Eileen Dooley is a talent and leadership development specialist, and a leadership coach, based in Calgary.
Consumers are increasingly being asked to write Google reviews for everything from hotel stays and massage services to café purchases. Many businesses even offer incentives for writing these online reviews, such as a discount off your next purchase.
Given that consumers increasingly consult online reviews before buying a product or services, it’s easy to understand why companies are encouraging their customers to provide feedback.
Still, I was surprised to learn that some employers in the highly competitive food services industry are also using online reviews to evaluate their employees. Managers aren’t just looking for feedback on customer experience, but on specific employees, mainly servers. In some cases, workers say there are quotas requiring specific positive mentions by name per shift. Failure to meet this quota may result in disciplinary action. When I started to look at reviews more closely, I started to notice names.
To me, this practice takes management-driven performance reviews to a whole new low and level of lazy.
Consider that anyone can write a Google review, even without experiencing the service. Right now, I can write a Google review for a friend working at a restaurant I’ve never been to, saying their service was exceptional. I can also ask 20 friends to do the same. I can also decide to write a negative review, again having never been to the restaurant. If someone had a bone to pick with a server that had nothing do to with their job, this would be an easy way to do it.
I have a friend who has created hundreds of e-mail accounts to pepper his Google reviews with positive comments for his family business, giving the impression that these were genuine happy customers when, in fact, it was the owner managing the messages and pushing all negative reviews to the bottom.
It begs the question: Why would an employer use Google reviews to measure performance when the comments are far from an accurate representation of the actual service provided?
As most consumers know by now, online reviews need to be taken with a grain of salt. We don’t know the source, since many online names are more monikers or nicknames. We also don’t know what the reviewer’s headspace is at the time they’re typing their feedback, if they have an axe to grind or if they were even there.
Also keep in mind what the review actually involves in some cases: While a server could get a four out of five, the food might get one out of five. In other words, even if the service was great, if the food was bad, the customer isn’t likely coming back.
So, instead of scrolling though online reviews, managers could do the old-fashioned thing and pay attention to how their employees are performing in real time. Filling water glasses, helping a customer choose an item, being pleasant and helpful are pretty good indicators of job performance. Managers can also say hi to patrons and ask how everything is. If there is a problem, I’m sure the patron will say something.
And when it comes time to provide their assessment, managers should be constructive: What are the three great things the employee is doing and where’s one area where they could improve? Encouraging ongoing good performance is just as important as pointing out areas of improvement. Remember, you are evaluating the next generation workforce – this job may sustain them while they finish school or find their first career job. Help them learn employee best practices and have examples you have witnessed to back up any criticism.
If the business is repeatedly getting poor reviews, maybe it has more to do with management than people working on the front line. In most cases, employees perform based on how they were trained and make use of what they have in terms of support and resources. It doesn’t take much to run a business poorly, but it takes a lot to run one efficiently, with positive customer and employee experiences. You don’t need a Google review to figure this out.