Abstract:

The global impact of social networking sites, the number of which is increasing day by day, has brought along brand new applications and significant developments. These rapid developments in information technologies have led to significant changes, particularly in the food and beverage industry. Thanks to the content evaluations of online platforms such as TripAdvisor, which is one of the most preferred blog sites to convey the wishes and demands of consumers, consumers can access all restaurant information and complaints from other consumers in the quickest way. In this context, the aim of the research is to reveal the diversity of complaints made by consumers through social media platforms towards the first-class restaurants serving in some districts of Istanbul, to determine feedback from businesses to consumers, and to offer suggestions for resolving complaints. The data were gathered from the TripAdvisor website, one of the world's largest travel feedback sites. In order to keep the complaints up-to- date, the negative comments on the mentioned businesses between the years 2015-2020 were taken into consideration. The research consists of a total of 476 Turkish and English interpretations of the relevant data set. Among these interpretations, 792 frequently repeated complaints were identified. Under the major negative evaluation themes, the most common consumer complaint was the theme of food and beverages. Then, it was revealed that there were complaints about personnel, price, physical space, service, operation, reservation and menu, respectively. Furthermore, it has been observed that businesses do not provide feedback to these complaints at an average rate of 89.4% and they ignore them. In line with the findings of this research, the suggestions were offered to develop service presentations and quality levels of food and beverage businesses.

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