ISSUE

Pushing the Envelope, Inc. has a long-term relationship with The Dock at Crayton Cove. The restaurant enjoyed a largely positive reputation; however, during formal primary research into their month-to-month online reputation management (ORM) performance and rankings on review sites, PTE noticed an opportunity to improve the restaurant’s reputation and thereby increase business by taking a more advanced ORM approach on their reputation management platforms (Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google and Facebook).

OBJECTIVES & STRATEGIES online reputation

The following objectives were to be completed within one year, by the end of January 2021: 

• Consistently improve the monthly average rating of reviews, decreasing the percentage of negative reviews to consistently less than 20%,
• Leverage customer relations strategies to improve reputation as evidenced by a consistent monthly average customer rating of 3.5-stars or higher starting in July 2020.

PTE assisted in enhancing the personal connection between The Dock and its patrons by:

• Responding to 100% of reviews on Trip Advisor, Yelp, Google, and Facebook
• Taking a personal approach to acknowledging and addressing reviews by posting a personal response to all reviews left on ORM sites on behalf of the General Manager to build a personal connection with guests and provide an authoritative figure to vent unmet expectations to
• Proactively asking for reviews both online via various channels (inclusion in email, social media content linking) and in-person via restaurant staff
• Identifying trends controlled in-house (food quality, service, atmosphere) and sharing both opportunities and issues with The Dock’s leadership consistently

RESULTS

• By January 2021, The Dock’s online reputation received an average of only 16% negative reviews, many months even less, including January 2021, which was only 6%.
• Average monthly customer reviews were 3.7 to 4.53 starting in July 2020.