According an Online Reviews Survey by ReviewTrackers, approximately 45% of consumers say they are likely to check reviews on Yelp before visiting a business, which is only second to Google’s 64%. Even more important, a one-star decrease in a restaurant’s overall Yelp rating could lead to a 5% loss in revenue.
Maintain your business Yelp page by closely monitoring the reviews you receive online. If you find a review to be defamatory or fraudulent take these steps:
- Review Yelp’s Content Guidelines to determine if the review violates their rules.
- Locate the review in the Reviews section of your Yelp page.
- Find the “More Options” button (the three dots) and click “Report Review”.
- Check the status of your report by hovering your cursor over the flag icon that appears next to the review.
- Once reviewed by a Yelp moderator, you will receive an email notification regarding the decision.
Please note, Yelp doesn’t typically take sides in factual disputes and generally allow Yelpers to stand behind their reviews.
How to respond to real negative business reviews
- Respond quickly
A study by Convince & Convert found that only 24.6% expect a business to respond to their online review within three days. What’s really surprising, only 21% expect a response within 24 hours, and just 6.1% of those surveyed expect a business to respond within seven days.
This means that if you make it a priority to respond faster that it sets your business apart and shows your dedication to both taking feedback seriously and resolving issues in a timely manner.
- Address the complaint and apologize
According to research from Qualtrics, 89% of consumers read businesses’ responses to reviews. That means leaving your bad review unanswered could leave your reviewer to be even more triggered to harm your businesses reputation, but also shows future customers that they are not of value.
- State that you can’t find their record as a customer
If true, this information is critical to utilize in your response back to the complaint. It gives an underlying acknowledgement to the rest of your potential customers reading that the review could be from someone who has in fact never been a customer. It also shows that you are doing your due diligence to look into the matter closely.
- Provide a reasonable solution
Responding back to the negative review could potentially lead to the customer changing their review to a positive one. If you respond quickly and diligently with a solution, you might see your one-star change to a four-star. Remember, when people complain, they just want to be heard and treated nicely. A little honey goes a long way. Here is how they can edit their review:
How your customer can edit their negative review
- Go to the Reviews section of their account.
- Click “Edit review” (the pencil icon) below the review they would like to edit.
- Edit the review text.
- Click “Post” to save their edited review.