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popular). A prompt response also prevents the negativity from
lingering out there and festering. Be sure to claim your business
on the review sites and set up a system for regularly monitoring
reviews and responding to each and every negative one.
TOP TIPS FOR RECOVERY
1. Try not to take the criticism personally or get defensive.
The people who write reviews tend to be more critical
and opinionated than the mainstream population, and
many use colorful language and creative approaches to
try to boost their reputations as reviewers. So things may
not have been as bad as they were characterized, and it’s
important to keep things in perspective.
Recently, a San Diego restaurant got a lot of press after its
owner decided to play recordings of negative reviews over the
loudspeakers in the bathrooms. It was his way of turning a
negative into a positive. While this might have been a smart
PR move, I don’t recommend others follow suit. Appearing to
take criticism too lightly can backfire. And when the bathroom
soundtrack at that restaurant became widely known, several
people wrote fake bad reviews simply to try get them played.
market ing
SITES LIKE YELP
&
TRIP ADVISOR
CAN BE VALUABLE MARKETING TOOLS
FROM NEGATIVE TO POSITIVE
— Originally published in QSR Magazine, by Denise Lee Yohn, April 2013 —
What’s the right way to
handle a negative online review?
If you’re like most restaurateurs, you’re
a perfectionist. So a negative review on
Yelp or Trip Advisor can really sting. A
particularly harsh comment can even prompt
you to experience some of the stages of grief: denial, anger,
depression. But, just as you would deal with grief, you have to
get to acceptance at some point—and the sooner, the better.
T
he more quickly you accept that the review is out there,
the more quickly you can respond. A timely response
shows the reviewer and everyone else who reads the
review that you are genuinely concerned about your customers
and you are actively involved in your business. This makes
people feel important and, even in this day and age, they want
to know that someone is “minding the store” (this is one reason
why celebrity chefs and business owners have become so
