants in your area and grow your Google reviews here.
The following tips will help boost your Google reviews and grow your restaurant’s reputation. Now, if you want more 5-star reviews, it goes without saying that you should aim to provide your customers with a 5-star experience! You’ll find more tips on how to do that on our restaurant toolkit blog.
Update your Google Business profile
First things first: make sure you claim and complete your Google Business Profile. To be identifiable on Google Search and Google Maps, you probably already have a Google Business Profile. If not, create one, or claim ownership.
Your Google Reviews rating will automatically appear on a scale of five stars on your Google Business profile. Make sure it has accurate information, always. Especially critical for restaurants are your opening times and holidays. Make sure your profile provides all the information your customers need. And include a link to your main website.
Add high-quality professional pictures of your restaurant and a menu. The photos taken by your customers will also appear on your Google profile, so you want to make sure you have at least a few official images representing your restaurant at its best.
Reply to your restaurant's Google reviews
Replying to your Google reviews gives a strong signal to your customers that you read and value their feedback. And customers are more likely to visit a business that responds to reviews. We know it can be daunting to reply to reviews, especially negative ones. Yet going through the following simple steps can help you succeed. Find tips specific to replying to negative reviews in our FAQ.
Reply fast
53% of customers expect a reply to their review within a week, with 1 out of 3 expecting a reply within 1 to 3 days after writing a review. So check your reviews regularly and reply on the same day. It might not always be easy in your restaurant’s fast-paced environment. Build it into your or your staff’s routine, e.g. before the shift starts.
Inquire
Investigate the reason behind the feedback, especially when negative.
Be courteous and concise
If there’s one thing you need to take away from this post, remember this: always thank the customer for their feedback. Any review, positive or negative, should be welcomed and encouraged. Your customer took the step to write you a review and this extra effort is a great sign of engagement. All responses are public and tell something about you so always be polite. Keep your response short to respect your customers’ time, even when it can be tempting to reply in length to a long review.
Show empathy
The “customer is always right” motto should be no secret to you by now. Negative feedback can appear unjustified or unfair at times but it still reflects your diner’s experience and should never be dismissed. Always thank your customer and apologize when suitable after investigating the grounds for this negative review.
Be authentic
Make your customer understand there is a human behind your response, and sign it with your name, first name, or initials. Be true to what you can and cannot control (e.g., the weather!), and don’t over-apologize for what isn’t in your power to change.
Be helpful
Nurture your customer relationship by replying with new, personable, or helpful information.
Grow your restaurant's Google reviews
Chances are your customers won’t leave you a review if you don’t encourage them to. So ask your diners to leave you a Google review! There are many ways for you to do so.
Train your staff
Your staff can ask for feedback during your diner’s experience and invite them to leave a Google review at the end. Don’t hesitate to share with your staff how much Google reviews help your business. A way to motivate your staff to ask for Google reviews could be sharing the latest Google reviews with them at the start of the week, for example.
On top of asking for Google reviews directly, some simple digital tools can double your number of reviews by making it easy and fun for your diners.
Integrate leaving a Google review into your checkout flow
What’s the easiest way for customers to leave you a Google review? Have the review option pop up on their phone at the time of payment with a review system integrated into your POS (Point-of-Sale) system. With services such as sunday, you can give your diners the option to leave a Google review after completing payment. We help restaurants collect 50% of customers’ reviews with this seamless system. It’s never been so quick and easy for your diners to leave you 5 stars! Don’t just take our word for it. The Hampton Social in Orlando boosted its Google reviews x6 with an average 4.9 rating since using sunday.
Google review cards
If you don’t have a Google review system integrated into your POS, you can also nudge your diners to leave you a Google review with physical review cards. A Google review card has a QR code linking directly to your Google Business review form. You can make it even easier for your customers by having an NFC card on top of the QR code —no need to scan, your customers only have to bring their smartphone closer to the card.
You can create your review card yourself. To find the link to review your restaurant on Google, go to your Google Business profile and select your business. On the “get more reviews” section of your “home” menu, click on “share review form” and find the shareable link to your review form. sunday can also help you with your review cards.
Other options
There are many other options available to boost your Google reviews:
You can install kiosks or tablets in your restaurant to ask for Google reviews. This is a tech-heavy solution that will cost you time and money to install.
Some businesses also choose to ask for Google reviews on the printed receipt, but few people read this part of the receipt.
If you email your customers after they visit your restaurant, you should include a link for them to leave a Google review.
You could also ask for Google reviews on your website, social media, or mobile app if you use one.
Make it fun!
Asking your customers to take the time to leave a review can be hard when it seems like we all have less and less time.
Use design to boost your reviews
Nudge your customers to leave a 5-star review with good visuals and copy. The more you can gamify the process, the better.
Prompt reviews
Chances are your customers don’t leave a comment just because they don’t know how to go about it. Help them! Give them positive prompts to write their review by sharing testimonial examples or details about what you want to hear from them.
Give something in return
What about offering a coffee or dessert for your customers who leave you a Google review? Even better, offer it for next time and build loyalty. Gift options are almost infinite: merch (e.g. stickers), polaroid of customers, dessert to go… It’s an easy way to distinguish yourself and have your diners keep you in mind.
In conclusion: build a practice of replying to your reviews, integrate leaving a review into your checkout flow, and make the process fun and rewarding to boost your restaurant’s Google reviews!
FAQ
I had a negative Google Review. What should I do?
There’s no way of deleting a negative review. The only ground on which you can request to delete a review is if it violates Google’s content policy.
Assess the feedback first and investigate why your customer had a poor experience. Maybe it’s your fault. In such case, you need to apologize and, if applicable, list the actions taken so it doesn’t happen again. But what impacted your diners’ experience may as well be something out of your control (e.g. noise from another table). That is something you can explain in your answer. In such cases, add details on the actions taken to do everything in your power to monitor this uncontrollable factor, e.g. “We want all our customers to have the best experience at our restaurant. We’re happy to intervene if there is an issue with a table being too loud. We try to do that before complaints, but our staff may not realize each time this issue arises. Feel free to let a server know next time, and we’ll do our best to assist you.”
Write a cordial and constructive response.
Take the time needed to answer, but don’t linger on it too long: a negative review without a response does not look good and makes people feel like you did nothing in response to the issue.
What rating on Google Review is considered “good” in the food industry?
We’ve got you covered. We compiled the top 150 best-rated restaurants through Google reviews for Atlanta, New York, Chicago and other cities for you to understand how you compare with your competitors. Check out the 150 top Google-reviewed restaurants in your area here.
What other online reputation tools should be aware of?
The vast majority of reviews are concentrated by Google (about 70%), followed by Yelp (6%), Facebook (3%) and TripAdvisor (3%). When looking for reviews, more than 2 out of 3 consumers check Google, and almost half consult Yelp. Trip Advisor and Facebook come next as the most consulted review sites.