When you have a business, especially a cafe or restaurant, it is inevitable that you will be reviewed. There will be those wonderful 5 Star reviews that fill your heart with joy, and make you remember why you do this for a job. The 3 Star reviews that baffle you because they rave about how good you are, but only rate you 3 Stars. Then there are the dreaded 1 Star reviews, or worse still the ones that say; “we would have given them 0 stars but that wasn’t an option”. When I was new to owning a business I would get angry, occasionally I would write about these reviews on Facebook to show my followers how unkind people could be. This would be followed by my supporters telling me how great I was, that I wasn’t to worry about the haters etc. And to be honest some reviews are unfair. There are many reasons why someone will write a review and it can have nothing to do with your business, often it is reactive because the customer had different expectations to the experience provided, or perhaps they do actually want to bring your business down. Generally though, it’s the expectation gap. Whatever the case, we need constructive reviews to help us build a better business and create the experience that our customers will frequently enjoy. Basically we want them to return so we must pull out all stops to ensure they leave happy.
As hospitality owners we must understand that good and bad reviews are equally as helpful, as long as they are true reviews that clearly outline the flaws or highlights of the experience. Sure, we would all love more great reviews, because no matter the amount of social media marketing we do, we will always get more traffic by being no 1 on Google.
Lately there seems to be a trend where hospitality venue owners think it appropriate to get all angry and upset on public forums, basically telling the reviewers to go elsewhere if they are not happy, because they apparently don’t need these customers, but what about all those customers reading an angry response to a review? How about if your potential customers were to see a constructive and professional reply to every review, good or bad? Perhaps that would show an amount of care and dedication to the customer experience? We are in some tough times economically and now is not the time to drive potential customers away.
I do have some requests for our customers too. I would love to ask customers writing a review to be really clear about the experience, so we can learn from it. I would also ask customers to be kind and courteous when writing a review and when visiting a venue. Be open to the experience and understanding of the impact you may have on the venue and its staff. Perhaps you have encountered a young hospitality worker learning the ropes in their first job, or a senior making their way back into the workforce after some time off. In our venue, we employ staff with disabilities, but these disabilities are not always obvious.
Hospitality workers are human too, we are here to listen, we do this job because we love to serve our customers, we love to create happiness, we will always do our very best. We thank you for understanding this and for helping us to create a wonderful customer experience.
Just Bent 