Ever driven through a country town, perhaps on a weekend, coming back from a holiday or day trip and felt a little peckish?
We’ve all been there at some point. The rollercoaster of decision making begins… What do I feel like, Whats available and of course the all important: What actually looks half decent? I grew up in a small country town, in a pub, where great food and cold beer went hand in hand. All too often I’d greet the dishevelled & weary traveller taking the punt on our pub in search of something tasty to eat, and refreshing to drink. Something that will ease the pain of the last 6 straight hours of car travel with three, rioting children in the back seat.
The satisfaction of hearing their feedback at the end of their meal never got old: “Wow, that was actually really good!” Their surprise came across like they had struck gold. And in a way - in a time before review platforms like Yelp, Zomato, or even 3G roaming internet! - they had!
Not knowing where to settle your bill particularly when you have limited choice, can be just as excruciating as having too much choice. However, over the past decade, there has been a change that has affected and will continue to affect both of these conundrums….. Online Reviews.
According to SocialMediaNews.com.au in January of 2020, TripAdvisor recorded more than 2.8 million users. Assuming roughly 50% were using the platform to understand where their next dumpling or espresso martini was coming from - the numbers are astonishing.
Let’s bring the country pub storey back into context for a minute, in a place with maybe 4 restaurants/pubs to choose from, opening up the app to find out who ranks number 1 eliminates the stress and procrastination and hopefully satisfies the void.
But what does this mean for the 3 business owners?
It means if one of them isn’t on any review platform, to begin with, our traveller is more than likely to forget that place altogether (I know I would, wouldn’t you?). For the ones that are online, it means that priority number one is to be polling prime position. Especially if your competition offers a similar product!The same principle applies in a metropolitan sense but under slightly different circumstances. A certain street in Melbourne renowned for its Italian cuisine is dotted with side-by-side eateries that famously go a step further in trying to vie for your business – they have a staff member meeting, greeting, wheeling & dealing to get you in the door. Now imagine for a moment our weary traveller is on this street, the three kids are going nuclear, but now our traveller has to contend with restaurant salesmen & women railroading the thought process. Personally, I would be reaching straight for the smart phone, opening a review app and B-lining directly to a top rated result. If you’re a business owner thinking this isn’t the case, I can assure you the 2.8m users of TripAdvisor are not there to understand what colours they use on their interface. So where to for the business owner from here? We believe in three principles:
1. Beat The Reviews If you ain’t on ’em, join ’em but beat ’em first! You could be missing out on a huge market share by not getting your business online. What we do is ensure that everything is running like a well-oiled machine before “going public”
2. Change The Reviews It’s not to say that if someone is online slandering your lamb shanks that its game over…Far from it! We get our diners into your venue and find out what’s really going on. Reporting on much more than whether or not a customer became “a human flamethrower” (actual review!..)
3. Inspire The Reviews With the number of people in your venue on some form of electronic, internet enabled device, why not get them writing how awesome you are? The services we offer make this happen for you. We help turn your publicity into good publicity.Give us a shout and we can find out what needs to be done to get you more happy customers and into single, online review- ranked figures… ASAP!