Many restaurant owners worldwide struggle with how to get feedback from their customers. Soliciting feedback is crucial for improving your business, and getting positive online reviews is essential for boosting your local SEO and sales.

However, many customers are reluctant to leave reviews or participate in feedback surveys because it’s not always convenient for them.

We’ll cover how to solicit feedback from your customers and how to get customers to write online reviews

1. Incorporate surveys into your WiFi network

Many restaurants provide their guests with free WiFi, and if yours is one of them, you’re in luck—it’s a great way to solicit feedback.

Your WiFi network presents you with an opportunity to gather feedback from your customers in two different ways:

1. Ask customers to create an account with their email address to access the WiFi and use that to send them a quick feedback survey.
2. Or simply give them the survey after they connect to the network.

2. Hand out paper feedback cards

Most of your customers wouldn’t have a problem with getting a small card requesting their feedback when their server drops off their check. It’s a simple, cost-effective way to solicit customer feedback on the spot—just don’t go overboard with too many questions.

Here are some examples of simple questions to solicit feedback from your customers:

• How would you rate our service?
• How were the menu options?
• How was your meal?
• How often do you dine with us?
• How could we create a better experience for you in the future?

3. Place QR codes around your restaurant

QR codes are an easy way to solicit feedback from your customers without making them feel obligated or uncomfortable.

There are a variety of ways you can utilize QR codes to link your customers to a feedback survey. For instance, you could add QR codes to your table tents, specials board, and receipts. If you’re using paper feedback cards like we mentioned above, you can also print a QR code on them. That way, if your guest doesn’t want to leave feedback right away, they can snap a picture of the code and complete it when it’s convenient for them.

4. Ask customers to leave feedback on your social channels

Communicating with your customers on social media is one of the most cost-effective ways to solicit feedback. The majority of your customers are likely to be active on one or more platforms, and it doesn’t cost you anything to participate in their conversations.

You can answer questions, respond to reviews, and engage with your guests to get real insights into how they feel about your restaurant. And when you solicit feedback with your other strategies, you can also encourage them to leave a review on your social media profiles.

5. Offer customer incentives

One reason that it can be a challenge to solicit feedback from your customers is that they may not want to take time out of their busy day to complete a survey or leave a review. Offering them a reward for their feedback is a highly effective way to encourage your customers to respond.

Restaurants trying to solicit customer feedback have plenty of options to offer incentives. For example, you can offer your customers a free drink or discounts on an appetizer, entree, or dessert in exchange for their honest feedback about your business.

6. Host contests or promotions on social media

Most of your customers won’t mind taking some time to give you feedback or leave an online review if you give them the chance to win something for their efforts. Unlike offering incentives to everyone who you solicit feedback from, you can offer a big prize that only a select number of people will receive.

That means you can offer something like a free meal to entice a large number of your customers to give you their feedback—the cost of giving out a free meal or two is trivial when you’re getting feedback from hundreds of your customers in exchange.

7. Use an online reputation management platform

If your goal of soliciting feedback is to generate more positive reviews of your restaurant, using online reputation management software is one of the best ways to do it. Not only can a platform like Localyser help you solicit feedback from your customers, but it also makes monitoring and responding to your online reviews easy.

Get started with Localyser to monitor your reviews from across the web, respond to customer feedback with a single click, and generate more positive reviews to increase your average rating, boost your local SEO, and increase your sales by up to 9%.

‍