Local Restaurants and Yelp: Are You Doing it Wrong?

Many restaurant owners have a love-hate relationship with sites like Yelp, which allow (encourage?) customers to air their grievances online, rather than asking servers to fix problems in the moment. Restaurant owners and managers are rightly frustrated by customers who don’t tell their server about their overdone steak and then log onto Yelp and post a negative review.

But no matter how good the restaurant, it will have negative reviews—all restaurants have off nights and, let’s face it, some people just cannot be pleased. As an owner or manager, it’s important to concentrate on the things under your control.

If you’re struggling with how do deal with Yelp (or similar sites) for your business, here’s three things you can do to get started down the right path.

Don’t Take it Personally

If someone insults you, of course you’ll be hurt, but it’s important to not react out of anger, spite or any other negative emotion. You’re better off letting a negative comment go unaddressed than responding in an emotional way. If you wait until the next day when you’re calmer, you may even find that some of your fans have come to your defense without your interference or prompting. While you may not like Yelp, advertising with them (being a featured location in their search feature) allows you to message users directly, letting you take communications offline, which can help you avoid a public back and forth with a disgruntled customer. If you handle the feedback properly, you may even turn a negative reviewer into an ambassador or at least diffuse their complaints.

Encourage Reviews from Happy Customers

It’s true that sometimes customers say everything is fine and then leave a negative review, but that doesn’t mean you and your staff can’t tell who the truly happy customers are. Train your staff to encourage those customers to write up their experiences on review sites. Those who have bad experiences already have the motivation they need to leave a review, but others may need more prompting. You only need a few of those customers to leave a review to make sure your business is well-represented on Yelp, and sometimes simply asking for a review is enough.

Keep Your Listings Current

If your address, hours, website, or menu changes, make sure your Yelp profile reflects the latest information. If someone arrives at your restaurant and you’re not open (or you’re not there because you moved across town), that’s business you’ll likely never get back. Restaurants are notorious for not listing their hours, menu and contact information front and center on their websites, and so even people who don’t have any interest in reviews or ratings (there are some of us) rely on services like Yelp to find restaurants. Do yourself a favor and keep your info updated by checking the listing every quarter, which is a good schedule for checking your reviews as well.

There’s obviously much more that can be said about review sites (and social networks) for small businesses, including restaurants. But for the busy restaurateur, remembering just these three things is a good start. No matter how you feel about Yelp and sites like it, they’ve become an important tool for your consumers.