Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/103518
"It's not about saying I'm sorry, it's about acknowledging the issue at hand." —Shaun Nestor reinforce an important fact: Yelp can be a valuable tool for businesses looking to increase their revenue. Stephanie Zinser, owner of True Brew Barista, Concord, N.H., has been on the receiving end of three negative Yelp reviews. In two of the posts the authors, who appear to have visited the café together, criticize the taste and roast of the coffee served and the cafe's Wi-Fi policy. "FYI True Brew you offer free Wi-Fi—a standard in 2012— but you can't stretch to plugging in a laptop?" wrote one poster with a screen name of "Sophie B." Zinser said after reading the reviews she went back to her staff for more details. That is a move Shaun Nestor, an inbound marketing consultant at Never Mind Marketing in Seattle and a regular speaker at CoffeeFest, says was the best first step. "I wanted to know what prompted these out-of-towners to post a negative review," Zinser says. "So I asked my staff, 'What happened? Are their statements accurate?' I wanted to get to the bottom of this." Zinser typically limits the plugging in of laptops and cell phones after users have been sitting for long periods of time nursing one cup of coffee, as each of these visitors allegedly did. According to Nestor, a negative review is to be expected at some point. However, being preparing for that inevitability will speed the response time and show the author you're taking their complaint seriously. Nestor adds that business owners should have two or three pre-written responses which address a few different scenarios. "That will bring a clear communication across to that negative reviewer," he says. "It's not about saying I'm sorry, it's about acknowledging the issue at hand. Try something like, 'I'm sorry to hear about your experience ... let me look into this and get back to you ...'" While Liles attempted to reach her reviewer by phone, she was unsuccessful. Frustrated, she gave up and let the review stand. Zinser, however, did not contact the reviewers, saying that after talking with her staff, she better understood the full story and was satisfied with the outcome. "It was out-of-towners who had posted negative reviews of other places," she says. "If it was a local who had left the review I would have been more likely to respond, maybe had them come back for a free coffee or something. But here I didn't think it would do me any good. I didn't want to generate any more negativity." While Liles believes the Yelp review is not winning her any more out-of-town customers, Zinser says Yelp, along with Tips for dealing with a negative review Shaun Nestor, an internet/marketing expert and frequent speaker at Coffee Fest, offers three quick tips for dealing with a negative review. 1) Assess if this is a valid complaint/experience/review. 2) Respond to the reviewer/commenter. 3) Address any internal issues/policies/procedures that may need to be improved to prevent this from happening again. Social media expert and author Jason Falls offers his tips for turning a negative review in your favor. 1) Ask your fans to review you. 2) Start a blog where you contribute to the community of customers online with your expertise or other content that would appeal to your primary target audience. 3) Drive content on your social channels that empowers and recognizes your fans and customers. "Make sure there's a lot of positive out there to drown out any possibility of negative." —Jason Falls Facebook and Twitter, have been good for her business. Green Gables does not have a Facebook page or Twitter account. Instead, Liles says she primarily relies on networking with hotels and businesses to get referrals. And for the record, both businesses have gotten other positive Yelp reviews since the earlier negative posts. Zinser takes to Facebook at least once a day posting news about daily specials and, especially, on Fridays, news about that evening's band. When satisfied customers write in on Facebook, Zinser said she always "Likes" their comments. Here, Nestor suggesting going the extra mile. "To capitalize on good reviews, share them on other platforms. Use them on Facebook in status updates, write a blog post about the review, grab a photo of the reviewer next time they are in the shop and post it on the wall for everyone to read," Nestor encouraged. In the end, like it or not, social media isn't going away. So how can a cafe owner protect his or her company's reputation on these sites—assuming such a feat is possible? "You fight the negative by being positive," Falls says. "The search engines will pick up on what you do just as easily as they do on what someone else does. So make sure there's a lot of positive out there to drown out any possibility of negative." SCR 15