🍽️ ⭐ How To Handle 1-Star Reviews

Welcome back to yet another edition of "On The House" the newsletter that helps you crack the code of F&B.

Let's jump right in and whip up some excitement in the world of hospitality, shall we?

On today's quick and tasty menu:

• How To Handle 1-Star Reviews

• How Do You Take Your Artic Ice?

How To Handle 1-Star Reviews

One-star reviews are different, people do it for lots of reasons so before we start, here is the breakdown of the possible categories.

• You failed - service or food was really bad or even dangerous.

• Customer retaliates - either they want online attention or are highly uneducated

• Competition Tampering

Ok now that we have that out of the way let's dig in the categories.

You Failed

Everybody has a bad day, that’s normal. Now strap on and fix it. The best way to salvage your fuck up is to offer anything to make it right. We are not talking about wrong order here, we are talking about major fuck ups, like glass in a dish, raw chicken, you spilling wine on a customer, that kind of thing.

In most cases, generous compensation like a discount on a whole table or offering a free dinner next time to a customer should be enough but sometimes it just isn't.

So when the review comes, you own that shit and reply describing the situation what happened, and what you have offered to fix it. If the customer accepts your recovery and still leaves you a 1 ⭐ awesome you win there, people who read reviews are much more considerate than the ones who post. Please make sure this situation are isolated event, if you keep getting 1 ⭐ reviews on and on, for the same thing, you have major issues in your operation.

Customer retaliates

These kinds of situations are more often than not an escalation of some minor issue.
For example: your restaurant is reservation only and they show up at the door requesting a sit immediately. Not possible right?! But still, they get angry and threaten with a bad review. Let’s say in this case you did not accommodate this customer in RL, and you see a 1-star review. What do you?

Now assuming you are a well-oiled machine and you have your outlet info all over the place, take screenshots of all platforms and post them as a reply. Bonus points for you, because you just pointed out that the 1-star was unjustified and you made them pretty dumb so your next customers who are checking the reviews will feel smart

Competition Tampering

Unfortunately, this also happens, being that business is a competitive sport you ought to have some dirty moves from now and then.
It’s very hard to spot them but usually, it happens in preopening situations where your local competition leaves 1-star reviews to tamper your fresh rating and first impression.
One good thing about 1-star reviews is that you almost always remember them, so that is your first clue, if you don’t remember the customer it’s possible tampering. The second clue is a piggyback from another 1-star, which gives a better effect because it’s just after the real one.

As we mentioned it’s very hard to spot them and they are rare but still present.

The most important part for the end: stay true to yourself and own your mistakes whatever the review. The Internet can leave you with the illusion that everyone is perfect except you but it can’t be farther from truth.

How Do You Take Your Artic Ice?

Looking for a chill in your cocktail?
Imagine sipping on a drink atop a Dubai skyscraper with a cube of ancient glacier ice from Greenland floating in it. That's the idea behind Arctic Ice, a startup harvesting millennia-old ice from Greenland's fjords and shipping it to exclusive bars in the UAE. Co-founder Malik V Rasmussen boasts of its purity, slow melting, and lack of bubbles. Despite facing criticism for potential environmental concerns, Arctic Ice aims to offset its carbon footprint and contribute to Greenland's economic independence. By tapping into new revenue streams beyond fishing and tourism, Rasmussen hopes to reduce Greenland's financial dependence on Denmark. So, while some may question the practice, for Rasmussen, it's a cool business with a deeper agenda.

We tried to buy it but the company that sells it in Dubai called Artic Ice, says on their website that you can only preorder it and there is no price currently stated.

Honestly, we think people would rather drink it as water with a side of their cocktail rather than diluting their favorite drink. It’s like putting a cube of ice in 100-year-old whiskey, so why would you put whiskey in 100,000-year-old ice ?!

That’s a wrap for today’s edition, we know you got something out of it so drop a vote down below and forward it to your peers or share it on your social.

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Stay sharp and keep making waves!

Weekly Angry Chef Meme