How Diners Find Restaurants Today

Restaurants are probably the local business that is affected the most by online reviews. Many restaurant managers noticed a decrease in their sales and they can't figure out what is affecting their sales, their restaurant online image could be the real cause of this decrease in sales. Online reviews could help fill your tables
The statistics speak for themselves, 89% of consumers research a restaurant online before eating there. Imagine out of 100 people interested in your restaurant 89 of them will research it online before even visiting it. Let’s take a minute to walk to the process diners do when looking for a place to eat:

The Search

• The first thing diners usually do, it is to go online to search for a restaurant for a delicious meal. They either use their phone, a computer or a tablet.
  

• Let’s say, they use Google, the largest search engine to do the search. The typical keywords used to find local restaurants are: restaurants plus whatever city they are in.
  

The Findings

• The first results typically Google provides are from Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, Opentable and any other rating sites.
  

The Research

• 82% of consumers consider user generator reviews important or extremely important. Therefore, sure enough diners tend to jump to the review sites. In most cases, unless they researched or heard about those restaurants before, the reviews are the only reliable source they have about it at that point.
  

• Once diners select a couple of restaurants solely based on the reviews. 95% of consumers use reviews and 86% say they are essential when making purchase decisions. According to the statistic, the selection of the restaurant is pretty much based on the reviews seen on these sites. (Do you know what your customers are writing on these review sites about your restaurant?)
  

The Decision

• After using the reviews as a reference for the first part of their selection (most important one), they confirm their decision by visiting the restaurants’ website. Based on that online research, dines finally make the decision and choose one restaurant. At this point, diners have have made their decision and probably not even spoken to the restaurant. All the decision was solely made based on the online reputation and online presentation of that specific restaurant.
  

These are the typical steps a diner takes when choosing a restaurant. It is surprising how more and more diners are merely using the internet to make their decision. You as a restaurant owners/managers should take action and show diners that your restaurant is their best option, otherwise they will choose your competitor. So, the 89 out of 100 people looking for a restaurant to eat trust reviews and rely on the online image of a restaurant, if you are not up to the standards of your customers are you willing to lose 89 consumers out of a 100? Why not give reviews a high priority on the marketing strategy for your restaurant?

Conclusion
Many restaurant owners and managers are unaware of what their customers are saying online and it's affecting their restaurant in a daily basis, in many cases dropping their sales.

Taking into account that restaurants, like many other local business, are highly affected by online reviews. It surprises me how many listings on Yelp are unclaimed, (meaning that restaurant owners or managers are not aware of the existence of this listing and worst of all they are not aware of what their customers are saying on this important website.) Keep in mind that 95% of consumers use reviews and 86% say they are essential when making purchase decisions. Let’s pay attention to online reviews and really take advantage of this amazing marketing tool for your restaurant.

Get a report on how your customers are seeing your restaurant online