Fast Casual: Six Ways Brand Reputation Affects Online Orders

Restaurateurs have long known that their businesses live and die on their reputations. This is even more true in today's highly connected digital world. As technology makes it easier for your customers to order online, it also makes it more important than ever to manage your restaurant's reputation.

Here are six primary reasons:

1. Most online purchases start at a search engine. Adweek says that 60 percent of purchases made online start with a search on Google, Bing! or some other search engine. This is especially true for restaurants without apps for online ordering or those with web addresses (url) that are not 100-percent intuitive. Keep in mind that when potential customers look for your website online, they will also see a lot of other web results for that search term, and remember, everybody gets a voice on the internet. It pays to ensure that what they're saying about your restaurant is positive.

2. Ratings and reviews are often what people see about your restaurant first online. If you search via Google for your restaurant, it's quite likely that restaurant review site listings for your establishment on Yelp, AllMenus or TripAdvisor will show up first or immediately after your site in the results.

Your Google My Business page will also usually show up atop the list with reviewers' ratings, as well. In short, reviews are often the first thing customers and potential customers see online when they search for your brand. Naturally, while positive reviews can bolster customers' confidence about ordering from you, largely negative review results may send them away, possibly for good.

3. Good reviews are great advertising. According to Moz, two out of three people say online reviews influence their purchases. When potential customers see mostly positive reviews, it can be key in their decision to order from you online, instead of one of your competitors. This is called the social proof effect and it underlines the fact that when we don't have a lot of context about the quality of something, others' opinions of the product or service can greatly affect our purchasing behavior.