Build Customer Loyalty at Your Restaurant
Highlights from Main Street Hub and TouchBistro’s webinar
Consumers are spending more time online than ever before. From social media to review sites, restaurants are expected to be just as visible and accessible to consumers online as they are in-person. Personalize your responses, extend your customer service, and create compelling content to start boosting loyalty today.
Check out some highlights from our webinar with TouchBistro, and scroll down to watch the full recording!
Personalize Your Responses to Reviews
Reviews are important to consumers. According to a recent study, 73% of consumers say that positive online reviews instill trust in a local business. That trust is vital for getting new customers and keeping current customers coming back time and time again. And another study found that an increase of one star in a business’ rating can increase revenue by 5%-9%.
Responses to these reviews are just as important when consumers are weighing what restaurant to visit for their next happy hour drink, family dinner, or group lunch. To keep your fans coming back, and earn trust back from unhappy customers, be sure to make your responses to all reviews friendly, personalized, and polite. Use first names and pick out details that the reviewer mentioned — the more personal the better. It shows that you’re listening, that you value customer feedback, and that you took the time to craft a response that speaks to their concerns.
When you’re responding to a positive review, be sure to give a genuine message of thanks and invite that customer back again soon. If they mentioned their favorite dish they tried, recommend a dish you think they’d enjoy next time! If they happen to shout out their waiter’s excellent service, ensure them that you’ll pass that great feedback along.
When it comes to addressing negative reviews, try to neutralize the situation.
At Main Street Hub, we respond to every review that comes in for our customers on Facebook, Yelp, Google, and TripAdvisor. Each one of our customers gets a dedicated team including a talented writer to craft personalized responses for every review in line with each business’ unique voice and brand. Here’s what we have learned when it comes to responding to negative reviews:
— Start by getting to the core of the reviewer’s concern — let them know that you’re looking into it and apologize if necessary.
— Thank them for sharing their experience and feedback.
— Ask questions to better understand the issue, like, “What night did you come in?” “Do you remember who was helping you that day?”
— You can also offer to follow up further offline, and invite them back to give you another chance, if appropriate.
Adding a response to a negative review gives you the chance, as a business owner, to offer your perspective, explain the situation, and/or apologize if necessary so that anyone coming to visit your site and check out your reviews can see both sides of the story. Here, you can explain politely, provide your point of view, and thank the reviewer for taking the time to share their experience and offer feedback.
Remember, your review response does not only benefit the individual who left the review. Each and every person who visits your business’ review sites to confirm your hours, navigate to your location, or check your star rating can peruse your customer reviews and see how you addressed them. When they see you’ve taken the time to respond to each review, they’ll know how much you value your customers, making them more likely to pay you a visit.
Extend Your Customer Service on Social Media
As a small business owner, you know how important it is to show your guests excellent customer service when they come into your restaurant. The same applies to your followers on social media. Consumers have come to expect quick responses from businesses and brands to their questions, comments, and requests on social media — which means that each and every message, mention, and wall post that comes in for your business on social media has the power to influence a consumer’s opinion of your business and their likelihood to visit.
— 67% of consumers now utilize networks like Twitter and Facebook for customer service requests.
— 33% of consumers even prefer to contact brands using social media rather than a phone call.
Many of these online reach outs from your current and potential customers will be requests for business information, questions about your products and services, real time notifications of their visit to your business, or description of previous experiences. You want to respond to all of these communications in order to seem accessible, appreciative, and responsive to your customers.
Spending time replying can also increase your bottom line — customers are 3x more likely to recommend your business after a positive social media customer service interaction.
More on extending your customer service online here.
Get a system in place to monitor all wall posts, direct messages, mentions, reviews, and tags that come in for your business on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp, then respond to keep engaging with your audience!
Create Social Media Content That’s Tailored to Your Customers
Cultivate brand trust and authenticity by sharing personalized content on your social channels that tells a story vs. selling a product. This kind of content can include team member spotlights, educational tips and tricks, feel-good stories, and engaging polls and questions. Using this kind of posting strategy will help position your brand an expert in what you do.
Highlight Your Team
Posting photos of your team on Facebook is a great way to start building trust with potential customers and solidify trust with current customers. These kinds of posts work great on Instagram, too.
Post Educational Content
As a business owner, you’re an expert in your industry. Boost loyalty with your customers by sharing your favorite tips and tricks with your customers on social media. This educational information will help keep your customers informed even when they’re not in your restaurant.
Post the content your followers want to see and add a tip they could use in your caption to make it extra engaging. Here’s an example of a local diner giving their followers some grilling tips for the summer — they did this for a full week to celebrate National Hamburger Week:
Post User-Generated Content
The majority of consumers trust other diners’ opinions more than advertisements, which is part of the reason user-generated content has become so popular.
Whenever you re-share a happy customer’s photo or review, you’re sharing an authentic, unaltered view of your business. This is a great way to build trust and bring in new customers to your bar and/or restaurant. Just be sure to mention the customer the took the photo in your caption.
Watch the full webinar here for more tips on how to build brand loyalty at your restaurant:
