Author:
Abstract
During the past decade, reviews have become a crucial part in the success of a business. User generated reviews have become important reference material in casual decision making, like dining, shopping and entertainment[1]. Every restaurant owner is aware of the fact that good reviews can boost popularity and profitability, whereas terrible reviews have the potential of closing the businesses down. Customers tend to leave a review on various online websites in order to share their experience about different aspects of a restaurant they visited. It is crucial for restauranteurs to understand the impact of review websites such as Yelp, Facebook, Twitter or TripAdvisor’s and their role in the success or downfall of a business. The objective of this research is to perform a comparative analysis of two platforms - Facebook and Yelp to understand and analyze customer sentiments on both platforms. It is focused on answering two simple questions: Are Facebook reviews more powerful than Yelp reviews? Which platform should a business prioritize while making decisions about his/her restaurant? It is achieved by implementing Natural Language Processing techniques such as topic modeling on the online customer reviews posted on both platforms. The insights thus obtained will be helpful for the business owner to strategize reputation management for their restaurant.
Keywords
Abstract
During the past decade, reviews have become a crucial part in the success of a business. User generated reviews have become important reference material in casual decision making, like dining, shopping and entertainment[1]. Every restaurant owner is aware of the fact that good reviews can boost popularity and profitability, whereas terrible reviews have the potential of closing the businesses down. Customers tend to leave a review on various online websites in order to share their experience about different aspects of a restaurant they visited. It is crucial for restauranteurs to understand the impact of review websites such as Yelp, Facebook, Twitter or TripAdvisor’s and their role in the success or downfall of a business. The objective of this research is to perform a comparative analysis of two platforms - Facebook and Yelp to understand and analyze customer sentiments on both platforms. It is focused on answering two simple questions: Are Facebook reviews more powerful than Yelp reviews? Which platform should a business prioritize while making decisions about his/her restaurant? It is achieved by implementing Natural Language Processing techniques such as topic modeling on the online customer reviews posted on both platforms. The insights thus obtained will be helpful for the business owner to strategize reputation management for their restaurant.