Restaurant review management: a practical guide for owners

What is restaurant review management?

Restaurant review management is the routine work of getting more honest reviews, reading them, replying to them and fixing what they point out. It is the day-to-day part of restaurant reputation management. You do not need a marketing agency for it. You need a short list of sites, a consistent way to ask, and 15 minutes a few times a week.

The goal is not a perfect 5.0. It is a steady flow of recent, real reviews that show diners what your food and service are like right now, plus replies that show you are paying attention.

Which review sites matter for restaurants?

For most US restaurants, Google comes first because it shows reviews right in Search and Maps when people look for a place to eat. After that, it depends on your guests: Tripadvisor matters in tourist areas, OpenTable matters if you take reservations through it, and Facebook matters if your regulars follow your Page. Each site has its own rules about asking.

Why you should not ask for Yelp reviews

Yelp's own support page is titled "Don't Ask for Reviews". It tells businesses not to ask anyone to review them, "be it customers, mailing list subscribers, friends, family, etc." Yelp says its recommendation software tries to identify reviews that appear to have been requested and not recommend them, so asking can actually hurt your Yelp rating.

Yelp also says not to ask for reviews after collecting feedback through surveys or contact forms, and not to offer freebies, discounts or payment for reviews. The practical answer: claim your Yelp page, keep your hours and menu current, reply to reviews there, and leave Yelp out of your review requests. Point your requests at Google and the other sites that allow them.

When to ask: takeout and delivery vs dine-in

Ask while the meal is still fresh in the guest's mind, but after they have actually eaten it. For dine-in, that usually means the same evening or the next morning. For takeout and delivery, wait an hour or two so the food has arrived and been eaten, because a review request that lands before the food does reads as pushy.

Ask everyone, not just the table that seemed happy. Picking only happy guests is called review gating, and Google's policy forbids selectively soliciting positive reviews. The FTC has also warned in its Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule Q&A that asking only satisfied customers could violate the FTC Act.

A short email works well for restaurants because you often already have the address from online ordering or reservations. Keep it to a couple of lines:

Subject: How was dinner last night?
Hi Dana, thanks for eating with us at Rosa's Kitchen. If you have a minute, we would love to hear how it went. Tap a rating below. Thanks, Rosa

For more wording ideas, see how to ask for reviews.

How to respond to restaurant reviews

Reply to every review you can, good and bad, and keep it short. Google's own tips for replying to reviews say to be professional and polite, keep it short and simple, be conversational rather than promotional, and respond in a timely manner. That is good advice on every site.

Positive reviews

Mention something specific they said so the reply does not look copied and pasted.

Thanks, Marcus. Glad the short rib hit the spot. The kitchen will be happy to hear it. See you next time.

Negative reviews

Apologize for the experience, do not argue about details in public, and move the conversation offline. Google advises protecting privacy, being honest about limitations and apologizing when appropriate.

Sorry your order was cold when it arrived, Priya. That is not the standard we want. Please email me at owner@rosaskitchen.com so I can make it right. Rosa

Never offer a discount or free meal in exchange for changing or removing a review. Google and Tripadvisor both list that as a policy violation. For more examples, read how to respond to negative reviews.

Using private feedback without gating

Private feedback is a second channel, not a filter. Give unhappy guests a quick way to tell you what went wrong, so you can fix it the same day, but never hide the public review options from them. Everyone should be able to post publicly if they want to.

Here is a simple process that works for most restaurants:

1. Send every guest the same request after their visit or order.
2. Let them rate the experience. Happy guests get links to your review sites.
3. Guests with a complaint see a short feedback form that goes straight to the owner or manager, and they can still see the public review links.
4. Reply to the complaint within a day. A cold order or a slow Friday night is often fixable with a phone call.
5. Look for patterns each week: the same dish, the same shift, the same delivery zone.

Private feedback is often more useful than public reviews because guests tell you exactly what happened, not just how they feel about it.

Reputation management for restaurants: a weekly routine

Good reputation management for restaurants is boring and steady. A routine you can keep beats a big push once a year.

• Daily: send review requests for yesterday's guests and orders.
• Twice a week: read and reply to new reviews on Google, Tripadvisor, OpenTable, Facebook and Yelp.
• Weekly: read private feedback with your kitchen and front-of-house leads and pick one thing to fix.
• Monthly: update your hours, menu and photos on every listing, especially before holidays.

Reviews also feed your other marketing. Guests who gave you their email for a review request can, with their permission, also hear about specials and events. Our guide to email marketing for restaurants covers that side.

If you want the asking part automated, ReviewUsToday's review management software emails each guest a one-tap rating request from your restaurant's name, sends 4 and 5 star ratings to the review sites you choose, and routes 1 to 3 star ratings to a private feedback form while still showing the public links. It does not reply to reviews for you or monitor other sites, so the replying stays with you.

Frequently asked questions