Managing restaurant online reputation: what it is and how to apply it
With the rise of social networks and the mobile web, the online reputation management has become one of the most important areas of digital marketing for restaurants.
Managing online reputation is an ongoing challenge. The online image affects sales in your restaurant, both in person and in your ecommerce, in more ways than you can imagine.
The fact is that a restaurant's reputation is increasingly associated with its mobile presence. Today more than ever, people are looking for restaurants while on the go.
Often going directly to rating and review websites to find the best places to eat and have a pleasant time. Or simply order food to enjoy at home.
If you have a restaurant and you want to successfully stay in the middle, you're in the right place. Learn here how to successfully apply the management of your restaurant's online reputation to boost and increase your sales.
What is online reputation?
Online reputation is a parameter that determines the real expression of how a company, brand, product or service is perceived by the network and what is the real opinion that emerges online.
If you're in the restaurant business, you're already aware of the importance of online reputation.
Simply put, online reputation management involves the use of several processes, including review management and search engine optimization to improve and maintain your online reputation.
4 Factors that affect a brand's online reputation
Learn about 4 factors that affect your restaurant's web reputation:
1. Outdated product information
When a customer searches for your restaurant, they want to see the updated dishes and services you provide. It's bad for your reputation that your menus, dishes and lists aren't up to date, that doesn't give your customer confidence and affects your restaurant's reputation.
2. Negative booking experience
When a customer makes a reservation online and when they arrive at the site they do not have their reservation active, or they have to wait longer than indicated, they become a dissatisfied customer.
And it will transmit a negative image of your restaurant among your acquaintances and in the digital media of your business.
3. Problems in managing homes
Many restaurants have improvised home delivery with negative consequences. Above all, delays and a lot of chaos in orders.
This has a negative impact on your restaurant's online reputation. With automated solutions and delivery partners such as Picker, it's easy to keep track of orders and ensure timely service.
4. Publication of negative information by third parties
Many people, although they have received positive indications from real friends about the quality of a place, abandon the reservation due to the negative reviews found online.
That's why you give it the importance that online reviews deserve for your restaurant: they can benefit your business and really bring you a lot of new customers. But it's just as easy to destroy or damage a business with just one bad post.
How to build your restaurant's digital reputation?
Proper online reputation management is an asset that can guarantee your restaurant an important competitive advantage over the competition.
To build a good digital reputation for your restaurant, it is important that you take these aspects into consideration:
1. Have an efficient digital customer service plan
Offering a digital, complete and personalized service to customers can be the difference between a good restaurant and a successful one.
It doesn't matter what digital scenario the customer is in. It's essential that you find yourself in everyone: responding to reviews (positive or negative), offering customer service at the restaurant, or sending messages in response to the online comments you've requested. In addition, having a responsive, proactive and efficient service is key to your restaurant's reputation.
2. Build a loyal community and maintain active listening
Online reviews and online reputation play an enormous role in the restaurant industry.
That's why you should focus on building customer loyalty Step by Step and listen to them to answer their concerns and complaints, in order to build a satisfied community that promotes your restaurant both online and offline.
3. Investing in technology to optimize processes
Automating restaurant operations helps improve restaurant efficiency, which in turn will improve your restaurant's service. To do this you must take into consideration:
Order delivery times
Taking orders with pen and paper is already a legacy of the past: nowadays there are digital media that allow staff to take orders on a tablet and communicate them directly to the kitchen. Some restaurants also use apps that allow customers to order at the restaurant in advance from their phone.
In this way, customer waiting times are shortened. And so offer customers a excellent experience gastronomic, with a lower margin of error in orders and reduced waiting times.
Online Reservations
The customer base of restaurants can be increased by digitizing the online table reservation process.
Now, with reservation management, restaurants can view all customer information through a single interface.
You can quote accurate wait times, both for incoming customers and for those who made previous reservations. This improves your online reputation
Active listening on different digital channels
Your online reputation doesn't just focus on your website. You must design a strategy where you listen to your customers and respond to them through all the digital channels where they are.
A good strategy allows you to keep social networks with proposals that are always fresh. You can also intercept and focus on individual customer preferences, for a personalized online experience. And not least, you must know how to manage and respond to all online reviews.
How can you improve your restaurant's homes with Picker?
Picker allows your business to have more coverage for product delivery, since it connects you to multiple home delivery platforms in one place so you can choose the one that's most convenient for you.
With Picker you save on operational management, since you don't have to worry about delivery logistics, only about preparing your orders.
You don't have to rely on a single company for your homes, on our platform you have the best options to decide, and thus expand the coverage of your shipments.
Conclusion
To obtain important results in your restaurant, it is necessary that online reputation management be properly developed.
Any restaurant, whether a chain or independent, can dramatically win by participating in a proactive reputation management process.
It's vitally important for your restaurant that you know how to prioritize to respond to online reputation management issues as they arise. This way you can prevent them from turning into bigger problems.
Don't forget that the way you manage your online restaurant's reputation is a realistic reflection of the care and hard work you put into your business.
