Left a medicore restaurant review. Restaurant wants me to email them to discuss....what?

[roses2]

I went to a restaurant a few weeks ago. It was just alright, not as wow as I was expecting from the 4.6* Google reviews. My food was wrong, they returned it then the new meal was under cooked. DS wanted to order ice cream and the guy was in a rush and told DS "I will order you vanilla" when DS wanted a few seconds to think about what flavour after the man told him what they had.

It was £140 for 4 of us (2 adults & 2 kids). Not high end but not cheap either.

So I left 3* on Google and the restaurant posted back "please email us back to discuss".

I'm not sure I have anything else to say. It was in a village we went to visit for a day so I won't be back.

Does anyone ever reply? What do they want to discuss that I didn't already write about objectively in my review?

Ah, ok @LanaDeIRabies that has pleased me that it wasn't them. Irrelevant derail, I bought DD a satchel from Cambridge in the sale. For her 21st, and had her initials embossed. Only realised a couple of days later that I had given her old initials, she had recently changed name. Doh. All sale savings were wiped out in a mini break to the shop in Cambridge city centre, many many earth miles from where we actually live, while they re-embossed the initials. Fortunately, due to her middle name being the same initial as previous surname, they were able to add the correct end initial, and though it meant it was off centre, a bicycle embossing they also offer balanced it up. Entirely my fault. Guess what! I don't order things like that in a hurry now! My nerves won't stand another one of those!

In a reverse of this, we had a not great experience in a local gastro pub that we had always previously enjoyed. I know times are tough and it’s family run so rather than posting on trip advisor I emailed them directly because I thought maybe better for their business and if I didn’t say anything and get an explanation, we wouldn’t be going there again. Heard nothing, no acknowledgment whatsoever.
not going again and should have reviewed in Tripadvisor !

I left a negative review for a restaurant on their fb page and they blocked me 🤣🤣 i wasn't rude in the review just said that I dont recommended as they sent out a raw hunters chicken, not once but twice!!

Did they reply?

Not yet, its been 2 days since I emailed.

The point of reviews are for customers to see what the restaurant is like before visiting on one hand. And on the other for restaurants to see what they do well and what can be improved. That’s why they ask you to reply. It’s also to do with customer retention. If you left a 3 star review the restaurant may offer a voucher for you to try them again. Sometimes there are off days as in all work places. The idea is that they may offer you a voucher to come back and hopefully have a better experience. Also to determine areas of improvement for other customers.
it has nothing to do with offering bribes to remove reviews.

You are NBU. We recently went to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant for my birthday. Food and venu were shit! Toilets filthy, etc and his 'signiture' dish was awful and soggy! I am going to leave a bad review given it cost over £400 and I've had a better experience at the local carvery for £40 (same amount of people). Guess where we're 'not' going next year!

I’d email them and find out what they have to say, but I wouldn’t alter my review.

Oh dear, usual pattern

I will give them 10 days. If no response, even just to acknowledge my detailed feedback with the description of the impatient man in my email. I will update my review to say I emailed them but they didn't reply.

It makes a complete nonsense of the review system and is unfair on future customers. Surely you can see that?

I've been asked a couple of times to change poor reviews - I always edit them as requested but don't change my star rating.

I point out that I've been contacted and asked to improve a poor rating so any future customers might like to take this into account when reading their reviews!

Oh and I have most definitely been offered bribes to do so as well as moral blackmail that I was harming a small business ( from somewhere I wouldn't actually class as a small business)

I would have ignored them. Your plan as you have to give them ten days seems reasonable.

We have similar. The responses are hilariously offensive and paint the restaurant in a far worse light than the original review. It's hard to pick a favourite as there are so many.

But if you happened to be in Bushey, looking for an Italian and see one called Blue Check, you might like to filter the three star and below reviews on TripAdvisor....

Sorry to be disagreeable @Elphame reviews are strictly subjective, one persons thoughts are not necessarily another’s. One man’s restaurant trash is truly another man’s dining treasure. If the restaurant is concerned enough to offer a refund, I would suggest they aren’t complete bounders and do care about the customers issues. Unless you have evidence that this isn’t a one off, the restaurant has every right to ask to refund the diner in return for the review to be removed. They also have the option to refute the review online, which plenty do - probably with good reason.

Can I ask OP - did you give them the chance to rectify it there and then or just pay up and leave quietly then post your review?

I only ask because even though you had bad service if it's the latter then it's really a bugbear of mine

Can I ask OP - did you give them the chance to rectify it there and then or just pay up and leave quietly then post your review?

The first meal came out wrong. They took it back after I told them and the second meal was under cooked. I didn't want to send it back again as I had already been waiting long enough.

When taking dessert orders I asked the waiter to come back and I will order dessert when my son was ready. He didn't seem to want to and was trying to push my son into making a decision by telling him "I will bring you vanilla ice cream".

They had enough chances to rectify and I don't think I was unreasonable in not giving them unlimited chances to rectify.

Did I mention restaurants? I don't think I did!

@Elphame Erm, did you fall and hit your head, this whole thread is about restaurant reviews. My point remains, reviews are subjective, different people have different views, it’s the world we live in.

I did and got a £40 voucher. They didn't ask me to edit the review, they just seemed genuinely interested in improving .

I wouldn’t worry about it. I once left a scathing review for somewhere and told them I was doing it as I left the cafe. They added a comment on my review to say call them to discuss. I asked if it was the manager of the place I had been talking to because if it was, what was the point. I would discuss with Head Office though. No reply!
It is a well known chain, but my comments were justified. Never going back to that particular store again, so not worried.

I can see that you've emailed them OP but honestly I never rely on reviews. I don't know why anybody would!
Apart from removing negative reviews etc tas already discussed there are companies you can pay to write loads of good reviews. Especially with ChatGPT.
And, most people only bother reviewing when things are bad.
I've been to a fair few restaurants with 3* or below reviews, perfectly fine. Others with rave reviews where the food was plastic.

Of course If you're visiting a destination as a one off perhaps you can avoid being ripped off but I always ask real people...that I know.

@LanaDeIRabies - I was hoping it wasn’t Zatchels, I have two bags from them that still look brand new despite years of abuse and I was worried their standards had slipped as I was thinking about buying a third.

I always look at how places respond to reviews. A few negative reviews with a polite and courteous response from the business never bother me.

We have a fancy children’s play place near us. Since it opened I’d been thinking of going as it looked nice but something about their tone on social media seemed off so I’d never booked. Lo and behold they got their first few negative reviews (along with lots of positive) and they would post those reviews to their social media and complain people were trying to destroy their business. The reviews were polite but complained about the overbearing and unreasonable policies of the place which the owners in their responses would confirm were their policies.

After seeing a post one day complaining they weren’t getting enough customers, I politely messaged them to say I had been meaning to book but their use of social media to shame those with a less than positive experience and some of their policies had put me off. They sent me a tirade back about how fake reviews were ruining their business and they had every right to do XYZ. Then they sent another ranting message and blocked me. It was surreal. When they fail, it won’t be a surprise.

I think the reply you got was generic. Ass covering but does at least show they take reviews seriously/monitor them.

My friends and I had a weird experience at a restaurant a few years back. Various bad bits of service throughout the meal and then - at the end - over coffee and after dinner drinks in the bar, where we had been encouraged to go, they switched the lights off on us and other people in restaurant as well. It wasn’t even that late. 3 of us submitted Tripadvisor reviews mentioning this. The manager had a right go at us. No apology at all.