Nancy Kruse, Bret Thorn discuss online etiquette

In a monthly series, menu trend analyst Nancy Kruse and NRN senior food editor Bret Thorn debate current trends in the restaurant industry. For this installment, they discuss the state of online etiquette between customers and operators.

Step away from the digital device

Kruse Company president Nancy Kruse recommends taking a time-out before publicly venting.

You’d better duck, Bret, lest you be hit by one of the digital brickbats flying between disgruntled diners and raging restaurateurs. Until recently, cyber potshots were mostly the purview of patrons, many of whom barely waited for their plates to be cleared before taking to social media to air their unvarnished opinions of their dining experience.

Online reviews quickly became lightning rods for controversy, as offended operators charged that frequently they had more to do with grandstanding and grudges than with the meal itself. Be that as it may, social media has become a primary source of information or, as its detractors would argue, misinformation on restaurants. Yelp alone, which is less than a decade old, boasts a reported 100 million visitors per month and has become a fixture of the blogosphere.

Given the ubiquity, influence and accessibility of social media, it was only a matter of time before operators decided to give diners a taste of their own medicine. Long-simmering anger erupted publicly a few months ago when a restaurateur in Los Angeles posted and pilloried no-shows — consumers who’d failed to turn up for their Saturday night reservations — by providing their names along with some snarky commentary.

Shortly thereafter, the heat was turned up higher by a noted chef in Toronto, who also took to Twitter to put unruly patrons in their place. Using salty language, she suggested that the occupants of her dining room should either behave or be gone, and in subsequent interviews, she pooh-poohed the notion that the customer is always right. This last culinary kerfuffle led a local Canadian dining critic to decry what he sees as the rise of “dining aggression” and an escalating “culture war.”

Bret, I think we all need to step away from our digital devices for a moment. It’s an unfortunate fact of foodservice life that some consumers simply behave badly, but boors aren’t an invention of the Internet — they’ve always been around. It’s also true that all restaurants, and especially smaller independents, are negatively impacted by no-shows. It’s rude and it’s costly, but it’s nothing new. Smart operators have developed strategies to address criticism, whether online or in print, whether fair or foul, and seasoned operators also have guidelines for handling unpleasant behavior in their dining rooms and bars. But the availability and instant gratification of social media threatens to escalate these long-running issues into a Hatfields-and-McCoys level of acrimony.

It’s obvious that lots of diners don’t take a time-out before they unleash their feelings in cyberspace. Should operators show more restraint, or does social media level the playing field and allow them a legitimate, timely means of response? And what do you think all of this says about the state of hospitality in a digital dining world? 

Turn negatives into positives

The following is senior food editor Bret Thorn’s response to Kruse Company president Nancy Kruse’s take on online etiquette:

Nancy, I completely agree that we need to step away from our digital devices, especially if we’re considering making public declarations against people who are or may soon be paying customers.

If you need to blow off some steam, there are plenty of things you can do: Go to the gym, take up jazz dance, sing an angry song, knead some bread, butcher that half a hog hanging in the walk-in. Do not engage in public displays of aggression against the lifeblood of your business.

It’s true that social media gives would-be critics new and public platforms to express their opinions, regardless of whether those opinions are valid or not. It also gives restaurateurs the chance to publicly berate customers who seem unable to understand basic concepts of polite behavior, such as letting a host know if they’re not going to be able to show up at something they promised to attend.

But every interaction with any human being, whether in person or in cyberspace, is an opportunity. Using that opportunity to insult someone is probably the worst thing you can do with it, and “They started it,” is no excuse.

Many restaurants spend big money hiring secret shoppers to dine in their restaurants incognito to see what’s working and what isn’t. With Yelp and other forums for public expression, you have genuine, real-life customers giving you their opinions for free. That’s valuable data. It’s unfortunate that their negative comments are out there for the whole world to see, but as experienced front-of-the-house workers know, polite interaction with disgruntled customers can often turn a negative impression into a positive one. If a customer expresses displeasure about your restaurant while still dining there, you can intervene quickly to solve the problem. For example, simple technology exists to alert you via your smart phone when someone on Twitter and other social media platforms mentions your establishment.

If the comments go online after the fact, you have the luxury of taking a breath and calming down before responding. Take your hands off of your keyboard and relax. Think about what you want to say, then think about how you would react if someone were sitting across from you, looking in your eyes and saying the same thing. If you would be inclined to slap that person, then think of something else to say that would make that person more likely to accept your explanation and maybe come back to your restaurant and be reassured that whatever might have trouble them on the first visit was a fluke unlikely ever to be repeated again.

And, of course, make sure that they get great food and fantastic service on their next visit.

Instead of using social media to act on your impulse for revenge on mean commenters and no-shows, use it to interact in positive ways with current and future customers. My friend and colleague Mark Brandau has explored how to do that.

Instead of berating no-shows, who will not likely reform their ways but will very likely never consider eating at your restaurant again if you call them out publicly, let people nearby know that you have a table available. Tweet something like: “Hey, we have a table for four available right now!” and, possibly: “Come by for dinner and have a glass of wine on us.” It’s not an ideal solution, since you’ll likely lose precious time waiting for the no-shows to show, but it’s better than nothing. And it gives you something constructive to do rather than raging against people who shouldn’t be allowed into your psyche in the first place.

As for the state of hospitality in the digital dining world, well, it’s still a pretty new environment, and each of us has the opportunity to help shape it, however we’d like it to be.

Nancy Kruse, president of the Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta and a regular contributor to Nation’s Restaurant News. E-mail her at [email protected].

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary