January 14, 2010
Reputation Management
Lately, a controversial topic has sorta bubbled up to the surface in my little corner of the world. The conversations seem to revolve around critics, both professional and not, and the newfound ability for restaurants to, well, have a word or two to say about a review.
Here's one place where this conversation is taking place (you should join in) and there seems to be a lot of feedback going on over at TimeOut, like here where a publicist outs the magazine for not fact-checking a story, and here where a thunderous mob cried outrage.
Of course, the truth of the matter is that none of this is about reviews and critics. What all this is really about is the fact that reputation management is no longer about hiring an expensive PR firm to polish up our image — it's now a responsibility we all have to deal with every day.
This article starts to explain the phenomenon and maybe will also help chefs to start understanding that they are not alone in the world — we are all now open to attack, being misquoted or even being publicly embarrassed.
And I think it is about time we all started working some sort of method of reputation management into our daily lives.
At RIA, we have grappled at length with the idea of incorporating sophisticated algorithms into our client dashboard, SpoonFeed, in order to assist a restaurant and chef in knowing what people are saying about them.
In the past, I hestitated having this service because, well, I know how chefs feel about Yelp. And I was convinced that plastering the negativity on their dashboards would make them ignore it, not use it.
But I am kinda changing my mind.
I think this whole phenomenon of citizen reviews can't be ignored anymore. For one, Google is set up to deliver user-generated content first in search results, and so what that means is that when people search for your restaurant, the first thing they see is a citizen review.
We all need to start paying attention to this stuff, making a plan for how it should be handled, and acting in ways that manage reputations. So, we are going to start laying down a path for restaurants to follow as they delve into these murky waters.
I'd love to know what you think. Would you use a chef-friendly tool to help you monitor your reputation? Do you need guidance in responding to the critics? How much? Or are you just not ready to deal with it?
I would add the latest LTHForum thread where John Des Rosiers made things hot for himself with his outspoken opinions:http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=27125The most interesting part for me is a meta-discussion within the thread about whether it's ever possible for a chef to respond to online criticism without looking like a whiner. Basically, the consensus seems to be no; "It did TOO taste good!" is simply a ridiculous thing to say, it was in my mouth, not yours, and "You don't know what good is!" is no way to attract customers.Does that mean that chefs shouldn't 1) read and 2) participate? I think they absolutely should, but only in very specific ways. As far as reading goes, you have to be stoic about any one review. Posters are of different quality and they may also simply be on their own journey; Homaro Cantu thought I hated Moto, for instance, and I was pretty hard on certain aspects of it, but at the same time, I know now I was just wrestling with it and hadn't gotten to accepting and understanding what it was good and innovative about it. And as far as Yelp goes, one Yelper is a moron but ten or 100 saying the same thing are free market research and you ought to pay attention. This is where the customer who says "Everything's fine" just to get the hell out of there goes to say what he really thinks; if you would have listened to him in the restaurant, you should listen to him here, too.As far as posting-- well, this is where you have the chance to be a real human being, so use these media to bring out your personality, talk about taco joints you love or some cheese you just got in that rocks or whatever. But don't try to debate the other side of "Proposed: That I Had a Crappy Meal at Your Restaurant" and convince someone they didn't. It will never, ever, ever work.
Mike, this is fantastic! May I use this for our client DIT PR wiki? Will credit you, natch. I think there are some fantastic insights and thanks for pointing to JDR's LTH post.
Not that I have any idea what a DIT PR wiki is, but sure.