This blogpost was originally posted on Chalkboarder and over at FohBohGuest Experience Staff TrainingI'm researching a study of the restaurant industry, using Yelp and Urban Spoon as the main viewframe. While I've written in the past about how operators could use these two sites to their advantage, I feel compelled to share a different observation tonight.Does your team need a refresher on what makes great experience for customers? I bet if you spent one hour with an all-staff meeting, asked them to all bring their laptops in for the meeting, then gave each staff member ten restaurants in Urban Spoon's "Affordable Fine Dining" Category to view - that you'd have one hell of a good meeting discussion.The trick to this is having your staff read the comments of these ten restaurants, then share the outstandingly good and bad comments with the team as a whole and then to look at yours.Not only is this good training on excellent guest experience, it will give your staff the direct feedback of the dining public in your area; what they think about you, about your competition and what their expectations are of a good or great experience.I promise you, it will be an eye-opener for your team.The other thing it will do (bonus) is provide your staff with real-time competitive analysis of the other teams that they are directly competing with in your area. What a great way to bring your team even more together towards a common goal!By the way, it's so easy for operators to get their basic information on these sites. I am completely clueless as to why any operator would stuff these two sites with pictures, the menu, etc.Also, it's extremely rare to find an operator responding to the negative comments (much less the positive ones) on these sites. How much time a night does that take - to look for a comment from the night? Thirty seconds? And then to write a reply? Another five minutes to increase guest loyalty so they'll tell all their friends about your place?Yelp and Urban Spoon should be the most basic of social web management for a restaurant. An operator should visit them daily - that would take maybe two minutes, tops.
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Your Customers Are Yelping. Are You?If you haven’t heard about Yelp yet, I think it’s time. Why? Because it’s FREE ADVERTISING for your coffee shop! …And because people are looking for local coffee shops like yours and they are finding them on Yelp.com or on a mobile device like the iPhone.Yelp is a place where people to go to find the best local businesses. The best local businesses are determined by the customer reviews. By posting your coffee shop to Yelp you will be found more often and by travelers as well as locals. If they’re on the web they can find you by zip code. If they have an iPhone or similar device, they can find the coffee shops closest to their location using GPS technology built into their phone.The real power of Yelp lies in the user reviews. Their slogan is “Real People. Real Reviews.” In short, here’s how it works. Your customers find you on Yelp, they log into their account and they write a review about your coffee shop. It’s simple, it’s effective and it’s an amazing way to get testimonials…and did I mention it’s FREE? Of course a customer can write a negative review also so you have to make sure you’re on your toes and give the best service possible.The bottom line is Yelp = Free Coffee Shop Advertising. Here’s what you get: a FREE listing on Yelp, the ability to upload a ton of information and photos of your coffee shop, a link to your website, and FREE customer testimonials!Here’s how to start Yelping:1. Go to www.Yelp.com and search for your business. You may already be there. If you are listed and didn’t set it up, you’ll have to unlock your page. Under your listing there will be a link that says “Is this your business”. Click on that. [If you are not listed on yelp, skip to step 4.]2. Next click on “Go to Step 1” to begin unlocking your page. You’ll need to fill out a quick form to setup an account.3. After you setup your account on Yelp, you’ll need to authenticate your account by phone. You will get an automated phone call and you will need to enter the provided pin number which will unlock your account. [Skip to Step 5]4. To setup a new account, go to Yelp.com/business and click on “Get Started” to setup a new account. Follow the step by step instructions for setting up your business page on Yelp.5. After adding or unlocking your account, you’ll be able to post all of your contact information, business hours, upload images, add menus, coupons, promotions and more. You’ll also be able to reply to customer reviews and will have access to traffic stats and graphs.Good Luck and Happy Yelping!!==========================================================================Aaron C. Daywitt is the President of Effective Media, Inc. and specializes in targeted online promotional product stores like Coffee Shop Promos where they provide quality printed coffee mugs to coffee shops all over the United States. For more information visit www.coffeeshoppromos.com or www.emipromos.com.
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