This is another great post from Seth’s Blog. I have seen a few peeps around talking (complaining) about Yelp and other online reviews. Seth hits the nail on the head with his blog post today:
The Trip Advisor tail wagging the real world dog
(Should I copy the posts here, or just give the link? I got the idea that people didn’t make the connection between the subject and the quote in the last one of these I did)
Thanks for the link. I have started checking out this blog on a regular basis.
No offense but a BUS101 class student could have written that article.
I’m more interested in how to create sincere reviews; positive or negative; to help grow and improve the business. Learn from sucess or mistakes. You can’t know everything that is going on. Maybe thier order was cold … or wrong. Maybe it was the best they ever had.
In any case I want to know immediately. One idea I had was to provide free Wi-Fi on the condition a review (good or bad) was submitted. But not everyone is Yelping during lunch/dinner.
Another is to provide the Yelp thread link right on our website … somewhat of a “nothing to hide” approach.
I haven’t made a move yet; interested to know others thoughts.
You’ll always get the guy that can’t be pleased but face it - if you are getting primarily bad reviews your shop probably isn’t as great as you think it is. Get upset for a few minutes then listen to the voice of the customer and improve.
While it may seem rudimentary to some people, it is not at all “common sense” or “common knowledge”. (And none of the people who are active here took the initiative to put together such a primer of information.) If it were, then there wouldn’t be galactically stupid things being done by owners and managers nationwide.
Yelp seems to be a matter of personal choice. If your market is active, then it seems prudent to have a strategy and vision on how to best take advantage. Many smaller markets don’t attract Yelp activity, so getting all geeked up and going will prove little value. Get to know your who is in your marketplace, and if there are people active there. At the least, stay in touch with your own shop’s image on ALL the various review sites you can identify.
According to google analytics, I get much more traffic directed to my website from Urbanspoon than Yelp.
Anyways, I checked my Yelp sites and saw a complaint that I missed from a few weeks back. Looks like I need to apologize and do some retraining of employees on offering hassle-free customer service!
Thanks for the reminder.
I like Urbanspoon myself. They seem more “fair” to the businesses. Everything is out there for the world to see, good and bad, so the consumer can make an informed decision. Not on Yelp…
I have one bad review on Yelp, put there before we bought the shop, and it’s the only review that is easily accessible on my yelp page. I have 8 positive reviews hidden from view there. The positive reviews were on the front page, but when Yelp gave me a call to sell me their service, I declined. The next time I checked my yelp page, all of my positive reviews were hidden, and now I have this one, glaring bad review on the page.
None of my positive Yelp reviews go toward my Yelp rating either. Big scam, I say.
That is extortion, plain and simple. No wonder they are trying to assemble a class action lawsuit against them. But the only winners in class action lawsuits are the lawyers anyway…