When it comes to how customers perceive restaurants, reputation starts with expectation.
That’s the lesson learned by Avi Goren, who co-founded the digital hospitality software provider Marqii, which he is also CEO of. During a panel at the 2025 Food on Demand Conference, Goren expanded on how expectations play a major role in what customers will tell restaurants.
“When you said what your hours were, are those accurate?” Goren said. “When you share a menu item online, is that available? Those are the expectations you set before that guest comes into your restaurant and orders from you. They will tell you whether their expectations were met, exceeded or failed. That’s when we get into the nitty gritty of what reputation management can do. We all make mistakes. It’s how you own those mistakes.”
One of the services Marqii provides to assist with those mistakes is automated responses to reviews and feedback given by customers online. However, Goren said it’s more complex than just the software giving a simple statement.
“There are many ways you can leverage AI,” Goren said. “If it’s leveraging its ability to go through data and find clear-cut takeaways, great. When it comes to how you’re engaging with your guests and the thoughtfulness behind that, though, we take a one-two approach. We have humans on the back end at Marqii all checking and approving anything coming through the review response service.”
Joining Goren on the panel was Brittany Mercer, director of marketing at Cowboy Chicken, and Sam Stanovich, senior vice president of franchise development at Craveworthy Brands. When asked about her perspective on reviews by moderator Andy Freivogel, CEO of Science on Call, Mercer said reputation is handled on both sides of the cash register.
“For us, it isn’t just about the guests, it’s also about our employees and getting feedback from them,” Mercer said. “Reputation management really has to be included in your culture. So, we have a created a survey we give out to our employees to get that feedback.”
As for the customer-facing side of the equation, Mercer said review monitoring hasn’t just been a way to manage Cowboy Chicken’s reputation, but also provides the fast-casual chain a brand awareness opportunity as well.
“We looked into keywords from our reviews because we wanted to know what people love about us and what they were saying consistently,” Mercer said. “One of those keywords was ‘family meal,’ which is something we offer. We took that and added it to our Google SEO, and we’re already seeing a return on that.”
In addition to those benefits, Stanovich said this type of engagement gives potential to highlight more of a brand’s wins with customers.
“A lot of this is born out of negativity,” Stanovich said. “With the new tools out there, we should ask, ‘how do we celebrate the positives?’ We have many more positive experiences that go on in our restaurants every day. We do that and use it as motivation for our teammates, while using our negative reviews to correct service areas and grow from there as well.”
While new technology assists the management process, Stanovich said it doesn’t replace building genuine connections with customers directly for a good reputation.
“We’re in the hospitality business,” Stanovich said. “We talk about AI. We talk about data. But at the end of the day, we’re serving food and trying to create smiles. The ultimate result is that people come back. So, these are tools in our toolbox, but we also have to get back into the mode that this is a people business.”
Mercer agreed, noting the importance of guests having an opportunity to speak and brands hearing their voice.
“I look at reviews the same way I look at an in-person opportunity at feedback,” Mercer said. “That’s how I prioritize and respond to them, in a very humane way. I ask about what happened and how we make this better. You can treat reviews as fire-prevention or you can look at them as kind of a way to build community feedback and buzz. What I see right now from us and other brands is they’re doing both.”
The annual Food On Demand Conference wrapped up on Wednesday, May 7, at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
