How to Handle Bad Yelp Reviews

Protecting your reputation on Yelp – or any other social media source – can mean the difference between having customers and having a lot of spare time. Thankfully, there are steps that small business owners can take to handle bad Yelp reviews.

Own your page

Make sure to claim your Yelp page by unlocking your business account. This will allow you to communicate with customers, post company information and photos, and recommend other businesses, which helps build a solid reputation in the business community, provides potential backlink opportunities, and may offset negative reviews. There are also some reporting features that allow owners to view page metrics. Sign up is free and managing your page allows you to protect your online presence.

Encourage good reviews

Many Yelp searchers find businesses by simply looking at the star ratings. It’s tough to get page views if your rank is three stars or lower. So it is important that your page generates as many positive reviews as possible.

Although Yelp advises against soliciting positive reviews through incentives, and posting fake reviews is an ethical no-no, business owners dealing with bad reviews should actively request that satisfied customers post a positive review about their businesses.

Hosting a Yelp review party might be one way to encourage positive reviews from regular customers. Serving refreshments and saying thank you personally may be all the encouragement your customers will need. Having tablets, PCs or mobile devices available to post reviews at the party can stimulate immediate positive feedback.

Win your critics

If possible, contact the posters who wrote the bad reviews. Reply privately to the review. Find out details about what went wrong, apologize sincerely, and ask them what you can do to win them back.

Contacting dissatisfied customers can be a tricky proposition. You should approach the negative review by supporting the reviewers’ feelings, opinions, and freedom of speech. Telling a negative reviewer that she is wrong will offend her; complaining about making her opinion public through Yelp won’t win her back either. Be professional, respectful, and understanding; most times, that may be enough to change a negative impression.

Be sure to communicate effectively with dissatisfied customers. Yelp’s support center reminds business owners that “internet messaging is a blunt tool and sometimes good intentions come across badly”. Unless you have good written communication skills, it is advisable to contact angry customers via phone or in person.

Post a response with links to positive reviews.

Sometimes addressing a negative review publicly can be effective. Provide a public response through Yelp, without criticism of the reviewer, that includes links to positive reviews on Yelp or to other review sites. Explain in the response that you will work hard to fix the negative impression so page visitors can see that you genuinely want to provide a positive experience for every customer.

It will be more helpful if you can link to reviews that support your claim that the issues experienced by the reviewer are not commonplace. specifically address the issues that the bad reviewer experienced. This can help offset the negative impression expressed through the bad review.

Protecting your online reputation is extremely important. According to Yelp, 86 million people visited the site during the Q4 2012. There is a good possibility some of those visitors are researching the products or services your company offers. Avoiding negative reviews is hard for any company, so when it happens take steps to address criticism professionally; you could end up saving lost business.