What They See Before They Walk In

Three operators, three different problems. All happening before a guest ever sets foot inside. One is sitting on a one-star review they don't know how to handle. One has been posting on Instagram for a year with nothing to show for it. One has run on word of mouth for eight years and is starting to feel it slip. None of these are marketing problems. They're visibility, reputation, and discoverability problems and the fixes are closer than they think. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Every restaurant has a suggestion box collecting dust somewhere near the host stand. This show is a different kind. Operators send in their real challenges, staffing, costs, culture, systems, anonymously, and we talk through them on air. If you've ever felt like your operation is running you instead of the other way around, you're in the right place. I'm Ryan Hornebrook, founder of Elevated Restaurant Solutions, and this is the suggestion box. Welcome back to episode five of the suggestion box, where real owners, real operators, and real industry pros send in their real challenges and we talk about it in real time. My name is Ryan Hornebrook, founder of Elevated Restaurant Solutions, where we help restaurant owners and operators lower their costs without lowering their standards. Now, five episodes in, as I mentioned, um, pretty big milestone for me. Uh, I didn't really know what I was gonna be doing, to be honest, when I started this whole thing. Uh, I just wanted to create a space that, you know, one of the challenges that I've found is that people kind of hold their challenges close to their chest. They don't necessarily want to talk about it, or I don't know, maybe they don't want to admit they have a problem. So the fact that we have, you know, this little community building um to where we have stuff to talk about every week is pretty remarkable. Uh, and from the bottom of my heart, uh, I'm truly grateful that even with five episodes in, we still have some really good stuff coming in, uh, and some people that just want to talk through some of their challenges and listen to some insight or a different perspective, which is the whole operating thesis of this show. Um, and as we keep talking about a lot of these things, we find more and more that the problem and the source are very rarely in the same uh place. And this episode is gonna be slightly different, probably still a little bit of that operating thesis, but so far we've talked about everything that's happening within the four walls of our restaurants, and today we're gonna be talking a little bit more about what's happening outside of them. Now, before anybody ever walks through your doors, they usually have an impression formed already. There's so many ways that people do this now, but before they even get to your place, they're checking reviews on Yelp and Google. They're going to your Instagram and your Facebook and your TikTok and everything else. They're talking to their entire network saying, Hey, I'm going to so-and-so this weekend. What do you know about it? Or have you ever been there? They're doing everything that they possibly can to form their experience in their head before they even get there. So today we're going to be looking at uh a different perspective of the guest experience. Um, and they're all kind of living in that space between the restaurant and the guest. So

The Response Is The Reputation

SPEAKER_00 3:09

let's start with our first one today. The submission reads, I got a one-star review last week from somebody I'm pretty sure was just having a bad day. The review is not accurate. Some of what they say didn't even happen. It's sitting there, and I don't know whether to respond or ignore it. My overall rating is good, but this one's bothering me more than it should. How do you handle reviews like this without looking defensive or making it worse? So I'm sure everyone listening right now can relate to this directly, whether it's in this industry or not in this industry. Um, you see a one-star review pop up, and your initial instinct is, oh, we dropped the ball. That's not necessarily true all the time. First of all, I'm not a huge fan of public one-star reviews, especially the ones that don't say anything, where it's just one star and that's it. That gives me nothing to work with. I'm I'm all about positive criticism, constructive criticism. But if you give me nothing to work with, I mean that's just you know, I can't do anything with it. Also, the ones that leave two, three, four days later, I was in on Saturday night and it was really, and then it's Thursday, and that review comes in. I can't do anything with that either. I mean, I can, but it's retroactive. And those types of reviews, to me, in my opinion, are people that just want to make some noise to get something out of it, whether it's a refund or just some validation that they had a bad experience and they want to see if anybody's listening. Um the instinct to want to want to defend yourself, I mean, it's completely normal. Anybody would want to do that. Um, but how you defend yourself is gonna determine whether you get yourself into trouble or actually use this to your advantage. Um so many diners trust online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation. They might not even know the people that are leaving the the reviews, but they go there. We've all done it, we've all looked at reviews. I don't know any of these people, but I trust their reviews, and pretty typically the fours and fives outweigh the ones and twos. I don't think the review is necessarily the problem. The response strategy is gonna be how how we how I would combat this, um, or the absence thereof, because most operators treat reviews reactively, meaning they only respond when they feel like it, they ignore the ones that upset them, they have no consistent voice. They're that inconsistency is visible to every potential guest reading them. Like everybody that's ever gonna come in. We talk about it, or we just talked about it. They're building a an impression of what this experience is gonna be. They're gonna see whether you did respond or didn't respond, they're gonna see what that response is, and they're going to use that to build a reputation before even meeting you, before even coming into the restaurant. So a bad review with a calm professional guest first response usually does more for your reputation than a five-star with no response at all. Because a five-star with no response, people are just reading five stars and they're like, okay, well, nothing to do about it. You did great. But they're gonna look at this one-star review and see what it says, and then they're gonna look at how you reacted to it. Because the audience for your response isn't that one reviewer, it's not the person that left the review. I mean, maybe sure, they get it validated, but it's not like all is solved because it's in a public form. They wrote that for other people to see. So that was their attack. Now your defense is also for everyone to see, and it can put you back on the attack, depending on how you respond to it. First and foremost, I would respond. Good, bad, indifferent, short, brief, long. Uh, because in in it, you mentioned it's inaccurate. So if that goes unanswered, it just makes it look like it's a confirmation of, yeah, well, that probably happened. But even a brief measured response, like something that just acknowledges that you've seen it and you're talking to the team, or we'll go through some responses, but um, that's better than leaving it unanswered. I would respond to it within 48 hours if possible. And that's positive or negative. I would respond to uh reviews within 48 hours, which shows that you're you know not only present on the floor, but you're you're also present digitally all the time. You can give kind of a blanket statement and then invite them to communicate directly, which is what I've always done. Um I'll give you an example where we would get a negative review about food or service or whatever it was. Pretty typically my response would go something like this. We are so sorry that your visit did not meet the standards that we hold so dearly. We are constantly striving to make better efforts to improve the guest experience, and we appreciate your feedback. If you would like to reach out to yada yada yada to further discuss your experience, we'd be more than happy to listen or to take feedback, however, you want to end that. But that's pretty typical of a response that I would give for a one-star because it shows that you're professional, you're calm, you are guest first, always you're present, and you can then take it out of the public eye and deal with it behind the scenes directly. I'm gonna tell you something. I've done that hundreds of times, a handful of times will somebody actually follow through and reach out to me directly to further talk about their experience. They just don't want that. That's not what they're that's not what they're doing it for. Um but I would never go into specifics about the situation in a public form. Because you won't win and it's not gonna help you. So I would just build this simple template, simple review response, where maybe it's 10 minutes every Monday morning, go through the week's reviews, respond to all of them, positive or negative. It becomes part of the rhythm rather than you know a reactive scramble when you see a one-star. And I would just, you know, whenever you get one of those one-star reviews, I would answer it within 48 hours and then tell them to reach out directly. Chances are they're not going to, but that's the way to do it. And something that I did with my last client, which was wildly successful. There's multiple places that can do this. Um, but I will give you the one that I used. I used Tap Tag, but we set up uh cards for all of the servers to have where all the the guests had to do was literally tap their phone and then it brought it straight to the Google review, and it was a seamless experience. When we started the campaign, we maybe got I don't know, ten five-star reviews in a matter of a month. When we started this, we picked three servers that we were there pretty much all the time, and they were three of the top performers. And I'm talking hundreds of five-star reviews. When we started, it was maybe 750-ish total reviews. By the time we were done two months later, I think it was over 1300, 1400 maybe, and it tapered off a little bit. Season got busy, we went into Christmas season. But point is, you know what drowns out those one-star reviews, because they're not all the time. A bunch of four and five-star reviews. And you don't have to push it, just have it be natural. If a guest is having a good time, they're visibly happy, ask them for a five-star review and make it so that way it's so stupidly easy for them to do themselves. They don't have to search anything, they don't have to go online, find this. It can be a different service if you want. Tap tag worked, great for us. All they gotta do is uh if you if listen, thank you guys so much for coming in. We really appreciate it. So good seeing you guys again. You gotta come in, we'll do it again. If you had a great experience, just please you could tap your phone right here, leave a couple words. We would it really helps us out. That is super simple. And it works nine times out of ten. Your review profile is a living part of your marketing, whether you're managing it or not. So the only question is whether you're shaping it or letting it wither away and just shape itself. Uh would stay on top of it as best as you possibly can. So all right, next

Likes Aren't Covers

SPEAKER_00 13:16

one is an operator who shows up online. They're just not really sure that it's doing anything. It reads, I've been posting on Instagram three or four times a week for almost a year. Food photos, specials, behind the scenes stuff. I get some likes, a few comments, maybe a new follower here and there, but I genuinely can't tell if it's bringing anyone through my door. My following is small and it's not really growing. I don't know if I should keep going, try something different, or just stop and spend that time somewhere else. Listen, this is an honest and genuine thing that I think a lot of people go through, especially a lot of independent restaurants. You know, they don't have the big budget for marketing and advertising, but it's it is a big part of volume. Now, before anything happens from a digital standpoint, I always say that the best way to market and advertise is your guests that are in there at table 11. That is your marketing. That's your advertising. Now, once you have the operation bundled, buttoned up, all the T's are crossed, all the I's are dotted, uh, and you have word of mouth, and you do want to start broadening your your marketing reach and your advertising reach, um, a good way to do it is social media. But here's the problem with social media. It doesn't directly translate to sales. At least not the platform that you're mentioning here. Now, posting consistently for a year with nothing to show, uh, I mean, I would stop and think. I don't I don't blame you for doing that, but I definitely don't think it's time to quit. We're just gonna we're just gonna reframe this. We're gonna take a look at what we can do differently here. Um, all right, let me see. Following small, not really growing. Well, you're posting food specials and food photos, and that's just kind of like broadcasting. It doesn't really invite conversation, which these platforms, their whole goal is to have people engage on their platform. So invite conversation, invite engagement, show personality, give people a reason to share it, give people a reason to look at it for long periods of time. That's the whole thing with social media. That's that's the whole the algorithm. It awards people that post stuff that is engaging, enticing, addictive, and makes you want to stare at it. And just posting your food, photos, and specials, other than you know, the occasional viral hit where you'll get a bunch of people tagging other people, uh, doesn't really do that. Also, your follower count, you're saying you, you know, you don't really have that many followers. I'd much rather have a follower count of 200 people that are extremely local within a 10-mile radius than 2,000 followers spread out all over the country because they like the content. There the whole goal of social media for independent restaurants isn't it's not virality, it's not fame. Unless you're getting so many hits that you can start monetizing it, but that's just rare. That doesn't really happen. What you want is local trust and you want local discovery, and those are achieved by a different chasing than a following. Especially on Instagram. You had mentioned Instagram, I'm assuming you do this on all social media, but how I explain it to operators is so Instagram and TikTok are great for sporadic content, passive content, digestive content. There's no intention of really doing anything with what you find on Instagram and TikTok other than sharing it with a friend or finding it entertaining, liking it. You know, I see something funny on TikTok or funny on Instagram, I'm not always going to follow that page because I just think it's one time, it's it's one and done, it's situational. Uh I'm not I'm not engaging with that person or that account long term. However, Facebook, Facebook is very different because you hit on the demographic that you're targeting a little more. When I'm on Facebook and I see a food post, it's very typically somebody, one of my friends that shared it. So it's local enough to where it's close to me. And then there's intention of me seeing that and going in and following the page because I like it so much that I A, want to go try it out, or B, want to see what else they have coming out. So when something else does come out, I can go. So you're much more likely to get direct sales from a Facebook post than an Instagram or a TikTok post, in my opinion. Yes, there are going to be local people that follow your TikTok and Instagram, but there's going to be more people that aren't close to you that follow you on Instagram and TikTok than that follow you on Facebook. There is more of a local outreach on Facebook. I would um I would shift your content mix away from that broadcasting and start introducing more of behind-the-scenes operations stuff. One of the accounts that I was working with uh last year, we were very good at posting high res, high quality pictures and video of food and drink specials. The quick on the fly stuff that got the most engagement involved pictures and stories of the staff. Once we included the family, everybody engaged. They share it, first of all. Then their friends engage, then their families engage, then they're people are more drawn to the page when they see something that they want to engage in, and they feel they feel more a part of that. Reels are so big. Um they could be short form, doesn't need to be this big, drawn out, 30-second reel. Could be a 10-second clip. Um, just it's easy for sharing, texting. Um stills on Facebook, I feel like do better than videos on Facebook. It's not so much of a share thing, but you'll get a lot more posts on Facebook that people are tagging their friends in, and those people are pretty local to you. You you can convert a lot of them into returning customers. Um but let's also backtrack for a minute because uh before any of this, one we talked about make sure the operation's buttoned up, right? We don't want to invite people into the house when it's a reality TV show and there's drama and there's friction and there's confusion and nobody wants to come back for it. Or maybe they do. Maybe that's part of the shtick. So make sure your in-house is set. Also, make sure your Google profile is set. I feel like a lot of people miss the mark on this one. Make sure that you have recent photos on there. Make sure that the profile is complete, that it's accurate, the hours of operation. Um a lot of people are gonna Google you before anything else. We talked about it earlier. So make sure that that is fully optimized with fresh reviews, current photos. Um you're gonna get more new guests from Google than you are from Instagram, I promise. And I feel like if you really want a way to see if it's working or not, then create a special or a discount or something, an Easter egg, that you only post on social media. We've actually done this. I did this with that same account um last year. Post something that they only can access it if they show you the post online on social media. Out of 400 total guests on a Friday, maybe 10. It's really not that much. Yes, you want a good social presence. Yes, you want a good digital presence. Yes, people are gonna look you up uh before they get to you, but I wouldn't do it so much to land new customers or to bring people in. I think that is gonna be better in-house by making sure that the guests that you have have such an amazing experience that they want to tell their friends and family about it, and then they bring their friends and family, and then they want to tell their friends and family, and that's how you build. It's not through social media. It's about being findable and trustworthy to the people in your zip code who are deciding where to eat tonight. That's the that's the goal, that's the name of the game. So,

Digitize Your Reputation

SPEAKER_00 23:21

all right, this last one today is an operator who hasn't really done any of this, and they're starting to feel it. Reads, I've never really done any marketing. We've survived on word of mouth for eight years, and it's always been enough. But traffic has been softer this past year, and I'm starting to wonder if the word of mouth well is drying up. I don't know where to start with marketing, and honestly, the whole thing feels overwhelming. I also don't have a budget for it. Is it too late to build something from scratch? Eight years on word of mouth is genuinely impressive. I will start by saying that. And that means that what you have in-house um is strong enough that people just kept talking about it without being asked, which is a great starting point. Because it really is the best kind of uh marketing. But it has a geographic ceiling, right? There's only so many people around the area, and it's not just gonna spread. I mean, it might, but it's really hard to spread. There's a threshold, is the point, and a generational shelf life, honestly, because the people eight years ago that loved your restaurant, they're still talking about it, but new people, they don't really have a way to find it. You know? I mean, we're in 2026. We've talked about it all episode. People are going to create the experience in their head using social media and Google and AI before they even get to your place. They're gonna find where they want to eat, they're gonna look at a majority of the check uh uh restaurants online presence before they even get to you. And if you're not online, then you're invisible to that whole new generation. Having no budget, you don't need to have a big budget for what we're talking about. Um I would start, uh we just talked about, I would start with the Google business profile. If you have an incomplete or neglected Google business profile, which means not kept up with, doesn't have, you know, hours of service uh updated or new pictures or just updated information, uh, then that's money left on the table right there. Because it's the first thing that new people are gonna say. People are gonna Google it, uh, or they're gonna ask Yelp or they're gonna ask AI, which is the new direction. Um, but I would start with Google before anything else, before social. Claim it fully set up, the business profile, if it's not already, add current photos, put your menu up there, make sure the hours are accurate. And then I would start asking for reviews intentionally. You can use tap tag as I did uh with our past engagement. Tap tag was super easy, uh, tons of great products, and it makes it incredibly simple for your guest to leave a uh a positive review intentionally. And then once that's done, I would pick one social media platform and commit to it at a sustainable pace. I would start with Facebook because I feel like that's the most local engagement that you're gonna get. And I would do two or three posts a week. Nothing crazy, every three or four days, just enough to establish a presence without having it become, you know, your second job. And I would use what's already working as the content, you know, the word of mouth. Reputation exists because something about the place is worth talking about. So I would talk to your guests and figure out what that is, put it on camera and use that as the content because that's organic, it's real, it's what worked for eight years, it's just not blasted online yet. So we talked about this in the last episode. The operators that succeed lean in to do to what they do really well, and then just become literate enough to excel in other areas or or be able to have conversations in other areas. So use what you're doing really well. And if you don't know what that is, then find out from the people that are talking about it. Because if your word of mouth uh marketing has been so good for so long, there's a reason for that. They're not just saying the place is great. Okay, what about the place is great? Find out what that is, market that, and use that to your advantage. And I would include your staff, your team members, because for a place that has such strong word of mouth marketing for as long as you have, I'm going to assume that the staff has a pretty big part in that in that. There is a direct relation between restaurant turnover and guest turnover. So if you have long time lifetime value of your guests, that means that they're coming back to see the people that they've always seen. That or your food is phenomenal, which could also be the case. But typically in a situation like this, it's it's the experience um that they're getting every time they come. So I would uh people love seeing posts about the team. They just they love seeing them so that way next time they're in there, they know who to look for. That's gonna be the stuff that people share, especially the people that already love your place. Um so yeah, I would, you know, it doesn't need to be this big, this big haul. I would start small, make sure your Google is set up, then pick one platform, Facebook, I would start with, and just post two, three times a week and ask for help, you know. The staff is actually gonna be a um be a pretty big support team for you because they pretty typically are keen with this kind of thing. So, yeah, that's uh that's some marketing stuff right there. Something different for us this week. I was in a band for 10 years, and um there was only four of us, so we had to do everything, and social media and marketing and advertising was a big part of it. So I I have some experience in while it's not what I directly help owners and and operators with, um, I know enough to briefly help them or use the network that I have um with some very, very talented individuals that can help uh along the way. So if you're looking for that kind of help, I have people that do this uh and do this very well, and they would be more than happy to help you out as well. Thank you to all three of the submissions this week. Uh it's been a pleasure. Uh, always fun talking about this kind of stuff. If you are experiencing a challenge that you just can't figure out and you would like to get some insight on, please don't hesitate to reach out. Uh, it is the suggestion box at elevatedrestaurant solutions.com. My name is Ryan Hornbrook. Uh, it has been another phenomenal week, extremely gracious, and we will talk to you again next week. Thanks.