State of the ReviewAn Analysis of Online Reviews & Reviewer Behavior for the Restaurant Industry by Reputology.com Copyright 2012 by Reputology Smashwords Edition... The purpose of the r
Trang 1State of the Review
An Analysis of Online Reviews & Reviewer Behavior for the Restaurant Industry
by Reputology.com
Copyright 2012 by Reputology
Smashwords Edition
Trang 2The purpose of the report is to help businesses better understand trends in online reviews and how it is impacting their business In case you are wondering, the data comes from 1,500+ reviews for 350+ business locations that we’ve been monitoring
Before we delve deep into the details, let’s establish some baseline facts:
The average restaurant receives about 1 new review every week Though the majority of reviewers give good ratings, on average, over 1 in 3 of those reviews is lukewarm if not flat out negative, i.e 3 stars or less
Trang 3As you probably expect, Yelp is the review directory that generates most of the reviews at 53% That said, the other half is coming from the other review sites, like Google + Local, Foursquare, TripAdvisor, etc
Trang 4Independents Get 185% More Reviews, Chains May Suffer
One of the biggest differences is the average number of reviews received by restaurant chains versus those received by “independents” (defined in this study as having 4 locations or less) It’s unclear why the magnitude of the discrepancy is as large as it is, nearly double But the fact that independents get more seems reasonable because reviewers are trying to help other diners get information about previously unknown local businesses And they might not feel this same need for the chains
The difference in average ratings is actually comparable (with independents edging chains by 0.16 stars), but the difference in sheer review volume is problematic for restaurant chains because the algorithms on directories favor businesses with more reviews and more diners are going online to find a place to eat There may be also algorithm biases towards businesses that receive more 5 stars, and this distribution data shows chains are less likely to “Wow” their customers (6% less 5 stars) and more likely to disappoint (2% more 1 stars) See below
Trang 5Opportunity in Google + Local
The review distribution by directory looks similar But there is a noticeable difference in the percentage
of reviews received from Google + Local Specifically, the percentage for independents is more than double that for chains (13% vs 6%) It’s unclear why this is, but potentially, if Google is able to chip away at the traffic going to Yelp and TripAdvisor, this could prove to be a benefit for independents
Restaurant Type & Cuisine Also Impacts Reviewer Behavior…
To read the entire “State of the Review” report, you can download it FREE at
Reputology.com/state_of_the_review