How Offline Thinks About Reviews

The Gist:

The Why:
In today's world, we expect reviews to be a part of our decision-making process for virtually anything. They help us decide where to eat, what to order, and which places to avoid.

The problem is that local restaurant owners (who are already stressed and overworked) are overwhelmed with hundreds of reviews across a million different sites—Google, Yelp, OpenTable, DoorDash, Uber Eats, TripAdvisor—the list goes on.

At Offline, we try to balance this problem. We aspire to be a product where Members can explore what others think about a restaurant—tips, recommendations, hints, even jokes—without becoming just another platform where restaurant owners have to constantly manage and respond to public feedback and negativity.

Here’s how we do it. When a member leaves a 4 or 5-star review, we display it by default. These reviews help Members explore the nuances of any given restaurant. But if a member leaves a 3-star or below review, we take a different approach. We redirect their feedback directly to the restaurant and follow up with the member to see how we can make their experience better. This ensures that any negative experience is flagged privately for the restaurant, without airing grievances in public.

This "praise in public, criticize in private" principle guides our approach.

But doesn’t this create the risk that a terrible restaurant could slip through the cracks and be falsely promoted as one of the best? No. Any restaurant on Offline must maintain an average rating of 4 stars or higher from our Members to stay with us. If they don’t, we have a candid conversation with the restaurant to either fix the issue or part ways.

So when you use Offline, you can trust that every restaurant we work with is genuinely delivering positive experiences, and if something does go wrong, you can count on us to have your back.