Frances/Reviews

We decided to look at the reviews from the elites’ of Yelp to get more trusted and in depth opinions on Frances, a newer restaurant to the San Francisco area. Yelp’s elite squad is comprised of “Yelpers” with a high quantity of quality reviews that applied and were selected by Yelp. The reviews for Frances are generally good with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5. We decided to look at a 2, 3, 4, and a 5-star review from the elites’ and wanted to critique a 1 star review, but no elites’ reviewed it as such.

These reviewers, being elites’, are people who are passionate about getting their opinions, suggestions, and complaints read by as many people as possible. Judging by each of their pages, they all thoroughly enjoy food and have reviewed several restaurants. Most of the reviewers are from San Francisco (where Frances is located), but there are also many reviews from people around the world.

Common complaints that showed up in most of the reviews stated that there was a lack of space, long wait time, overcrowding, and below par house wine. The 2-star review by Jean K. said that the small restaurant had lost its neighborhood feel because it was “packed”. One reviewer, Helen T., claimed that there was a 3 month waiting period for reservations for dining room seating and she had to wait for an hour and 10 minutes to get a seat at the bar.

One of the reviewers, Nancy L., put on her profile “I yelp because I care”. This statement shows the passion of the selected reviewers. To reiterate our previous point from the second paragraph, these reviewers want their opinions heard so they can help people make more informed decisions about whether or not to go to this restaurant. A hidden reason a person may post a review about a restaurant is if they had a bad experience at the restaurant, they may want to keep as many people from going to that place as possible.

A marketer that wanted to take advantage of these reviews could gather that the restaurants customer base/ demand for seating is too large for the location. This presents an opportunity and a complication. Frances has the opportunity to expand to a larger location but risks losing more of the neighborhood feel and losing some of the local regular customers if they change locations. With the large amount of highly rated reviews by customers, it seems that Frances is meeting most of the wants and needs of their customers.

http://www.yelp.com/elite