How to Manage Online Customer Reviews

These days, it seems like everyone is a food critic. Once thought of as a job for professionals requiring years of experience and palette refinery, not to mention a thorough understanding of restaurants and cooking, the craft of "critiquing" has boiled down to, in some cases, a few online sentences denoting a restaurant as good, great, bad or really bad.

For better or for worse, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Zagat and other online user review sites are here to stay, just as social media continues to become the wave of the future. While mainly restaurant critics still find themselves gainfully employed, the millions of posts by the everyday consumer can overrun their words.

Looking at it another way, online user review sites are more than just a soapbox for some and a wannabe restaurant critic space for others. Their larger purpose has been, in a very positive way, to serve as a digital suggestion box for restaurant management. These sites are the eyes and ears of the most important person in the restaurant world: the guest. In short, if you're doing everything right -- your food is good, your service is top-notch, your house is clean and running smoothly -- you'll get great reviews. If you're getting negative reviews, it's time to take a closer look at your restaurant.