By Daniel E. Craig, Founder, Reknown

Search any bar or restaurant on Google today, and review sites dominate the results, with Google, Yelp, OpenTable and TripAdvisor leading the pack.

Online reviews are an integral part of how people decide where to eat, drink and socialize. Research has found that a one-star increase in Yelp ratings leads to a 5-to-9% increase in revenue for independent restaurants (Harvard Business School). And an extra half-star rating can help restaurants sell out 49% more frequently (UC Berkeley).

With so many moving parts, restaurants are prone to negative reviews, which not only act as a deterrent to prospective customers but also can be highly disruptive internally, making the chef scream, the hostess cry and hijacking the manager’s day.

Some restaurants ignore online feedback or deal with it in a random, reactive way, but this results in lost opportunities and can cause long-term damage to the business. The most successful businesses integrate reputation management principles and best practices into daily operations and culture.

Through my work with hundreds of hospitality businesses, I’ve identified six key steps in the process:

1. Set Reputation Objectives
Before you jump on the reputation bus, you need to know where you’re heading. Whether you operate an independent café or a large restaurant group, this involves assessing where you are now, where you want to be, and how you’re going to get there.

Start by performing a reputation audit—an assessment of how your business is rated and reviewed online relative to competitors. Set objectives, including overall review score, ratings by review source and response rate, and set strategies and a timeline for achieving them. Then share your plan with the whole team, getting front of house and back of house staff on board, because they all play a role in achieving objectives.

2. Manage Your Online Presence
Today, if you want to attract customers online a well-designed, helpful website is only the beginning. You also need to manage your presence on the sites where consumers share information and advice with other consumers.

Below is a summary of the key review sources for bars and restaurants, many of which allow online bookings. Businesses can control a lot of the profile content on these listings and should ensure that contact details, descriptions, menus and imagery are always kept up to date.

• Google My Business. Google commands more than 90% of the global search market, according to some estimates, and Google review count and score are factored into local search rankings. By tapping into search and location data to prompt users to submit a review after leaving a business, Google now generates far more reviews than any other source. Quantity doesn’t always mean quality, however. While anonymous reviews are no longer permitted, many reviews are ratings-only or are short on details, providing limited insights for consumers and restaurants alike.

• Yelp. Restaurants are the most popular business on Yelp, generating 19% of reviews. While Yelp’s review volume is much lower than Google’s, Yelpers are generally more detailed and insightful in their comments.  And yes, they can be a bit fussy too. The average rating of businesses on Yelp is 3.65, compared to 4.30 on Google and 4.25 on TripAdvisor, according to a survey from ReviewTrackers.

• TripAdvisor. With over 490 million unique monthly visitors, TripAdvisor became a major player in the restaurant industry after its purchase of LaFourchette (TheFork) in 2014. According to TripAdvisor, 87% of users consider reviews important when booking restaurants. TripAdvisor reviews have a 100-character minimum, which produces detailed feedback than other sources. Whereas Yelp is popular with locals, TripAdvisor tends to be more popular with travelers.

• OpenTable. The world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, OpenTable lists 80 million reviews of 51,000 restaurants. In 2014, the company was acquired by Booking Holdings, but restaurants are not yet integrated into Booking.com or Priceline listings. Unlike other platforms, on OpenTable only diners who book through the site can submit a review, reducing exposure to false reviews and gaming of the system.

• Zomato. An India-based restaurant discovery service, Zomato acquired and rebranded Urban Spoon in 2015. Today, Zomato is used by millions of people in 24 countries. The site doesn’t generate a lot of reviews but often appears on the first page of search results for restaurants.

• Facebook. Last year, Facebook simplified its review system from a 1-to-5 rating scale to yes-or-no recommendations, although overall ratings are still displayed. While Facebook isn’t the most efficient way to find a restaurant, it attracts 1.56 billion users daily and restaurant pages rank high in search results.

• Social Media. Content posted to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter is harder to track and quantify than reviews and ratings. But unlike reviews, social media content is easily sharable, can go viral, and is often posted in real-time, so close moderation is critical. Just ask Crab Park Chowdery what’s at stake.

• Other Sources. Depending on your establishment, other customer feedback platforms to watch may include Untappd, Uber Eats, GrubHub, Zagat, Forbes, Michelin and Foursquare. Reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed can help gauge employee satisfaction and attract job candidates. And don’t forget traditional media and blogs.

3. Monitor Content & Performance
With so many sources, keeping track of guest feedback can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, there are some great tools to help. Set up email notifications of new reviews and content on review sites and social platforms and use Google Alerts or Talkwalker to track mentions across the web. To ensure that nothing falls through the cracks, assign an employee to monitor and distribute feedback to staff.

If you run a large restaurant or group, I highly recommend streamlining the process of tracking, scoring, analyzing and responding to reviews with an online reputation management tool such as ReviewTrackers, ReviewPro, BirdEye or Revinate.

4. Take Action
The next step is to take action to fix problems. Sometimes it may be a quick fix; other times a long-term solution may be required. Use feedback to guide decisions on menus, service standards, staffing, marketing messaging, capital investments and other areas critical to guest satisfaction.

Share relevant reviews with staff. Show leadership by welcoming all types of feedback, showing respect for reviewers and using feedback as a constructive learning tool. Prevent negative reviews by training employees to be on the lookout for signs of trouble and empowering them to resolve issues on the spot.

For example, complaints about wait times can be avoided by managing customer expectations, keeping them informed, offering a sincere apology and, when appropriate, comping items as a gesture of regret.

5. Respond
All major review sources allow businesses to respond to reviews. A thoughtful response will show that you’re listening and are committed to customer satisfaction. A ReviewTrackers survey found that 45% of respondents are more likely to visit a business that responds to negative reviews. And yet only 29% of top-3 restaurants on Google respond to reviews, according to a Moz study.

Don’t feel obliged to respond to every review. As a rule, strive to engage your detractors, thank your advocates, ignore trolls and skip ratings-only reviews. Strike a conversational, professional tone and be brief: thank the guest, apologize if appropriate, and say how you’re following up. If you reach out to a customer directly, post a response so that readers know.

And don’t forget Google’s “Questions and answers” feature. Because any user can answer these questions, responses are often lacking or even inaccurate. Restaurants should strive to be the first responders.

6. Earn Positive Reviews
Given that a higher review volume can boost rankings on Google and TripAdvisor, a proactive approach to generating reviews is a wise strategy. Start by setting a clear vision of what you want customers to say about your restaurant after they leave. Then ensure that every employee understands their role in making this happen.

Restaurants earn rave reviews by exceeding expectations and giving customers reasons to share their experience with others. You can give them a nudge by inserting review request cards in billfolds, displaying signage onsite or sending a post-visit request by email or text, but I don’t recommend asking or pressuring customers, as it could backfire.

Finally, encourage employees to go the extra mile with an incentive program to reward front-of-house and back-of-house staff for positive mentions. Celebrate milestone achievements. If you really want to generate results, include review objectives in management bonus plans.

Need help with your restaurant group’s online reputation strategy? Contact Reknown today.