How Restaurants Can Avoid Negative Online Reviews (FREE WHITEPAPER)
What is the ONE thing businesses owners, executives and marketers hate the most? Negative customer feedback! But let’s take it up a notch…it’s the complaints that are broadcast on social media channels and review sites, such as Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, Urban Spoon... just to name a few. In the restaurant and food service business today, there is as much room for poor service and disgruntled customers as there is for huge margins – which means BARELY any room!
Without the necessary customer engagement strategies and systems in place, your business could potentially be living with with negative feedback on the top of review and social media
sites… as well as on customers’ minds – most of which can be AVOIDED!
TIP 1: Have a Customer Service Policy Plan in Place
Start to proactively address negative customer situations by simply establishing customer service policies. Make sure ALL employees and managers are on the same page and you have a clear, cohesive plan in place. Communicate on a regular basis with your employees and set a good leadership example. Practice what you preach!It takes 12 positive service experiences to make up for one negative experience. So make sure that ALL employees understand the importance of not only delivering great service, but also how to respond to customers based on the customer service policies you have in place.
Your business can’t afford to have a customer walk way unhappy, especially when your team had opportunities to successfully address and fix the problem.
As you develop your customer service policies, ensure that your team has opportunities to begin addressing issues with customers across multiple channels: email, phone, social media sites, and face-to-face. Out of best in class companies: 91% provide customers the ability to track issues over the web, 57% measure support center success across email, chat, web, and voice, and 62% use integrated voice response (IVR).
