With the popularity of online restaurant review platforms growing more than ever before, it has made almost everyone a potential food critic.
And today, it is not just about the food that is served. Customers take home an experience to pen down about the hospitality, service and also the attitude of the management.
A play of numbers in rating restaurants is fast taking the front seat and customers are becoming more and more choosy on which restaurant to head to.
“It is important to give a second thought on the source credibility. And even better is to go by one‘s own experience. That‘s what I always do,” says Neetha Bhoopalam, a food consultant.
She points out that she mostly use these portals as a food directory to search for a restaurant and not really look for the reviews that a particular restaurant has received.
“There are times when some restaurants call food bloggers to review a place. In such a scenario, the conversion rate of positive reviews are high. This might mislead other customers as sometimes the service of the same restaurant can be different,” she says.
However, she also highlights that there are other bloggers who pro-actively visit these places and pen-down an honest opinion.
Anoop Verma, owner of ‘Aioli Hospitality Consultant’ says, “I respect the knowledge of reviewers but most of the time their take on the restaurants collide with a restaurants’ idea of serving a food in a certain way. Especially with people who are trying out a dish for the first time.”
He explains, “These reviews definitely influence a lot of people in case the reviewer has a large number of followers.
In such cases, it is important to understand that cuisine and what goes into it.”
Deena Pinto, a software professional and a lifestyle blogger, opines that most reviews on these portals are biased and not everything that’s written is true.
“A personal opinion about a certain place can ruin an ordinary customer’s experience and the eatery’s name at large. Many restaurants do improve themselves after a couple of negative reviews, so I feel these portals should have the option to remove the old negative feedbacks, so people are not influenced by them. After all, a restaurant does everything possible to make an experience worth remembering,” she says.
