On a weekly basis, I meet with the local social media community (@SMMOC) and we are constantly discussing the topic of online venting. I agree that it has become far too easy for people to take out their frustration on a restaurant for a single bad experience. In all fairness, it should be ok for every restaurant to have at least 1 bad day. I personally try to only leave yelp reviews for restaurants that I frequent or have been to more than twice. I am also a firm believer in not venting just to vent. Before I would ever leave a negative review for a business in the public eye I would write to the company via email. **Hint** Nine times out of ten this will get you an apology and a gift card to come back. On a scale of 1 (being the worst) to 10, the experience would have to be a -10 for me to leave a bad review. The reason for this is because I don’t want to diminish my online character/brand and be known as Joe from 333… a “complainer.”

However…

I agree with you that the business owner simply cannot respond that way. I have more empathy for Reuter because I’m familiar with the restaurant. But if I wanted to read a review and saw that, I’m pretty sure I would avoid it because he sounded like an [insert expletive].

You are correct that this is not the way to handle a customer complaint because it is too defensive and actually attacks the customer. That said, to simply take the attitude that the “customer is always right” is probably not the best approach all of the time. Here, the manager would be giving the message to other customers reviewing the site that the customer was indeed treated that way for those reasons or that his complaint about the food prices were valid. The customer either had an anomalous experience there or he’s a whiner.

Reuter should have said it all more diplomatically and left some things out. A better tone would have been, “I’m sorry for your experience. I don’t believe any of my staff or the valets would ever behave that way, but I assure you I will look into it. We have customers of all kinds in all kinds of dress, etc…” I would not have been so sarcastic about the prices and the value of the property on the water. Instead, I would have pointed out that the price points are actually very good and consistent, or better, than comparable restaurants in the Newport area (emphasizing “Newport”). And, I would have noted that there are a lot of repeat customers because their dishes, particularly the appetizers, are often complimented there (This is my personal opinion about the food but I’m sure he’s been told by others. In fact, I go there for the food and stay there for the people-watching).

Anyway, I agree with you that if a business is going to have a website, it needs to keep it current, have someone check on it daily or every other day, and respond with better customer diplomacy.