Restaurants, café + bakery / Reputation + social operations
VÉRA Group
Three properties. One system that could run without the lead.
Reputation as a daily operation
September 2024–June 2025 · Project-owner operating record
01 / The assignment
Project facts
- Period
- September 2024–June 2025 · 10 months
- Retainer
- ~$1,398 / month
- Photography
- ~$408 / month
- Owner workload
- 10–12 hours / week
- Properties
- VÉRA restaurant, Utro café and bakery
- Channels
- 3 Instagram accounts, group Telegram, 3 Google Business Profiles
Starting point & challenge
Three disconnected accounts; one had not published for five weeks. Direct-message replies took about 24 hours.
The three Google Business Profiles were rated 4.0, 4.2 and 4.3. Of 118 total reviews, 61 had never received a business response.
Utro’s weekend occupancy was 41%, versus 68% on weekdays. The operating problem was not simply a lack of attractive food photographs.
02 / Responsibility
Owned, delegated, client-side
Project owner
Strategy, editorial, Google Business Profiles and reporting.
Ilya · photography
Two photography days per month.
Sonya · junior operator
Stories and community management; trained for two months with response review.
Client team
Pavel, chef; Anna, VÉRA manager; Roman, café and bakery manager.
03 / Work log
How the work unfolded
September 2024 · setup
Give each property a different job
VÉRA focused on image, cuisine, events and the chef. Utro focused on traffic, returning customers, breakfast and weekend behavior. The bakery focused on product, production, packaging and wholesale/B2B.
A 14-page tone-of-voice guide replaced generic language such as “delicious,” “cozy” and “little place” with flour type, ingredient origin, 18-hour fermentation, baker names and preparation methods.
Early operating phase
Connect production, approval and reputation
Two photography days per month supplied production blocks yielding roughly three weeks of material across the properties. Airtable held the plan. Each manager approved only their property, against a 48-hour approval SLA.
Google Business Profiles were rebuilt across categories, hours, menus, photos, descriptions and Q&A. The 61 historical unanswered reviews were processed over approximately two weeks. A 24-hour response SLA and six response scenarios covered positive, neutral, service, food, delay and conflict situations. The rule was never to argue publicly with a guest.
During the engagement · creator test
Track visits, not just exposure
Six local creators with roughly 5K–20K followers were tested through barter and fixed fees of approximately $93–175 per placement, with unique promo codes.
Four successful integrations produced 61, 74, 89 and 83 tracked visits: 307 in total. Two integrations failed. These visits are a tracked campaign result, not an estimate of incremental profit.
During the engagement · Friday crisis
The process works without the project lead
A full venue and corporate event produced food delays of up to about 50 minutes. Eleven one-star reviews arrived within 48 hours. Public replies were made the same evening; the owner contacted nine guests who had supplied contact information.
The Friday pre-order process was redesigned and each complaint reviewed separately. Sonya handled the shift without the project lead present. Ratings recovered over roughly 11 weeks. The supplied account does not give the exact date of that Friday.
June 2025
An intentional in-house handoff
The owner hired an internal SMM specialist. The project transferred editorial rules, the response library, Airtable calendar, approval workflow and reputation-management SOP, followed by two weeks of shadowing. Independence was an operating outcome, not a reason to prolong the retainer.
04 / Operating infrastructure
What made the work repeatable
Voice and production
14-page voice guide and shared photography planning, with distinct roles for all three properties.
Approval ownership
Airtable calendar, 48-hour approval SLA and one manager responsible for each property.
Reputation SOP
Six response scenarios, a 24-hour response SLA and an escalation path for complaints.
Handoff package
Editorial rules, response library, calendar, approval workflow, reputation SOP and two weeks of shadowing.
05 / The difficult part
Failures, constraints & corrections
The dessert incentive attracted the wrong behavior
Initially, a dessert was offered for a geotag and social mention. It attracted free-dessert seekers without meaningful purchase behavior. After one month, eligibility required a completed visit and manager confirmation. This was a social-mention mechanic, not a claimed Google-review incentive.
Creator vetting was too shallow
One failed integration showed post-publication ER of about 0.4%, suspicious comments and irrelevant profiles. Thirty percent of the final payment was held pending clarification. These signals raised questions; they do not independently prove fraud.
Timing was treated as an afterthought
Another integration appeared around 11:00 AM on a Tuesday and generated almost no measurable response. Future placements required a predefined publishing window.
06 / Reported outcomes
Before & after
GBP ratings · three properties
4.0 / 4.2 / 4.3
4.5 / 4.6 / 4.7
Total reviews
118
487
Direct response time
~24 hours
43 minutes · business hours
Direct + Telegram bookings
22 / month
57 / month
Utro weekend occupancy
41%
55%
Organic reach
Baseline
2.8× baseline
Seeding budget
Baseline
−25% without reach loss
From this record to your scope
What would fit your business?
This historical engagement had its own team, budget and scope. Paid acquisition, CRM projects and technical SEO described in these records are not automatically included in today’s monthly publishing package. Past outcomes are not a forecast.
Explore managed social media operations · See the $399 monthly scope and exclusions · Review the material, approval and publishing process