Corner Booth Blog | TundraFMP Restaurant Supply, News & Equipment Blog
The restaurant-specific internet marketing company BooRah announced recently they have developed a way for restaurateurs to track online reviews of their businesses, although this service doesn’t appear to have gone live yet.
Recent years have seen the exponential boom of user generated content online, or content posted by internet users to websites, from YouTube to Rotten Tomatoes to Consumer Reviews.
This wave of information, often posted anonymously, is starting to have a powerful effect on consumer behaviors.
Increasingly, consumers look to the internet for information on products, movies, books, and restaurants. And while the reliability of the content can sometimes be shaky, and other content can be disingenuous or even malicious, internet users have learned to sift through the mountains of content to find gems of truth about a given product or brand.
Identifying trends and flagging problems culled directly from the masses can be an invaluable resource, allowing restaurateurs unprecedented access to exactly what their customer thinks after they leave.
It is vital that you know what people are saying about your restaurant online.
Invariably the anonymous nature of posting on the internet is going to lead to undeserved criticisms and smears, but by analyzing all the content that exists referring directly to your establishment, you can weed out the bull and uncover some truly valuable information.
Even if you don’t have the budget or the inclination to purchase BooRah’s service, take some time on a regular basis to go online and read reviews of your restaurant.
Don’t get offended when the ubiquitous jerk says something completely untrue and probably off-color about your beloved establishment. Instead explore a range of comments, look for trends, and keep an open mind about what customers actually think.
The days of one professional critic coming to your restaurant and making or breaking your reputation are long gone. Now you have to impress an army of customers and hope they give a genuine review online.
The internet doesn’t have to be your nemesis. Use it as a tool to make your business better. So the next time you’re on the internet, take a look around. You never know. You just might learn something.
