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Got Juice gives tips on how your restaurant can improve online reviews

Published:  16 October, 2012

Got Juice gives eight easy and valuable tips for hotels, pubs and restaurants to improve online reputation and gain positive reviews.

Got Juice gives eight easy and valuable tips for hotels, pubs and restaurants to improve online reputation and gain positive reviews.


Mark Hall, managing director of the online reputation management company, said: "With over 80% of all customers searching online for reviews before making an inquiry, its all important you have a good online reputation, as what a potential customers reads about online is often the deciding factor on whether or not you get the booking or your competitor does. Of course, the sale could also be decided on because they couldn't find any information about you online."

Here are eight easy-to-follow tips that will enhance your reputation and gain those all-important reviews.

1. Create profiles on the following sites:

Qype
Yelp
Yell
Google+
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook


The above sites rank very well in Google and will give your business a visual boost on the results pages. Its important to put as much detail as possible in your profiles, add photos, a phone number and, if possible, a business profile, email address and link to your website. You may find your business is already listed on these sites, if this is the case you must claim your listing, by clicking the "this is my business" or "claim business listing" link provided.

2. Pay some attention to your existing reviews.

This may sound a little obvious, but most companies simply ignore existing reviews - both the good ones and the bad ones. You're not going to generate any good reviews if you don't have happy or new customers to write them for you (please note it is illegal to produce false reviews; doing so will land you in big trouble with the law and damage your online reputation beyond repair). If you have existing reviews, take the time to respond to them. A good response to positive review would be: "Thank you very much for the positive comments. It's always encouraging when customers acknowledge the hard work of our team as it's what we aim for. We look forward to seeing you again soon."
And for a negative: "Thanks for alerting us to this. We work very hard to offer good service and I was sorry to hear that on this occasion we didn't meet your expectations. I do hope you will give us another chance in the future. If you would like to contact me directly then please call X and ask for Y or email Z@businessname.co.uk." It's also important to resolve any existing issues that affect customers by changing the way you work and by educating your staff.

3. Ask for reviews

When asking for a review, it's important that you do just that and ask for a review, don't ask for good reviews and don't do it until they have eaten the meal/stayed the night/had the drink or you have processed the transaction - only then will it make sense that they should review you. Let the customer know the company takes their opinions and feedback seriously and that you constantly monitor your progress to improve customer satisfaction.

4. Ensure you have a web presence

It's common for customers to engage with companies online, asking them to post a review can be off-putting, however, directing them to your Twitter or Facebook fan page is common and they are accustomed to posting online about every experience they have. Do this and they will share their experience with not only you but also with their friends without any prompting.

5. Respond to bad reviews immediately

It's always important to respond to any bad reviews immediately and its very important to resit the urge to try defend your company, product or employee - this approach will make you look uncaring and will only make things worse. You have to look at the customers' problems, put yourself in their shoes and then resolve it it the best possible way. If a bad review is justified, then thank the customer for their valuable feedback, make apologies for the bad experience and take steps to resolve it. By using this approach you will find more often than not a customer will update the review without prompting to reflect the outcome and you will have turned a negative into a positive, by proving that your businesses is dedicated to improving.

6. Talk directly to negative reviewers

It's important to do this in the public eye (it's also best practice to send a private message and email as a follow up), offer solutions and constructive feedback, and never ever argue with the customer.

7. More reviews can balance the scale

The more good reviews you gain the better the odds are on protecting yourself against any bad reviews. By having only a few reviews puts you in a dangerous position, if you have only two good reviews, for example, which gives you a five-star rating and along comes a bad review then you are immediately at a three-star rating. However, if you have 20 good reviews and along comes a negative review then you can absorb this with little effect on your rating.

8. Make it easy for the customer to leave reviews

The easiest way to do this, is to use our online reputation review tool, it makes it a simple as clicking twice to create a good review and it also stops negative reviews from ever happening. It would also be recommended to add links to your listings on a few of the review sites in your email signature.

Visit gotjuice.co.uk/blog for free guides to many subjects, such as gaining new business through referrals and reputation management and reviews.

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