What makes a restaurant good? Is it their ambience, service, quality or whopping menu?

Whenever, a person opens up a restaurant, bar or lounge, he/she don’t have to wait a year to know how they are performing. They praise themselves every day for what they have achieved.

Secondly, they get to hear about their services from reviews & ratings. Thanks to customer feedback- that are shared everywhere. “Online reviews & ratings” these days, are helping to keep the restaurant growing & getting more customers.

“Online reviews and ratings of your place can drive hungry customers to your door or scare them away.”

According to a study,

• 60% of restaurant-goers read-only online reviews, before getting out for a meal. Moreover, the restaurant-goers can picture the restaurant by seeing their photos of food, ambience and staff.
• According to ReviewTrackers research, approx 1 in 3 diners don’t prefer to eat in the restaurant which has the average rating of 3 or less than it.

Even without stats, one can conclude that for running a successful restaurant or lounge positive reviews can do wonders, while low ratings & negative reviews can ruin entire restaurant reputation or presence.

Additionally, if you think that deleting bad reviews from sites like Neo Pins or filter the good ones in Google, can make you attract more customers, then you are wrong. Regardless, how good is your food or what fantastic service you offer? One bad review can damage everything.

Moreover, a customer always picks those points which you forget to list. For example the timing. Suppose, at restaurant renovation time you forget to update people about the closing. And the customer drops at your location at the very same time by reading good reviews & ratings. Then what happens, of course, they put a negative review, which spreads like fire and adversely affects your online presence.

Here Neo Pins has shared four simple hacks to grow your restaurant reviews and improve your performance.

Unique Entertainment

Amazing way to keep your game on the top is to show what you have. There are many restaurants which make their presence different just by adding jazz, live music shows and comedians. These type of restaurants can create memorable and unique impression on customers.

Unique entertainment at the restaurant or lounge is one short way to attract more customers. Food and music go hand in hand. So, if any of your friends is good at singing or cracking jokes then ask them to show it to the world.

Classy sitting & exquisite interior

Customers are more likely to talk about everything when they are talking about food and ambience. Beautiful interiors give them a reason to remember your place for their very next outing. So, don’t compromise on lavish interiors and comfy sofas.

Seasonal drink:

Think about what can make your restaurant different from others. It can be your special dish or drink or other seasonal beverage. Most restaurants meant to change their menus according to the seasons. If we talk about India, then summer time is mango season, so many lounges and restaurants offer special mango dishes or drinks.

The step might sound cliché, but it will surely give customers a reason to talk about you.

Directly ask customers for reviews

Though it sounds too cheesy, but most of the time it works. Once your customers are done with their dining, go and ask for the feedback. Make sure to ask nicely (polite), moreover, if they are not interested in sharing their reviews, so don’t force them.

Perform an NPS survey

A Net Protector Survey (NPS) works amazingly and suitable for busy customers. NPS is a management tool and survey methodology used to gauge customer loyalty. In which your customer would rate your service on the scale of 0 to 10. The NPS surveys are fast, easy and effective way for you to understand what your guests think about your restaurant.

Moreover, the best part of using NPS survey tool that it enables you to identify the survey score respondents as Promoters, Passives and Detractors.

Promoters (score 9-10) – are the loyal customer

Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied customers

Detractors (score 0-6) are dissatisfied and unhappy customers

Well, it’s true what restaurant diners say online is powerful and significant for others to make decisions. But, that does not mean you cant resolve it. A well-researched and proper marketing research can make your restaurant or lounge business to reach every customer door.