Driving engagement at Roadchef

Reputation has worked with Roadchef, a 30-site motorway service station operator, since early 2017. Back then, Roadchef was looking for a way to manage its entire online presence – including reviews, business listings and social media surveys – in one easy-to-use place, whilst also improving information accuracy.

The company also wanted to drive reviews and feedback for the entire service station, rather than just for the tenant brand inside, and drive more customers into its sites.

“We’ve worked with Reputation for several years and we’ve seen a significant increase in our customer feedback, NPS and Reputation Score as a result,” says Roadchef head of marketing Chris Smith. “That’s because of the ways our team can engage with the feedback in real-time. Insight from feedback is instant, and it’s actionable.”

Roadchef uses the Reputation platform’s mobile app, meaning that its teams out in the field don’t need to be tied to a desk and can manage sites on-the-go. Reputation says that Roadchef’s commitment to customer feedback has resulted in its Reputation Score being 425 points above the industry average. Reputation Score is a numerical score of a business’s entire online presence, summarised into a 0-1,000 figure. Roadchef currently stands at 788, which is ‘extremely positive’.

The stats driving Roadchef’s impressive score include a 302% increase in Google My Business views within Google Maps; a 106% year-on-year reviews increase; a nine-hour average to close raised issues; and a 636% increase in clicks-to-directions from Google My Business.

“If you show customers that you care and that you’re acting on their feedback, it turns what could have been a negative experience into a positive experience and positive story about a brand,” Smith continues.

Being seen within search​

Roadchef says it sees great results from all aspects of the platform it uses, but it is especially happy with the performance of its business listings. When the business set out its goals for online in 2017 a key aim was to increase visits to their service stations from local search, and in particular, Google Maps.

“Business listings are incredibly important, and this is why we started to work with Reputation. We know that customers use listings to check opening times and what’s available, so being able to manage opening hours and posts on our locations listings gives them reassurance.”

Business listing pages - especially Google’s - are typically where customers go when they need information fast. In fact, may consumers don’t both with a company’s actual website, with business listings often getting 10 times more traffic.

As well as business listings, Roadchef also uses the Reputation platform’s reviews and survey solutions. Smith and his team looked at where it received the most customer feedback and wanted to streamline the experience to encourage even more feedback to improve operations and improve customer experience.

“The two main sources of feedback for us are Google and our surveys. We get thousands of reviews per location from Google, but to dig deeper into qualitative feedback, we use surveys. Everything goes to the Reputation platform, and this makes it more accessible and actionable in real-time,” Smith explains.

Since beginning with Reputation, Roadchef has received at least four times more reviews per year than before. “The platform gives us a tangible way to see that what we’ve. We’ve invested in it as a business and it has actually driven sales and revenue,” says Smith.

Reputation is a trusted platform for a range of household names, many of which are within the UK’s hospitality sector. It partners with brands up and down the country to fuel growth via their customer feedback.​