Negative Reviews on Yelp: What Gives?

Question. What can be done about yelps negative reviews that are obviously not real? They have some extortionist if practices and I’m hearing horrible practices across the board.

Answer. This is a tough question. It’s one of those proverbial layers of the onion questions.

Short answer: nothing.  There’s really nothing you can do.  You can complain as a YELPER about fake, negative reviews but 99% of the time they do nothing. Real negative reviews are even more of a problem.

Here’s a very quick run down on YELP and YELP REVIEWS from the perspective of the business marketer –

Official Policy. Yelp’s official policy on reviews is that you should do NOTHING. You should NOT solicit reviews, etc. etc…  This is a totally stupid, head-in-the-sand approach to review marketing. Here’s why. Let’s take a plumbing business.

You get your toilet fixed by a local plumber (perhaps you even found him on Yelp). Your toilet works! You’re overjoyed! You have a working toilet! You pay him his money. Now – REALISTICALLY – do you pop onto Yelp and proclaim to the whole world: YEAH!!!!! I have a working toilet!  This plumber was AWESOME!  Do you post it to Facebook? NO NO NO NO.

Most Spontaneous Reviews (Outside of FUN things like restaurants) are Negative

The reality is that MOST reviews that are spontaneously posted on Yelp are for “look at me” sorts of activities. Like – LOOK AT ME – I’m at an expensive restaurant (and you aren’t).  Yum, yum, yum. Or look at me, I’m at a bar or a theater.

But plumber? Nope. Lawyers? Nope. Outside of these LOOK AT ME industries, the reality is that the MOST likely person to write a review about your business is the UNHAPPY CAMPER.  WHY?

You tried to fix my toilet. It took forever. It costs too much. You did a bad job. I still have to pay you. I hate you. Let me go on Yelp and vent.

So official policy: STUPID.  Head in sand.  Not realistic.

Unofficial policy. What do most businesses do? Solicit positive reviews? How?

• ASK happy customers at the end of the job.  PLEASE, could you do us a favor? Write an (honest) review on Yelp about your experience. We’d really appreciate it. Did we do everythign to your satisfaction? YES, please review us.
• INCENTIVIZE employees. Give some reward to the tech at the job site – like he gets $25.00 every time a legit happy customer writes a review about him. That we he’ll ASK.

Basically you can NOT remove negative reviews on Yelp. So you’re best strategy is to encourage positive (HONEST / REAL) reviews by asking happy customers.  A simply “PLEASE do us a favor” face-to-face is the best way to swamp any negative reviews with positive reviews.

Do not go to the dark side. Do not pay for reviews. It will backfire.