"The Laoguang Dining Hall under the overpass is so delicious, and the rating is only 3.9" "This kind of small restaurant has two brushes"... Open various review software, restaurants often have a rating, the high one can reach 4.9, the low one Basically between 3.0 and 4.0. For a long time, online restaurant ratings have been an important guide for many food lovers when dining out. However, recently, a "reverse check-in" trend has become popular among young people: not only ratings, real food photos, food discovery, real-time reviews, but also exploration of low-rated restaurants and sharing experiences on social media.
What are the differences between restaurant ratings? What are the treasures in "low-scoring restaurants"? What are the new changes in consumer preferences?
No longer just look at ratings when dining
Open the map software or review software and search for nearby restaurants. You can see the various restaurants in the surrounding area and their comprehensive ratings at a glance. The composition of these ratings often includes three items: taste, environment, and service. So why did the trend of "checking in" at low-scoring restaurants rise?
The environment is simple but the food tastes good. Han Xiaoxiao, who lives in Changsha, Hunan, said that compared with the "high-end" high-scoring restaurants, although the conditions of low-scoring restaurants are average, many dishes taste good and the dining atmosphere is relaxed. "In the past few years, I have found that many Internet celebrity-style restaurants with high scores have good photo backgrounds, but the dishes are flashy, and they lose their appeal over time. On the contrary, there are some low-scoring restaurants that open in nooks and crannies and rely entirely on their craftsmanship to attract repeat customers." Han Xiaoxiao told the author that in Changsha, he had been to dozens of such small shops. Some only had three tables and no signboards, but the rice noodles in the shop had an authentic old-fashioned taste.
Stores with low scores have short queue times and high value for money. "The queues at popular restaurants are so tiring! I recently went to eat at an internet celebrity restaurant. I arrived at 4:30 pm and waited in line for 30 to 40 minutes without getting a meal. Then I simply went to a nearby mutton-shabu restaurant. Don't look at the ratings. , but I feel good after eating it." Zhang Hongxue, a girl from Chongqing, said that she is traveling in the Northeast, and tasting local specialties is one of her main goals. "It is necessary to eat happily and richly, and cost-effectiveness is particularly important. For example, when eating On the premise of enjoying authentic food, it is good if the per capita price is less than 70 to 80 yuan, but it is not cost-effective if it exceeds 120 yuan per capita.”
Some "high-scoring restaurants" are not of good quality. Many young people who are keen on "reverse check-in" said that in order to get high ratings on the platform, some stores often give away drinks, snacks, etc. in exchange for consumers' five-star praise, but their dishes and services do not meet the corresponding standards. Wang Tao, who lives in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, believes that this behavior is just a strategy for merchants to deal with the platform mechanism. Rather than free snacks and drinks, I hope my consumption is worth the money. "Simple scores and vague comments cannot fully reflect the characteristics of a restaurant. After all, only those who eat have the right to speak, and everyone will still 'vote with their feet.'" He said that some platforms require users to upload their consumption vouchers to the restaurant before Reviews can be posted, which helps ensure their authenticity.
However, some people insist on using the overall rating as the main basis for dining. Xiang Jin, a college student in Kunming, Yunnan, said that he often goes out for dinner with friends. In fact, everyone still cares about store ratings. Generally, stores with a score of less than 4 will not be easily tried. “If I see a restaurant with low ratings due to hygiene or service, I won’t go there no matter how high or low it is. But having said that, if I encounter a restaurant with high quality but low ratings, I won’t hesitate. Recommend it to your friends and give it a like," Xiang Jin said.
Ordinary restaurants are rediscovered
What is the difference between a rating of 4.5 and a rating of 3.5? What is the mechanism for generating ratings?
The relevant person in charge of Dianping told the author that the store rating stars displayed on the platform are generated through calculations based on user reviews and are not a simple arithmetic average. On Dianping, nearly 60% of merchants scored between 3.5 and 3.9. In fact, 3.5 is an average merchant rating. The content integrity, time, quality, and quantity of reviews are influencing factors. The platform will evaluate merchants based on these factors and reflect the relative level of merchants in similar categories through star ratings.
According to reports, in 2023, Dianping will use hundreds of risk control models to investigate and clean up fictitious reviews and suspected induced reviews, and severely punish merchants who induce violations. At the same time, through government-enterprise cooperation, it will actively promote civil litigation, administrative penalties, and criminal prosecutions for fraudulent orders and credit fraud. Crack down on other cases. “We have also invested in traffic and other resources through platform operation activities to attract more young consumers to experience and share reviews at Treasure Stores, helping merchants accumulate from 0 reviews or very few reviews to at least 15 reviews, enriching users’ reviews The demand for finding restaurants also attracts more people to dine in the stores," the person in charge said.
In the latest evaluation rules released by Meituan in October 2023, it is clearly stated that evaluations generated by users with non-real experiences or evaluations generated by interference from merchant interests will be regarded as "false evaluations." For example, evaluations of the merchant published by the merchant and its relatives, friends, business partners, employees and other stakeholders; evaluations generated by receiving free meals, drinks, gifts, discounts, draws and other benefits from the merchant, etc. The platform will not display such content.
Luo Lin, who works in Beijing, always checks the reviews on review software before going out to eat. Whether it's hot pot, barbecue or stir-fry, she usually chooses a restaurant with a score of 4 or above. However, this standard is not absolute.
"My colleagues have been praising an Anhui Pan Noodle restaurant with a rating of 3.5 and recommended me to try it. I went there once and it was really good. This made me realize that the quality of a restaurant cannot be judged based on scores alone. If there is food that I want to eat, With a comfortable environment and reasonable prices, I will still go there even if the score is low." Luo Lin said that the catering service industry needs to continue to develop and change, and young people's "reverse check-in" is a manifestation of consumer confidence and consumption tolerance. For restaurants with average ratings or low-scoring restaurants, it is an opportunity to be seen again and follow up on service; it is also a spur for high-scoring restaurants, motivating them to continue to innovate and better serve consumers.
The competitive landscape will not remain static
In fact, before being "reverse clocked" by young people, "low-scoring restaurants" also had their own way of survival. During the interview, the author found that many small street shops often have a fixed customer base. Regular customers are not used to writing online reviews, and merchants do not rely on online traffic to expand business. Some reviews on the review software pointed out the reasons for the low ratings of these restaurants, such as "the store layout is simple", "some seats are not arranged in a reasonable space", "the service is average", etc.
At the same time, high and low scores are not set in stone. With the rapid development of the mobile Internet, more and more small stores with average scores have begun to stand out and become consumers' "new favorites" by continuously improving their operating standards.
"We have been doing catering in Zhuzhou for more than ten years, and this is a new brand." Mr. Peng, the person in charge of Hoshinoya Restaurant in Zhuzhou, Hunan, said that the new store has been open for more than a year and has a score of only 3.6. Later, I posted an evaluation code on the dining table. Compared with the past process of opening the software and searching the name of the restaurant before evaluating, consumers who dine in the restaurant can just scan the code to fill in their evaluation of the restaurant. Mr. Peng said that in order to better serve consumers, he and his colleagues made many adjustments based on the suggestions in the reviews. After some hard work, the new store attracted more customers, and its score increased from 3.6 points in June last year to 4.4 points in January this year.
Hong Yong, an associate researcher at the E-Commerce Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, believes that "reverse check-in" is a trend worthy of recognition for the catering industry and will help promote healthy competition in the industry. “On the one hand, high-scoring restaurants tend to have high expectations, while low-scoring small stores have lower expectations, making it easier for consumers to experience unexpected surprises; on the other hand, young people have strong curiosity about new things. People like to use reverse thinking to find unique delicacies that have been ignored by everyone." Hong Yong said that "reverse check-in" will help the diversified development of the catering market and promote restaurants of different types and different positioning to win by improving their own characteristics and services. Customers favor it. At the same time, this will also help encourage merchants to pay more attention to offline reputation building, and relevant e-commerce platforms to innovate and optimize service methods.
How to promote the better development of the catering industry and life service platforms under the "reverse check-in"? Hong Yong suggested that relevant parties should continue to improve the evaluation system and introduce more diversified evaluation criteria so that consumers can obtain more three-dimensional and comprehensive merchant information. In this process, the platform should actively use big data and AI technology to achieve intelligent screening and personalized recommendations, ensuring that all types of merchants can be displayed fairly and meet the personalized needs of users. At the same time, it is necessary to open channels for self-improvement for low-scoring merchants, provide data analysis reports and improvement suggestions, and help them improve service quality and brand image.
(People's Daily Overseas Edition Wang Junling and Zhou Qian)