Reputation Management was previously seen as a higher-level effort where corporations avoid bad news stories, boycotts etc. which can harm sales and profitability. This can include fallout from disgruntled employees, court cases, politics and all sorts.

Review KPIs

These days most (if not all) retail stores including food and drink outlets have weekly or monthly KPIs based around Google Reviews and in some cases similar sites such as TripAdvisor.

Store Managers are under pressure to receive x new reviews each week or month, and/or to achieve and maintain a minimum star rating. Typically involves a league table comparing regional locations.

This means when you look at a lot of Google Reviews for places such as Starbucks, Costa Coffee and the like, they pretty much all have a 4 star rating or higher. Less people leave Google Reviews than in the past. Whats going on?

Just 5 years ago, high-volume food outlets typically ranged between 2.3 and 3.8. Less than 1 percent of people ever leave a review.

Positive Reviews

People gave glowing reviews because the barista remembered their name and order, the drink was perfect, positive messages written on the cup which lifted their mood, the barista smiled at them, barista flirted with them and service was quick. 

Negative Reviews

People gave scalding reviews when things didn't go so well... when there was a big queue, when toilets were dirty, when the drink was made incorrectly, when drink too long to be made, when overcharged, when tables weren't cleared and when food wasn't fresh. 
People naturally complain more than they praise, especially when they need to take action to do so.

Staff Pressured

To achieve a consistent flow of favourable reviews means staff are pressured into leaving fake reviews, or getting friends or family members to do so. This sometimes is just a star rating without any text based review.

Fake Reviews

Unfortunately, it bursts that nice praise vibe when named baristas in reviews are written by themselves, a colleague, a relative or friend, not a stranger giving a barista much needed recognition.

Statistically the only people that would name drop are those that cannot see the flirting or warm customer service as transactional and have dreamt up a sort of relationship with the person.

Reviewer Names

Despite wearing name tags many people won't remember unless they are looking to complain.

This means - bearing in mind names can also be fictitious or non-personal - many of the names leaving Google Reviews are the full names of staff members, partners or relatives.