Yelp allows business owners to respond to the reviews that are posted on their profiles either in a private manner to apologize to the consumer or post a public post to correct any misinformation. This should be highly used because during your responses you can defend your business, stop any misinformation, correct any problems, and promote your services further. Once you properly handle a bad review, further people that read the review and also see your response will have much more confidence in your company since they know you care and will handle any problems that might arise.
When businesses fail to respond to their reviews, this gives the impression that they just either don’t care about their customers opinions or they are a incompetent company. This leads to further rumors and negative publicity that can really hurt your potential sales. Don’t let your potential revenue slip away from you just because you don’t feel like responding to a bad review, the bad ones are the ones that need the most care.
The worst thing any business can do is respond to a bad review with hostility in a unprofessional manner. Every business will run into at least a few people that love to write reviews criticizing businesses about things that are probably not true or can’t be controlled by the company. When you deal with reviews like this, its very important to respond in a friendly, professional, and concerning manner. When other readers view this review, they will understand what happened and will look highly on your company for handling it in a excellent way. If you start screaming back at the bad review, then not only are your proving the reviewer right, but you also pushing other readers away. Some good links to check out for more information about how to deal with negative feedback is http://mashable.com/2010/02/21/deal-with-negative-feedback/ as well as http://www.reputation.com/reputationwatch/articles/how-to-remove-negative-yelp-reviews-from-search-results
Use the Badges your Earn to Your Advantage
Yelp offers certain badges and awards to business owners on their profile. You can use these to earn your customer’s trust as well as attract people to your yelp page. By bragging about your awards, people will automatically be more interested in what services you provide and will choose you over your competitors. Post the awards on your website, press releases, and anything else that could be considered as publicity. The more people that know about your successful business, the more potential sales you will encounter.
Another great strategy to look into is to promote your yelp page outside of Yelp. Because Yelp is so widely known, people will be interested to check out the reviews and the status of your page, which could be a deciding factor in whether or not they do business with you.
Advertising on Yelp
Advertising within Yelp can be very beneficial if you have a good standing profile. Once you have a good amount of reviews and people are starting to use your profile page as a starting place to finding out about your business, try advertising directly on Yelp. While this might be costly for some businesses, it can prove to be well worth every penny. You will have more visibility than your competitors, giving you an advantage to grab the attention of the market and you will also be at the top of any search list within your field. Check out the official advertising yelp page at http://www.yelp.com/advertise to find out more information about this opportunity.
Overall, Yelp can really increase a businesses revenue and can ultimately be a determining factor of its overall success. Whether you like it or not, people are going to review their experiences with your business, so its best to be prepared and turn a potentially harmful situation into a profitable one. No point in ignoring the review process, because that will end in your business being hurt and potentially taking it down. Don’t underestimate the power of your customer’s opinions, and remember to always respond in the most professional and friendly manner possible.