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Restaurant Reputation Management: The Data-Driven Playbook for Turning All Reviews Into Raving Fans

restaurant reputation management

If you are a CMO in the restaurant industry, few things keep you up at night like your online reputation. A handful of negative reviews can counter hundreds of positive interactions in the digital age. But effectively encouraging, monitoring, responding to, and leveraging guest feedback online is complex. With fierce competition, restaurant reputation management becomes vitally important.

That’s why taking a proactive, strategic approach to managing reviews and amplifying authentic earned advocacy is now mission-critical. This playbook explores proven ways restaurant marketers can use data, processes, and creativity to turn any review into five stars.

Strategically Solicit First-Party Reviews

Don’t leave review generation to chance. Proactively collect feedback from delighted guests through:

  • Review links on receipts and emails surveys to lower barriers. Make it quick and easy for customers to leave reviews. Also, track your restaurant’s reviews online and point customers toward the sites that would help the most with your restaurant reputation management efforts.
  • Thank you follow-ups checking on the experience, offering review links. These can be done via a newsletter than also offers coupons on future purchases.
  • Occasionally offering a free dessert in exchange for a review. I am subscribed to Olive Garden’s newsletter, and they will occasionally offer a free dessert in exchange for my feedback.
  • Manager outreach to VIPs asking for reviews based on their satisfaction. VIPs can be identified by membership in your loyalty program, or by managers and staff simply identifying a frequent customer. Frequency of business obviously signals satisfaction with service and product, so your restaurant should encourage reviews from frequent guests.

Empower your happy customers to sing your praises via stellar reviews.

Leverage Servers to Solicit Reviews and Feedback

Your servers are in direct contact with your restaurant’s customers, and as such they have the best sense of how their meal is going. Servers need to remember to:

  • Praise in public, criticize in private. If a customer is pleased with their meal and experience in your restaurant, the server should encourage them to leave a review, and steer them toward the sites where a positive review would be the most beneficial to your restaurant.
  • If a customer is unsatisfied with their meal and experience, the server should encourage the customer to leave feedback or to even talk with a manager. This gives the restaurant an opportunity to address the customer’s problem, without it going public. Obviously, the customer could still leave a review online or tell others, but if they are unsatisfied, you want to know why so you can address their concerns.
  • Train wait staff to recognize if a customer is satisfied or unsatisfied with their meal and experience. Your staff will pick up on cues from the customer naturally throughout the course of the meal as to whether they are satisfied or unsatisfied with their experience. At the end of the meal, if the server believes the customer has been satisfied with their meal, ask them to leave a review and encourage them to review on the site that best helps your restaurant. If they appear to be unsatisfied, then ask them to leave feedback on their experience. If the customer does leave feedback, but it is positive, you can contact the customer directly and thank them for their feedback, then ask for a review at that time.
  • Have managers observe customers and check in with them. When doing so, the manager can also pick up on cues from the customer as to whether they are satisfied or not with their meal, and address appropriately.

Praise in public, criticize in private. Empower your servers to help create positive word of mouth for your restaurant.

Activate Brand Advocates

Happy, frequent customers are your best source for positive reviews and the frontline in your restaurant reputation management efforts. Empower them by:

  • Offering incentives like loyalty perks for shares and reviews. Tie this into your existing loyalty program. Remember, happy customers WANT to sing your praises, you are just giving them the tools to do so.
  • Making it effortless to post through review widgets and social media links. Offer to collect reviews on your site, and ask for permission to repost on your social channels. Communicate how this can help your restaurant, and true fans will jump at the chance.
  • Have staff help in identifying frequent customers. So a few years ago, I got on a serious kick for Pizza Hut breadsticks. Every time I was running errands in town, I would stop by my local Pizza Hut and grab some breadsticks. The staff quickly recognized me, what my order would be, and how I liked them made. They would then ask me while I was waiting if I would please fill our a survey for them, and then inform me that I could win a $10 credit toward a future order. I would do the survey while waiting for my order, then when my order was ready, the staff would let me know it was prepared the way I wanted it, and I would let them know I had filled out the survey. The staff was smart enough to recognize that I was a happy customer, so they encouraged me to offer reviews.
  • Spotlighting top advocates as “VIPs” on your digital customer wall of fame. Treat your happy customers like they are rock stars, because they are. Put the spotlight on them, it encourages them to give you more reviews and feedback, which is exactly what you want.

Proactively activating your biggest fans maximizes their impact. Oh, and read the best book on the topic, Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans.

Monitor Third-Party Review Sites

Actively track guest feedback using tools like Hootsuite (Perch is another option) to:

  • Get alerts when new reviews are left. When a new review happens, it’s vital that you know about it ASAP. For instance, let’s say your server followed the above advice and encouraged a happy customer to leave a review. The customer did as soon as they got home. If you have their contact information, you can contact them personally and thank them for the review. This encourages them to not only return to your restaurant, but to spread more positive word of mouth about you both online and offline.
  • Identify recurring themes and systemic weaknesses. Actively tracking reviews and customer feedback helps you identify themes versus isolated experiences. Whether it’s a positive review or a negative one, you need to understand what triggered the review. If there’s a problem with service, that needs to be addressed. Likewise, if customers are happy, you need to understand why so you can replicate that experience for other customers.
  • Keep pulse on your average ratings compared to competitors. If possible, set up monitoring alerts for select competitors. Just as you want to identify recurring themes in your own restaurant, you can do the same for competitors. Perhaps another local restaurant has added a feature that customers are raving about. Could your restaurant offer something similar? Once you know what their customers are excited about, then you can evaluate if a similar feature could work for your location.

Proactively monitoring online reviews empowers you to act quickly and appropriately.

Respond Skillfully to Negative Reviews

Negative feedback is inevitable in hospitality. Yet if handled correctly, a customer’s negative experience can be defused, or possibly even converted into a positive. Here’s some tactics to employ:

  • Reply promptly, calmly and avoid defensiveness. Make sure that the member of your CS team that responds does NOT take the criticize personally, because it isn’t.
  • Do NOT admit fault UNTIL it has been clearly established that the customer’s negative review is a direct result of unsatisfactory service from your restaurant.  You SHOULD communicate to the customer that you are sorry they are unsatisfied with the service they received, as this communicates empathy for their concerns. But wait on apologizing for an error until you have established that an actual error was made.
  • Offer to move your exchange with the customers OFF THE REVIEW SITE or social channel. Give them a way to contact you or your staff directly. Emphasize that you value their privacy and the privacy of your staff, and can better address and server them in private.
  • If you find that the customer has a legitimate complaint, clearly communicate to them that their feedback will be addressed and let them know how. This communicates that you are taking their feedback seriously.
  • Share improvements made to address broader issues raised. Followup with the customer to let them know what you found and how you are addressing their feedback. This will also communicate to the customer that you value their feedback.
  • For false claims, politely correct with facts. Do NOT argue with the customer, especially if the exchange is happening online, in public.
  • Consider inviting unhappy reviewers back to improve perceptions. This is another way to illustrate how feedback is taken seriously and improvements made.

I’ve worked with clients for over 15 years in helping them deal with angry customers, and I can tell you this from my own experience: Angry customers can often be converted into your most passionate fans IF you handle their complaints correctly. Follow the above steps and you will be on your way.

Continuously Improve Based on Insights

Regularly analyze customer reviews and complaints to:

  • Identify recurring complaints and focus training to strengthen weaknesses. Frequent sources of complaints should be flagged by your customer service team and sent to management so it can be addressed at the frontlines in your restaurant by staff and management.
  • Identify what’s working. If there are features of your dining experience that are consistently praised by customers, highlight those features to make customers aware of them. This can encourage more positive reviews.
  • Set targets for ratings improvements by location and category. Set realistic goals and give management a plan of action to reach those goals. Make sure everyone on staff understands what the goals are, why it’s important to reach them, and how to get there.
  • Conduct text analysis of online reviews to detect shifts in sentiment and perceptions. Identify gains and losses and drill down to figure out what triggered the change.

Insights inform operational investments that can help your restaurant reputation management efforts exceed expectations.

Today’s diners heavily factor reviews into dining decisions. With strategy, creativity and commitment, restaurant brands can leverage guest feedback to perpetually improve and manage reputation. Are you ready to turn reviews into five-star raves? The impact on guest acquisition, loyalty and sales makes this effort well worth the investment.

restaurant reputation management

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The Restaurant Power List for September

The Restaurant Power List

Welcome to The Restaurant Power List for September! This is my list of the Power accounts on Twitter for the restaurant/fast food/dining space. The Power List will be updated once a month.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Restaurant Power List! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

If you want to be eligible for The Power List, do this:

1 – Follow me on Twitter. Make sure you have your position and the technology company you work for listed in your profile.

2 – If you want to nominate someone else to be on the Power List, tweet me their username on Twitter and I will be happy to check them out.

 

Here’s where you can find all the candidates for The Restaurant Power List. If you’re on that list, you are eligible for the Power List.

The Power List will rank the Top 10 Power users on Twitter. That number may expand past a Top 10 as the candidate pool becomes larger.  In fact I hope it does.

How is the Power List ranked?  How do I get to be #1?

I’ve been working with corporate teams to help them leverage Twitter as a communications tool for about 15 years now. So a lot of the Power List rankings is simply based on my experience working with people in a corporate setting and understanding what works and what doesn’t.

In short, there are two main consideration buckets I have when I rank the Power List:

1 – Posting frequency. I need to see enough content on your Twitter feed to see that you are making an effort to use Twitter to communicate with others. You don’t have to tweet every day, but if your last tweet is from December of 2022, you won’t be on the Power List.

2 – Original content. What I mean by that is I want to see content that’s written in your own unique voice. I get that working in a corporate environment comes with certain ‘challenges’ in regards to the tone and voice of your content. But that doesn’t mean that you should simply use your Twitter feed to repost your company’s press releases. Go behind the scenes, give us a sense of what your daily work day is like. One of the thoughts I should have when reading your Twitter feed is ‘Wow, that looks like a cool job, I wouldn’t mind working there!’

 

Before I get to the first Power List for the Restaurant industry, I wanted to share some general takeaways on what I learned from spending a LOT of time the past few weeks looking at Twitter profiles in the space:

1 – I mentioned above that one of the main criteria I look at when ranking profiles for The Power List is I want to see is ‘original’ content. What I mean by that is I want to see your unique perspective on the work you do. I think this is some of the most engaging and compelling content that someone working in a corporate environment can create. Up until this list, I really struggled to find candidates for the Power List that did a great job of creating content that communicates to me that they love their jobs. But the top 2 profiles on The Restaurant Power List knocked that ball out of the park.

2 – It was rough finding solid candidates for this Power List. Almost as brutal as it was for the Retail Power List. It’s not that good candidates aren’t out there, it’s just that a lot of them have left Twitter for LinkedIn. Same thing I saw in the Technology industry. So far, the Tourism space is the only industry of the four Power Lists where most of the candidates are as active on Twitter as they are on LinkedIn.

3 – I think there is a ton of potential for workers in the Restaurant industry to have fun with their social media accounts. The top accounts on the Power List are tapping into that potential and it’s clear they are having a blast with their jobs. That reflects positively on them AND the brands they work for. The sooner brands in ALL industries understand this, the sooner they can begin to leverage the content that their workers create on social as a recruiting tool. Because that’s what it becomes. Simply reading the tweets from the members of The Restaurant Power List, I now have a slightly better opinion of McDonald’s and Aunty Anne’s as a result.

 

The Restaurant Power List for September:

1 – Guillaume Huin, Head of Social Media @ McDonald’s, Power List Score – 93. Guillaume’s profile is a near perfect fusion of company and ‘original’ content. Most of his content is focused on his employer, McDonalds, but none of it feels like I’m reading a press release. Anything but! He makes his work seem fun, and that makes the McDonalds brand more relatable and likeable. If you are working in a corporate environment and want to learn how to create content about your employer and work that is ALSO interesting, study Guillaume’s content, because he’s giving you the blueprint. Well done, indeed (round of applause from the crowd).

2 – Bari Tippett, Social Media @ Auntie Anne’s, Power List Score – 90. You just have to enjoy reading Bari’s tweets. She leans more on the personal side than professional in her tweets, but her takes are always interesting. Like Guillaume, she makes her employer Auntie Anne seem like a fun brand to work for. She is great at building her personal brand, and that reflects positively on her employer. More companies need to be willing to embrace employers who I great at building their personal brand, as Bari is. Another very solid entry in the Power List.

3 – Gregg Majewski, CEO of Craveworthy Brands, Power List Score – 86. I kept bumping Gregg’s profile higher up the Power List the more I reviewed it. On my first initial pass of the candidates, Gregg was around 5th or 6th place. But the more I reviewed his profile and compared him to others on the list, I had to keep moving him up. Now Bari and Guillaume are very comfortable sharing their own personal opinions on their work, and not all workers (or their employers) are as willing to do the same. I get that. For those workers, look at what Gregg does with his content. Almost all of his content is focused on his brands, but he typically includes enough of an individual take on the content to make it more interesting, He will usually share a ‘here’s why I think this is interesting’ take on any content he shares. Which is much appreciated, and this is a great example of how a CEO can create compelling content on Twitter.

4 – Carl Loredo, Global CMO @ Wendy’s, Power List Score – 85. Carl has a solid profile. Good frequency, almost all of his content is focused on his employer, which is what you would expect from a Global CMO. I would like to see more content related strictly to Wendy’s marketing efforts, Carl is in a unique position where he could speak to this area. I think more content that pulls back the curtain and gives us insights into Wendy’s campaign development would be gold, and could push his profile toward a Power List score of 90 or higher.

5 – Tariq Hassan, CMO @ McDonalds, Power List Score – 83. A very solid profile, Tariq allows his character and personality to flow in his tweets in a way that’s very rare for the C-Suite on Twitter. His posting frequency is a bit on the low side, otherwise his score would be about 5 points higher.

6 – Meredith Almond, Social @ Jimmy John’s, Power List Score – 80. I went back and forth on where to rank Meredith’s profile. She has really good frequency of content, yet 75% of that content is personal, with the rest being a mix of content about Jimmy John’s, and her thoughts on working in social media. Still, just 25% of her content being about her work means she’s posting more often about her work than some who are tweeting about their work 100% of the time. If that makes sense, and it probably doesn’t. I think if Meredith could give us a bit more content about the social campaigns that Jimmy John’s is executing, it would really lift her profile.

7 – Brett Hammit, Data Scientist @ Yum! Brands, Power List Score – 73. Of all the profiles on all 4 Power Lists, I may have struggled the most on where to rank Brett’s profile. First, his content frequency is adequate, although it’s much better than some of the participants on this and past Power Lists. It could definitely improve. But none of his content is directly focused on his employer. Normally, that would be an automatic dis qualifier. Yet the majority of his content IS focused on data and data science. Which is his field. So I think if Brett would increase his frequency of posting AND have that content be around ‘Here’s how we are using data science at Yum! Brands’, even at a 30,000 foot level, his profile would really take off.

8 – Ali Beemer, Communications Manager @ Darden Restaurants, Power List Score – 72. We see a big drop off in the number of tweets for the final 3 members of the Power List. Ali doesn’t tweet very often, if she could get in a habit in tweeting even every couple of weeks, with at least half focusing on her work at Darden, it would greatly increase her score.

9 – Helen Mackey, SVP Marketing, Darden Restaurants, Power List Score – 71. As with Ali, she needs to tweet more. Hope to see more content, and hopefully focused on her work in marketing at Darden.

10 – Clay Johnson CTDO – Yum! Brands, Power List Score – 70. Very low activity from Clay’s account. Just from reading his brief bio on Twitter you can see that he has a wealth of work and life history to pull from to create amazing content. I hope he can start to do just that, his score would really take off if he did.

 

So that’s it for the first Restaurant Power List! A fairly top-heavy group, but the ones at the top are pretty amazing. Please follow the people that made this list, you can click on their name and it will take you to their Twitter profile so you can follow them. If you would like to nominate yourself or a peer for inclusion in The Toursm Power List, please follow me on Twitter, and make sure you have your position and the company you work for clearly listed in your Twitter profile. That’s it! All candidates for the Power List are on this list.

Would you like to sponsor The Power List for Restaurants? Here’s information on available options as well as prices.

So now that we have our first batch of Power Lists done for the Technology, Retail, Tourism and Restaurant industries, let’s do an extra Top 5 of ALL the lists:

1 – Kathryn Shea Duncan – 94 (Tourism)

2 – Guillaume Huin – 93 (Restaurants)

3 – Leisha Elliott – 93 (Tourism)

4 – Lou Dubois – 92 (Retail)

5 – Jim Hagen – 91 (Tourism)

 

Well done by all! Please remember to follow all the members of each list and leave a comment if there’s someone in ALL of these four industries who I should be considering for The Power List.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Another Elon Misstep, Instagram Still the King of Influencer Marketing, YouTube Adds AI Tools for Creators

Happy Monday, y’all! It’s the first official full week of Fall! My favorite time of the year! I hope you are ready to have a productive week, here’s a few stories that caught my eye over the last week:

 

I started to spin this story into its own post, and probably will at some point soon. Elon is floating the idea of charging ALL Twitter users a fee to use his platform. This is the first time in my 16+ years of using Twitter that I am seriously considering if it is time to leave the platform. Working on the Power Lists for Technology, Retail and Tourism (with Restaurants debuting on Weds) has been an eye-opener. I had always heard peers claim that there was a mass exodus of professionals from Twitter when Elon took over, but I just assumed that was overblown. It’s not, at least not in the four industries above.  Pros from technology, retail, tourism, and restaurant are absolutely more active right now on LinkedIn than they are on Twitter. In reviewing hundreds of Twitter accounts over the last month, I lost count on how many pros hadn’t tweeted in 2023, who were active on LinkedIn. I’ve been hearing ‘Is Twitter dying?’ for at least the last 10-12 years. This is the first time I think it’s a legitimate question to ask.

 

Companies working with influencers are still spending more marketing dollars on Instagram than anywhere else. Perhaps it’s simply a desire to be contrarian, but I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity for a certain brand to partner with the right influencer and create some momentum on Snapchat? Sometimes it pays to go in the opposite direction of the herd.

 

Social media platforms continue to integrate AI as a way to aid creators. LinkedIn has done it, Elon is working on an AI alternative to ChatGPT that will no doubt be integrated into Twitter/X, and now YouTube is doing the same. I think we will eventually see a time very soon where video platforms like YouTube will allow you to create a video on the fly from a simple prompt, using AI. An additional app YouTube announced is YouTube Create, which is a standalone app that is geared toward mobile creators, giving them simple editing tools to use on the fly. I actually think it will be a big hit with smaller YouTube creators.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. On Thursday, I will have a new post on tourism marketing. But tomorrow the debut edition of The Restaurant Power List will launch, so be sure to check back here to see who ends up #1! Hope you have an amazing week!

 

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Guests are Hungry for Better Digital Customer Experiences in Restaurants

digital customer experiences

Modern diners expect restaurants to meet their needs seamlessly across both online and on-site touchpoints. However, effectively integrating emerging digital channels into customer service presents challenges for restaurant operators. Nevertheless, today’s diners expect superior digital customer experiences from all businesses, and restaurants are no different.

This article explores multiple proven strategies and best practices restaurant executives should adopt to deliver responsive, personalized customer service by unifying online and on-premise digital capabilities.

Conduct Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping is the process of creating a visual representation of the process that a customer goes through in purchasing a product. This site gives a great example of what a typical customer journey could look like.

A key benefit of customer journey mapping is it helps identify pain points and bottlenecks for the customer in the purchase process. Here’s some areas to focus on:

  • Map key journeys like ordering, reservations, in-restaurant experiences and loyalty. Identify friction points from the customer perspective. This will help identify areas for improvement. Also, compare journey results across different locations of a franchise, to help identify how one location may be performing better or worse than another site.
  • Conduct shadowing research and interviews to uncover unmet needs and grievances across channels. Collecting feedback directly from customers helps you identify areas in the purchase process that should be addressed and corrected.
  • Audit service metrics across online and on-site channels – wait times, resolution speed/quality, CSAT, NPS, and sentiment. All of these stats will be signals to help reveal customer satisfaction as well as pain points. Both are vitally important in your continuing quest to deliver exceptional digital customer experiences.
  • Analyze contact topics and types to identify knowledge gaps to address through self-service content. Review common questions and complaints, and when possible, give customers the ability to self-diagnose common issues. FAQs and chatbots can help with this.

These insights should inform an integration optimization roadmap tailored to your guests’ needs.

Expand Digital Reservation and Ordering Options

A majority (56%) of diners now want to be able to place an order through your restaurant’s app.  Additionally, 64% of diners would prefer to place an order digitally on-site. Today’s diners want and even demand digital and online ordering options. Here’s how you can meet the demand for digital customer experiences:

  • Enable reservations, waitlisting and table management via website or app. This gives customers an added level of convenience and helps your restaurant set itself apart from competitors that don’t offer similar benefits.
  • Optimize online and mobile ordering for delivery, takeout and curbside pickup. During covid in 2020, all retail businesses were forced to invest in contactless and curbside pickup. Customers now expect the ability to order online of via your app, and pickup their order on site, without contact. This is another key service that customers expect, and not offering contactless and curbside pickup could easily cost you business.
  • Integrate loyalty features like saved payment methods and customized orders. This is another benefit that is expected at this point.
  • Offer status tracking and real-time support for issues through apps or text. Status tracking is very important, try to focus on showing customers every step of the preparation process for their order so they can see exactly where the order is in the process. This helps alleviate trust issues and improves satisfaction and customer loyalty.
  • Provide bots or chat support to aid reservations and orders. This is another expected feature, also give customers an option to speak with someone live if further assistance is needed.

Robust digital ordering and booking capabilities keep guests engaged and satisfied.

Implement Customer-Facing Tech In-Restaurant

Over 60% of diners now prefer to order digitally, on-site. Deploy on-site tech to match online convenience:

  • Provide kiosks for quick ordering and payments to skip lines. This also helps frequent customers who know exactly what they want and feel they can complete the transaction quicker themselves than dealing with restaurant employees.
  • Your restaurant’s app should provide guests with the ability to summon wait staff and pay for their meal.
  • Digital signage with dynamic wait times, promotions and feedback collection. Displaying wait times helps manage expectations as soon as the diner arrives at your restaurant.
  • Tabletop tablets for entertainment, ordering items, requesting service. Offering entertainment options can keep diners engaged while their meals are being prepared.

When utilized correctly, on-site digital tech can speed up the ordering and payment process, while providing an additional layer of support for the customer.

Implement Social Media Customer Service

Leverage your restaurant’s social media accounts as a way for diners to provide feedback and create word of mouth via shared content:

  • Promote Twitter/Facebook profiles for guests to directly make inquiries.
  • Make sure social media accounts are staffed with managers who have customer service training to handle complaints and suggestions.
  • When complaints are left via social channels, make sure to respond promptly. This guide can help you address all customer complaints via social media.
  • Share positive reviews on social to boost visibility. Also show positive reviews in your restaurant as a way to model the type of behavior you want guests to engage in.

Social channels provide convenient service in guests’ preferred channel.

Unify Brand Identity and Experience

Every customer has multiple touchpoints across multiple channels as they complete a purchase. It’s vital to ensure consistent digital customer experiences throughout the process. Here’s some tips to keep in mind:

  • Audit language, tone, terminology, and policies across digital and physical touchpoints. This is especially important when reconciling tone on social channels versus on-site support. Increasingly, support issues are beginning via social media channels, before being handed off to your main support team. A disconnect in tone can lead to a negative experience for the customer.
  • Create knowledge base resources, brand standards and training for both digital and human agents. Most importantly, all members of the support team, regardless of whether they work predominantly in online or offline, should be working from the same training and material. The overall level of customer support should be consistent across channels and online/offline.
  • Monitor across channels to rapidly identify and address gaps or misalignment. Consider earlier how we discussed the customer journey map for purchases. You can do the same thing for the customer support journey. Map out the entire process to help identify gaps, inconsistencies and pain points.

Consistent messaging and experiences build trust and increase customer loyalty.

Track Analytics to Optimize Digital Customer Experiences

It’s vital to aggressive track the analytics associated with your digital support:

  • Unified CSAT, NPS and sentiment scoring across digital and on-site interactions. These are key signals that help identify customer satisfaction as well as pain points.
  • Identify channel service speed and quality gaps. Look for disconnects and any stages where the process slows for the customer. Map to areas where complaints arise to get greater insights into needed corrections.
  • Monitor digital channel adoption and usage metrics. This helps illustrate what features and conveniences the customer is looking for.
  • Correlate integration initiatives to revenue, visit frequency and loyalty lift.

Data visibility helps maximize integration benefits and can bring into focus which areas of the purchase process need priority.

Continuously Optimize Cross-Channel Experiences

An iterative approach is key as consumer behaviors evolve:

  • Survey guests directly on friction points and integration desires. Proactively suggest improvements and collect feedback on desired implementation.
  • Pilot new initiatives and channel combinations, measuring business impact and satisfaction. When possible, pilot initiatives should run through your loyalty program where it will be viewed as a perk by program members.
  • Optimize underperforming aspects based on data insights. Map the customer journey and overlap feedback along with analytics to help identify pain points and bottlenecks in the process.
  • Keep pace with digital and hospitality innovations reshaping guest expectations. Proactively survey guests about desired changes, they will often suggest improvements that they have noted and enjoyed from competing restaurants.

Ongoing optimization ensures integrated digital customer experiences exceed growing expectations

With the strategies explored in this guide, restaurants can effectively unify online and on-premise customer service capabilities into seamless guest experiences that drive loyalty. What’s your biggest priority for integrating digital capabilities? Reservations/ordering? In-restaurant tech? Mobile staff enablement? With focus, the impact on guest satisfaction can be immense.

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Introducing the Twitter Power Lists!

When I started my first standalone blog in 2006 (I began blogging in 2005 as writer/editor for an advertising recruitment firm in Atlanta), one of the first things I did was create a list of marketing blogs that I read daily. This was in the days before Twitter and Facebook hadn’t really broken past campuses at this point. I created a list of marketing blogs to read because I wanted to keep up to date on the space, but I also wanted to help develop community on my own blog.

At first, I started out with the big names at the time like Seth Godin, Kathy Sierra and Guy Kawasaki. But I quickly discovered dozens of really good, but lesser-known marketing blogs. My list of favorite marketing blogs grew longer and longer, and over time I realized that I was spending more time reading the ‘lesser known’ blogs than I was the ‘popular’ ones.

And this began to irritate me. It began to irritate me because I knew that so many people would just read the ‘popular’ blogs and wouldn’t make an effort to find the really good blogs that weren’t quite as popular, but that were often just as good, sometimes even better!  I began to think about ways that I could help these lesser-known blogs build awareness.

Around this same time, the college football season was about to start. I noticed the polls started releasing there Preseason Top 25 polls. An idea hit me: What if I did my own poll of the Top 25 marketing blogs? That would be a great way to drive exposure to many lesser known marketing blogs, and it would also be a fun way to keep up with the space and build engagement with my readers.

So a few days later, The Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs was born.

The Top 25 Marketing Blogs went on for several years and became quite popular, driving a lot of traffic and awareness to a lot of deserving blogs.

I wanted to try something similar now with Twitter accounts. There are four main industries I write about here: Technology, Retail, Tourism and Restaurant. I also keep up with professionals in these 4 industries on Twitter. If you regularly use Twitter, you know how hard it is to build a following. If you also work in the corporate world, it’s doubly hard because you have even less time to devote to building a brand and following on Twitter.

I wanted to see if I could help with that, and at the same time give others a good list of solid professionals to follow in each of those 4 industries.

So starting next week, I will start the Twitter Power Lists for each of those four industries; Technology, Retail, Tourism and Restaurant.  Each week there will be a different industry, and I will rank the Top 10 Twitter accounts in each space. Technology will be first, and it will debut next Tuesday.

Over time, the methodology for who is or is not included will be altered, and it’s very possible that I will expand the list to a Top 20 or maybe even Top 25. The goal of each list is to drive exposure and followers for the people on the list, and to give people that want to follow those industries a good list of professionals to keep up with.

If You Work in the Technology, Retail, Tourism or Restaurant Industries and Want to Be on the Twitter Power List, Here’s What You Do:

1 – First, follow me on Twitter.

2 – Please clearly list in your Twitter bio the position you hold and the company you work for. That lets me know which list you should be on.

3 – If you don’t have that info in your Twitter bio, after you follow me, please tweet me and let me know your position.

 

That’s it! If you work in one of those 4 industries, you will be added to the appropriate Twitter list for your industry.  Here’s the lists so you can go ahead and start subbing to them now:

Technology

Retail

Tourism

Restaurants

 

So please, follow me on Twitter so I can get you added to the appropriate Twitter Power List.  Even if you don’t make the Power List here, simply being on those lists on Twitter will bring more exposure to your Twitter account, and will help you build your following.

So What’s the Criteria for Being Ranked on the Power List for My Industry?

Good question! So the rankings, at least at first, will most be a judgment call on my part.  As the lists grow, I may move to a more formal ranking system.

For now, here’s some of the areas I will look at:

  • How active are you on Twitter? If your last tweet is from December 2022, you probably won’t make the list.
  • How ‘interesting’ is your content? Mix it up a bit, don’t use your Twitter account to simply reblast press releases
  • When you promote your work, are you giving us unique content we can’t get anywhere else? For instance I just saw a tweet from one of the members of one of the above lists who tweeted out a picture of their work desk. I like seeing content like that, and so do others.
  • The Twitter Power lists are only for professionals working IN these industries. If you work in media or consulting and cover or service these industries, you won’t be on these lists. Only people who are working for companies and organizations in these industries.

Now there is one important caveat to these lists: Insanely popular accounts will NOT be included in the rankings. For instance, Elon Musk will never make the technology list. There’s a couple of reasons why: First, if he was added, he would start at #1 and stay there for as long as I did the list.  Second, the goal of these lists is to drive exposure to accounts that need to build awareness.  Everyone is already following Elon, he doesn’t need any more exposure. Many people would suggest he needs less!

Each industry Power List will be updated once a month.  Any changes in rankings from the previous list will be noted (For example, if an account moves up or down 2 spots on the list, that will be noted).  The main goal is to drive exposure to professionals that make the list.  But along the way, everyone will be able to pick up some tips and strategies for building their own following on Twitter.

So if you want to be considered for the Twitter Power Lists, please follow me on Twitter! Then let me know which industry you work in, and your position.  Good luck!

 

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How to Leverage Online Platforms to Earn Sustainable Customer Loyalty in the Restaurant Industry

customer loyalty in the restaurant industry

Happy, loyal customers are the lifeblood of every business. They are especially important in more crowded and competitive marketplaces such as the restaurant industry. Customer loyalty is defined as a willingness of a person to continue to do business with your brand over competitors. Loyal customers will spend more, they will promote your restaurant to other customers, and they are far more likely to continue to do business with you. Whether its fine-dining, fast food or fast casual, achieving customer loyalty in the restaurant industry should be a priority for each and every segment.

In today’s hyper-connected world, the key is strategically engaging customers across digital platforms; from review sites to social media and beyond. If done correctly, restaurants can foster meaningful connections, demonstrate value, and inspire guests to return again and again through targeted digital loyalty strategies.

Let’s explore 7 powerful ways restaurant marketers can utilize online platforms to boost sustainable customer loyalty, backed by examples and expert insights:

#1) Monitor and Manage Your Online Reputation Proactively

Your online reputation has immense power to shape brand perceptions. Review sites such as Yelp, Google and Facebook are used often by potential patrons to learn more about a restaurant before visiting.

Experts recommend putting processes in place to:

  • Proactively monitor online review platforms and social media for brand mentions using tools like Hootsuite. You must be aware at all times of what is being said about your business, positive and negative. This applies to all businesses, not just those in the restaurant industry.
  • Move quickly to address negative reviews and comments constructively and with care. Here’s a pro tip: If the negative review or comment is specific to an individual visit, the person leaving the comment is likely a customer. If the review or comment is vague and focuses on your business with little specifics, it is more likely to simply be a troll. Focus more attention on negative feedback that is specific to one or more visits or purchases with your restaurant.
  • When it comes to positive mentions, many experts will simply suggest that you use those positive comments in your own marketing material and communications. That’s smart, but we want to go a step beyond that and make your customer loyalty strategy brilliant. Whenever you see a customer leaving a positive mention or review for your restaurant ALWAYS contact them and say THANK YOU.  You would be amazed at how happy you can make someone by simply showing appreciation for them. Always thank every customer for any positive mention. Often, the customer will be thrilled at your response and will continue to engage with your restaurant. When this happens, you can encourage them to continue to leave positive mentions online, you can ask them to take a survey, or perhaps even join your customer loyalty program. When you find a happy customer who is creating positive content for your restaurant, you want to connect with that customer, thank them, then encourage them to create more content. Keep in mind that more positive content about your restaurant posted on social media and review sites helps dilute any negative content.
  • Analyze trends in sentiments, locations, and issues to identify systemic problems requiring attention. This is especially important if you have multiple locations, each location should be delivering the same, exceptional experience to its customers. If one particular location is responsible for more complaints and negative content, its imperative to investigate the cause.  Likewise, if one location is responsible for more positive reviews than other locations, you want to determine what that one location is doing differently, and can it be replicated across other locations.
  • Establish internal protocols and guidelines for responding to complaints and feedback. Keep in mind that if a customer leaves a comment or feedback during business hours, they will likely expect a response as soon as possible. For instance, if a customer has an issue with an order placed at lunch today, they may go to your restaurant’s Facebook page and leave a comment expecting a CS agent to respond while they are still at the restaurant. If your CS team doesn’t see the response till the next day, one bad experience along with a slow response could result in a lost customer. Time is of the essence when delivering customer support via digital channels.

Proactive online reputation management turns critics into advocates. But executing effectively requires commitment, savvy communication skills, and analytics. With guidance, restaurants can safeguard and promote brand equity through an optimized online presence and integrated customer support response.

#2) Produce Engaging Social Media Content

Today’s consumers expect restaurants to maintain active, interesting social media channels. Developing a strong library of creative, branded content that engages followers in your brand story is essential.

Experts emphasize that effective social content strategies require:

  • Conducting social media audits assessing current performance and benchmarks. Social media audits should be done at least yearly.  Twice a year is even better.
  • Crafting content calendars tailored to your brand identity, audience interests, and key marketing initiatives. Take into account audience activity and which days and times they prefer to engage with your content.
  • Hiring professional photographers and content creators who understand how to create compelling content in all forms that is also branded consistently across all social channels.
  • Increasing community engagement through contests, UGC campaigns, holiday tie-ins, and time-bound festivals or events.
  • Tracking performance metrics constantly and optimizing based on insights. Strategy direction should evolve based on changes in data, and this should also factor into your regular social media audits.

This expertise in strategically leveraging social platforms helps restaurants earn loyalty through value-added content vs endless promos. In short, create content that’s focused on how your restaurant fits into the lives of your customers versus content that’s simply self-promotional.

#3) Optimize Digital Experience Across Channels

Customers engage with restaurant brands across an array of online and offline touchpoints – your website, app, social media, review sites, in-person visits, and more. Offering a consistent, frictionless experience across channels is vital for loyalty. Just as customers want the same level of service regardless of which of your locations they dine in, they also want to know that the same level of support they get on Twitter will me matched if they email or call support.

Consultants recommend:

  • Journey mapping exercises to identify pain points and areas for experience optimization across channels. Aggressive monitoring and surveys post support can greatly help identify bottlenecks and problem areas in the support process that should be addressed and corrected.
  • Improving personalization consistency through data integration and smart UX design across web, app, loyalty program experiences. Also, focus on the data that customers are comfortable sharing when you personalize shopping experiences.
  • Tight integration of data, order information, and customization across platforms to transition customers seamlessly. This is especially important for customers who order on a mobile app then pick up the order at a location.
  • Optimizing online ordering and booking based on mobile-first convenience. Offer easy pickup and delivery options. Perhaps one of the only benefits of dealing with covid in 2020 is that it forced companies in the restaurant industry to focus on contactless or ‘curbside pickup’ options. This provides a new level of convenience and safety for customers and is the expected norm. If your restaurant isn’t providing contactless pickup, it’s past time to add that to your customer experience.
  • Ensuring your website and apps offer optimal responsive design tailored to user needs vs company-centric content. Always consider how your customers use each device. For instance, customers on a mobile device are likely away from home, traveling, and only interested in using your mobile app to complete an immediate purchase. So deliver the content these users want, ie help them facilitate a transaction as quickly as possible.

With guidance optimizing every digital touchpoint, restaurants can craft cohesive customer experiences driving retention.

#4) Leverage Email Marketing for Targeted Outreach

Email marketing is quite valuable because while not everyone checks their social media feed every day, almost all of us do check our inbox. If you have a customer’s email address, that’s quite valuable, as it gives you direct access to that customer, either at home or on the go via their smartphones and mobile devices. Using email marketing to develop customer loyalty in the restaurant industry requires strategic list segmentation and messaging personalization based on rich customer data.

Experts emphasize that effective loyalty-focused email marketing requires:

  • Segmenting your subscriber list based on key factors like customer lifetime value, order frequency, purchase recency, demographics and preferences. Sugmentation allows you to customize the content and experience you deliver to your email subscribers.
  • Paying close attention to email engagement trends to identify the optimal send times and days for each segmented list. Track metrics such as open rate and clicks to determine when is the best time to send emails to your subscribers.
  • Developing campaigns targeted to customer needs, like re-engagement offers for lapsed patrons. Understanding subscriber behavior helps you deliver the email experience that’s most valuable to them.
  • Tracking email performance diligently to optimize your approach and improve deliverability. It’s vital to aggressive track email performance to identify what’s working, and what isn’t.  Double-down on what works, and work to correct the bottlenecks in your email campaigns.

Proper list segmentation, timely messaging, and perpetual optimization based on data is crucial for email marketing success. Leverage digital marketing experts to maximize this channel.

#5) Set Up an App-Based Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs are proven to boost retention when implemented correctly and marketed well. Consultants recommend:

  • Conducting analysis of customer data and pain points to determine the right loyalty program features and benefits to incentivize repeat visits. The focus of the app’s customer loyalty program should be rewards but keep in mind that rewards can extend beyond the purchase. Rewards should also be tied to experiences as well. If rewards are simply tied to the purchase, then you risk having users stop using the app once a reward for purchase has been redeemed.  Always remember that the goal of any customer loyalty program is to build loyalty to the brand, not the offer.
  • Building a customized branded mobile app tailored to house your loyalty program for easy access. The totality of the experience of participating in your loyalty program should be accessible from your mobile app. This encourages customers to purchase at your restaurant, and it also helps facilitate on-site feedback of the dining experience.
  • Tightly integrating app-based features like mobile wallet loyalty cards, specials, and rewards into your POS systems. Consistent branding experiences are vital. There needs to be a seamless transition from the app experience to the POS experience. A disconnect can lead to confusion and irritation by the customer if they can initiate a transaction easily via the mobile app, but cannot easily complete it in store.
  • Crafting strategic marketing plans across social media, email, in-store signage to drive membership. Make sure to point out the advantages of participation in your customer loyalty program. Also consider providing incentives to join, keeping in mind to balance the experience between offering products and experiences.  Both are vital to driving true customer loyalty.
  • Providing data dashboards to track key loyalty metrics like enrollments, active users, point redemptions.

The right advisor eliminates guesswork, guiding optimized loyalty program creation from the ground up based on your customers, resources and capabilities.

#6) Enable Online Ordering and Reservations

Digital convenience factors heavily in earning customer loyalty in the restaurant industry. Experts emphasize that restaurants should:

  • Offer seamless online reservations and waitlisting through your website or platforms like OpenTable or SevenRooms. Allow easy self-service booking. Give customers the convenience they expect.
  • Build your own ordering apps or integrate with major delivery apps to enable effortless to-go and delivery ordering. If your restaurant does integrate with delivery services, promote this on-site so customers will know that’s an option for their next order.
  • Offer order tracking and real-time messaging for delivery orders. Communication and transparency is key, and constant updates and communication helps establish trust with the customer.
  • Provide loyalty members exclusive early booking access or notification of available reservations. Earlier we talked about how your customer loyalty program should focus on providing a better experience to members instead of simply pushing discounts or sales. Giving loyalty members access to more booking options is a great example of giving experience-focused rewards.

Convenience through tech removes friction and earns loyalty. Prioritize digital ordering and booking.

#7) Provide Ongoing Staff Coaching

Your employees make a significant impact on the customer experience delivered. Investing in staff education around hospitality and digital engagement best practices is invaluable.

Consultants advise providing coaching to staff focused on:

  • Customer service techniques to resolve complaints and de-escalate issues. Empower resolution at the front lines. Staff in store and online should be trained to recognize legitimate complaints from real customers. Additionally, if a customer support handoff has to happen from social media channels to the main CS team, make sure staff in both departments are trained to provide a consistent and frictionless experience for the customer.
  • How to identify high-value regulars and personalize treatment accordingly. Simply acknowledging repeat customers communicates appreciation and attentiveness.
  • Maintaining brand standards consistently across digital touchpoints and in-person. Customers will notice if there is a disconnect in their experience.
  • Using systems and tools to capture guest feedback. Staff should be trained to know what feedback options are available, and which customers should be encouraged to participate.
  • Checking in patrons who booked reservations online. Even if your restaurant has on-site kiosks to facilitate or complete transactions, staff will still require training on how to use the kiosks, or how to deal with incoming orders if the kiosk goes down.

Expert-led coaching helps align your team to consistently deliver on digital CX initiatives.

The Path to Building Lasting Customer Loyalty in the Restaurant Industry

Winning sustainable loyalty from restaurant guests in a digital era takes strategy, commitment, and utilizing technology thoughtfully. With abundant diners craving connection and experiences from brands, the opportunity is immense.