Ask George: Restaurants make mistakes. But have we devolved to the point that diners expect free stuff every time there’s a slip-up? Sally S., St. Louis
We may be getting close to that point and here’s the reason why.
In the old days, compensation was gauged on the severity of the restaurant’s mistake. If a hamburger got overcooked, the customer received a properly cooked burger and was charged for it. Nothing else was expected.
Nowadays the dining public is more sensitive, more demanding, more powerful, and more willing to flex its collective muscle. Using the same analogy, today’s customer not only would expect a new burger, they'd expect it to get comped, and then some. And the restaurateur complies, lest (s)he or the restaurant get lambasted on social media.
Social media...that’s the difference. Word of mouth could hurt you; social media can bury you.
Like it or not--and fair or not—many of today’s restaurant decisions are made using social media (Urbanspoon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable) as the sole criterion. I’ve done so many times myself, especially when traveling. The information is easily accessible and begging to be utilized.
Ever since Google bought Zagat (the user-generated restaurant rating company) two years ago, a restaurant’s Zagat score has appeared immediately after its Google listing. Such an in-your-face notation is pretty hard to ignore and restaurant owners know that.
Different studies have measured the impact of Yelp, another user-generated rating service. One study found that “a half-star change in the positive direction will make a restaurant 30-40% more likely to sell out seats for evening dinner reservations.” Another study showed that “a one-star increase in Yelp rating leads to a 5-9 percent increase in revenue.”
Restaurants can therefore no longer afford to upset a customer, any customer. Restaurant owners now feel they must kowtow to every customer demand, reasonable or not. Every customer is viewed–and correctly so—as a potential Yelper, Zagat contributor, etc.
In the example above, if today's restaurateur senses any collective malaise, (s)he may comp the entire table a round of desserts, just to send the group away on a positive note…and hoping like hell the experience isn’t recreated an hour later on Yelp.
