Reviews Quantity: Restaurant Owner's Guide.
Customers Want To Know You Are Worth Talking About
More Reviews Adds Reliability To Your Good Star Rating
Focus On Google Reviews First
Multiple Good Ratings Are Necessary To Overcome A Single Bad Rating
"I have a small number of reviews of my restaurant, but they're all good. Isn't that enough?"
People looking for a new place to eat want to know that a Restaurant offers something good worth talking about. If current customers aren't writing any reviews about a place, it can be logical for a visitor to assume that the business is either just very new or simply just hasn’t been creating enjoyable dining experiences worth talking about. And it’s fairly easy for them to rule out the idea that you are just ‘new’.
Take a moment and think about how you shop online. If you discover a product or business with 15 reviews, and then you see a similar one with 1500 reviews, both with the same five-star rating, what would you think was the safer bet?
A lot of customers think that it is probably pretty easy to get 15 friends to review a product - or a restaurant. But if there are hundreds or even thousands of reviews sharing details of their experiences, it suggests that the reviews are more likely to be genuine. More reviews sharing details of unique experiences make a high rating more believable and give it more power to convince a customer to choose you.
So the bottom line is that when time is short, and a customer is looking to make a quick decision about where to get a bite to eat, most would almost always choose the well-rated one with 1500 reviews without a second thought over the one with 15.
When it comes to trying new food, potential customers want to make sure more than just your parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles have good things to say about you.
And I think you’d agree that’s a pretty reasonable ask.
How many reviews do I need? Where do I need them?
These two questions go together because you need more reviews in some places than others. The answer for you depends on your competition and which review sites are most popular in your area. But when it comes down to it, Google is by far the most important for most businesses.
You probably want hundreds if not thousands of reviews on Google. On other sites, you need enough 4 and 5 star reviews to counteract any negative reviews. Your target should be at least 4 stars. 4.5 stars is a better target.
It takes three (3) five star reviews to counteract a one star review if your target is 4 stars. If your target is 4.5 stars, it takes seven (7) five star reviews to counteract a one star review. There is more on this in the article Quality Control: Why Your Restaurant’s Star Rating Matters.
For now, it is important to really understand that getting more good reviews is one of the best cures for getting a bad review.
See these articles for more information:
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