I hate them. I wish they would expire after some reasonable period and disappear (both good and bad) as a review for a restaurant that is from 2 years ago is meaningless.
We take thousands of orders per year. On the major review sites (don’t want to name them so this thread does not come up in search). We might get a few dozen reviews in a year? So, between them we get about one review for every 500-600 orders and guess who tends to review?
I hate Zomato (Urbanspoon) review site and how they let anyone get away with defamatory posts.
We got one the other day where he said we had the worst pizzas in the area and that I was arguing with him that pizzas didn’t come from Italy, as well as other comments on the quality of ingredients. Total bullsh1t.
Also made a couple of other defamatory comments.
I challenged him to substantiate his claims on date of purchase and what was ordered so we can cross check on our POS. I called it a fabricated review or having the wrong place.
If nothing is received in the next week I will be talking to a solicitor to take defamation action against this guy. Sick of the creeps doing phantom reviews and making us look bad in the eye of the consumer.
I’m going out of the industry fighting mad 
I agree, bad reviews can be frustrating. On a busy night majority if not all customers will be satisfied but it just takes that one bad apple to get you down.
Best way to counter bad reviews is to get a bunch of positive reviews to bump it down. Start asking your best customers to write a review:)
The review sites call me all the time wanting me to advertise with them. I can understand why I would to pay/advertise with a company that will host negative comments about my business. …maybe when we as business owners have an option to review and rate customers not just a follow up comment. I don’t have hardly any negative reviews but they sting when I get them.
Reviews drive me absolutely nuts. I will see bad reviews on other peoples business and they get me as heated as if it was my own. Being a bit hyperbolic here, but I see a LOT of " Been going to this place for 30 years, always the best ever. Went last time and got 1.9 ounces of bacon instead of 2 ounces. Fuck this place, never eating here again." Obviously over the top but the general outline is there.
Yup… a few good reviews on top always help. Where I live Trip Advisor is #1 and Yelp #2 for the number of people using it. I can always use a good review in case any of you all happen to visit us. I am happy to visit your establishment as well when possible.
Bodegahwy, Please don’t take this the wrong way. I’ve found your comments and help to be extremely good hearted and beneficial to me on many occasions. However, I think the idea of asking for or swapping reviews is a bad idea. It seems as “fake” as the bad reviews that plague us.
I’m pretty proud of our reviews (4.5 out of 230+ on yelp), and (4.8 out of 70+ Google reviews) I find the key to getting good reviews is providing quality food, service and being humble when you make a mistake. I can’t count how many times we received a low review (1 - 3 star) for some reason I thought was a little ridiculous. Instead of responding harshly I bite my tongue, apologize and offer to make it up to them. Usually I’ll private message them first and then post a public response. Many many many times the person just wanted to be heard and often times re-adjust their review with a higher ranking based of my response.
Good luck!
Yup, me too… The whole thing makes me nuts. Never once had a response to a private message on the review websites though except once where we started communicating through FB.
My issue is not the times when we made a mistake. Heaven knows we all make them and in thousands of orders we are going to get something wrong once in a while. For the most part we get it right. If we know about the mistake we correct it right then. I have never had one of those scenarios turn into a bad review.
We have a 138 Facebook reviews, vast majority of them positive and even if you take out the 10 from friends and family that’s still a decent sample size. Now how many actually look at them compared to the more popular review sites, I don’t know. I don’t know how companies like yelp and urbanspoon will remain viable/profitable… sites like trip adviser I think have a lot more legitimacy than either of those two sites and quite frankly I don’t think yelp/spoon carry the same weight they used to have. I hope they both die a horrible death. Let me deal with FB rage, at least they leave embarrassing reviews that their friends/family/future employers can read.
You can also get rid of bad FB reviews most of the time and ban the people that write them all the time. Almost never on the other review sites.
Three bad reviews in a month, holy crap.
One we screwed up and after multiple private messages this guy has absolutely no forgivness.
Another it was her taste. These recipes were not made specifically for you, who gives a crap.
Another total B… She posted on Yelp, GrubHub and Goole Saturday and Trip Advisor Sunday.
Still trying to establish our name and this sure doesn’t help. Overall our rating is still good.
So, almost as karma I guess, I had this almost exact scenario play out today. Customer left a 1 star review, stated pizza is always excellent, except for last night. It was burnt. We never received a call, no chance to fix any issue, just straight to dropping that 1 star review. No 5 star review for every time the food has been awesome. Just shit all over me. I bend over backwards to fix any issue and make a customer happy, but you have to give me the chance.
How you reply to negative reviews can be very helpful…Accept the comment and tell the readers “you bend over backwards” to make it right…Next time, please let us know…Or something along those lines…
Oh I did, and always do, but per usual they disappear when I try and fix there complaint, just hit and run.
Glad you tried…I see too many replies that go to town on the reviewer and make the restaurant operator look bad…
That is certainly the temptation! Certainly is a good thing that the responses can be edited.
We got two 1* reviews on google last night. (I have not checked Yelp or Trip Advisor yet as I need to get in the right mood) They are from the same customer using two different names. They called and placed an order. The order was entered as a carryout. No address was even taken. Could it have been our mistake? Sure it could have. Maybe the customer intended to order delivery and said “to go” so our employee never asked for an address and the customer did not notice the omission?
Anyway, after a half hour or so we called the number the order was placed from several times with no answer. We cancelled the order from the system and threw out the pies at closing. It turns out the order was supposed to be delivery. Apparently they called after closing to ask where their two hour old order was and we did not answer. So bam! Two bad reviews for one simple issue.
They posted on yelp but i didn’t see one on Trip Advisor. I posted my review on both of those as well as google.
I am happy to post an honest review because I have actually been to your shop and had your pizza. I have pictures to prove it 
Ah the good ol “can I get an order to go” I learned long ago that to go has 2 meanings depending on who you are talking to. I have train my staff specifically to ask is it a pick up or a delivery when a customer asks for a to go order.
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We always ask when answering the phone before the customer has chance to say anything, Supremos, will this be for Pick-Up or Delivery? Rarely backfires because if they say Delivery, we verify their address we have in the system. However, every now and then you’ll get that customer that says “Take-away”. What the hell is that? Depending on where the customer grew up it could mean pick-up or it could mean delivery.
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All true on the training about order taking… but then there is turnover and we all know that it can come up again. I don’t know that that is what happened. Just that no address was taken. Too bad they did not answer the phone they placed the order with. One of the challenges for us is that visitors no longer use land lines in the rooms they are staying in. They tend to call on a cell phone and everybody in the party has one.
Thanks Daddio!