Yelp advice?

My business got a negative review this weekend. This is always a stressful experience because our industry is cut throat and I know I know, you might say that if I'm running a good business then negs will be outweighed by my positives. However, Yelp keeps about 10% of my positives (filters out the rest), but 90% of my negatives. For positives to be kept, it looks like the reviewer needs to have at least 30 reviews and be regularly adding to them. For negs to be kept, it looks like the bar is much lower -- we only have 3 now, but the other negs are from reviewers that've only done 5 reviews, and still it's been kept long-term.

This new one is from a reviewer that's only done 1 other review. What do people think? -- will it just disappear on it's own most likely as long as he doesn't write any more reviews?

Either way, I was thinking about contacting him to offer to make it up to him, but my concern there is -- IF I message this guy, but am unable to get him to take it down, will my mere contact with him (message through Yelp), increase the odds of it being kept up? I know the Yelp filter is complex and very well might take into account things like messages from business owner to reviewer, which, in effect, might validate the review in the eyes of the Yelp filter.

thanks for any thoughts.

Sorry to hear that, man.

Yelp sucks. Really.

I would suggest trying to make it up to him and see if he'd redo his review.

But what I would suggest is either nudging to your good customers to leave reviews to overflow the bad ones, or start directing people's attention to other review sites.

I think Yelp is going to have a huge backlash over the next few years, especially from business owners.

Contact the customer, see what was the problem, try to resolve the problem and ask him to do another review where he will mention the last review and your response to it.

Every negative response is a new way to get more positive responses, you just need to know how to do it.

Currently I don't know what your business is, but try to convert your negative reviews in to positive ones with YOUR actions.

Go, talk with the guy, see what his need are, solve it.

Now.

Sometimes when I post a negative on restaurants, a manager or owner sends me a message about it. They always apologize, promise a better experience next time, and offer freebies/etc.

It's nice to know they care, so maybe I'll be back to their store. But in the end, the negative review I left stays. The offense is usually some kind of negligence. The best I would do is a 2nd review for a 2nd visit.

Still we don't know what industry you're in. I would just try to contact him to resolve it, and work on drowning out the negative with new good reviews.

Don't get too excited. I too have a business that relies heavily on Yelp and in the beginning I would freak out when a negative review popped up. Before you do anything wait 7-10 days to see if it "sticks". There have been multiple occasions where I have had one star reviews from customer names I did not recognize (most likely from a competitor) that have dropped off. If the the negative review stays live then I recommend reaching out to the customer. Offer some sort of discount to see if they will upgrade the review. Just tell them you would like another chance and that every business has bad days, yada yada. Most people are forgiving.

Also what I do is always hit Yelp with some positive reviews right after a negative review to sort of bury it on the page. I have accounts "in the bank" that are just waiting around just in case I get a negative review. Good luck!

I've just been hit by a spammer on my yelp page. They have no friends and the first thing they did after signing up was to put a bad rating on my page. I hope that it doesn't stick.

Before contacting a customer, check out their other reviews. If they write nasty reviews about other businesses, too, do not contact them. They are just a nasty person, and they will publicly post your comment against you. If they write mostly positive reviews, you can consider contacting them if you think it might help.

seanjohn said:

Sorry to hear that, man.

Yelp sucks. Really.

I would suggest trying to make it up to him and see if he'd redo his review.

But what I would suggest is either nudging to your good customers to leave reviews to overflow the bad ones, or start directing people's attention to other review sites.

I think Yelp is going to have a huge backlash over the next few years, especially from business owners.

Click to expand...

A friend of mine is a long-time ebay seller, and has a 100% feedback rating. He does just this to keep it at 100%, offers free stuff, discounts, etc. just so they change their review to a positive one. Seems kinda pricey since probably a 98% would suffice, but he's a stickler.

some people advertise that they can remove a bad rating.

I've seen people charge anywhere from 300-600 bucks per review.

If you can, and you have access to a lawyer, have them draft a official letter contesting the opinion of the bad review. Yelp calls them opinions and those are protected under the 1st amendment.

However, if you can prove that the negative opinion is false and causing harm to your business. It might work.

Can I add multiple businesses in the Yelp directory from a single account? If yes, how?