Comments on: Yelp Gets a Bad Review: Embracing a Crisis to Shape Perception

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By: Yelp vs OpenTable reviews » Hraba Hospitality Consulting

Yelp vs OpenTable reviews » Hraba Hospitality Consulting — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:46:55 +0000

[...] botched marketing and PR, issues with ethical murkiness as well as their problematic algorithm, or inability to embrace crisis, etc. Yelp is a great idea that is being run by young, inexperienced tech-youth, [...]

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:52:44 +0000

May be somebody has to sue them, The economy is trying to recover and people like Yelp trying to destroy. I agree may be we should start a web page against yelp

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:46:10 +0000

I am totally agree whit this article it so true. It happened to ur business Yelp offered us to add with them for $300 amonth. We said we will think about it. Suddenly they have taken the + rewievs . I e mailed them . Yelp said some thimes it happends like that and the review will show back later. They have even taken some of our good reviews. BUt couple negative reviews are still there , I wonder my self suddenly good reviews are out WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YELP? i tried to contact them they refuse to answer.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:37:23 +0000

Chrissy- Have you ever gone back to see if some of your positive or negative reviews have been deleted? I have noticed 2 of my negative reviews have been deleted and also another negative review written by another patient also deleted. Only the positive remained and also surprise surprise – the Dr. had a sponsorship Ad on her page- probably from losing so many patients from the 2.5 hour wait times as she chats in the hallway.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:32:00 +0000

I have posted two positive responses about the same business with which I have no personal connection. I am very impressed with this business which has provided me with professional, medical services and was disturbed to learn that Yelp had removed my response. I wrote a second positive review and contacted Yelp with a complaint at their removal of my review. They initially re-posted my first review along with my second one and then removed both of my reviews. I subsequently learned that they had removed a number of other peoples’ positive reviews and left almost entirely negative reviews for this business. I do not know what is going on here but I find this highly questionable and it is not leveling the playing field. There is some possibly discriminatory behavior that I suspect is based on whether or not a business “buys in” to advertising. It is not equitable presentation of businesses when a more affluent business can pay to have more prominent placement or feature positive reviews first, as it seems they can. Worse yet to remove positive reviews as they have done appears questionable and perhaps discriminatory.

By: nick@feedbackjar.com

nick@feedbackjar.com — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:33:00 +0000

Review sites like yelp don’t give justice to business owners since they can’t voice their opinion.
No businesses is perfect, and they should have a way to explain themselves.
A better solution is to allow both parties communication. Imagine you order your favorite dish, and it didn’t meet your expectations. You can either write a bad review or post a problem for the owner to resolve.
We are currently working on a solution to allow both the customer and business owner to communicate online. Think of it as a crowdsource customer service application for small/local businesses.

By: Brian Solis

Brian Solis — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:30:00 +0000

Chrissy, thank you for the response. You're absolutely right. I think at this point, what Yelp needs now is the support the community to help steer perception in partnership with complementary activity from Yelp itself...it's playing this one too defensively and aggressively. I understand why Jeremy and company are embracing this approach, but this is the court of public opinion...there's an art to garnering support.

Thanks Peter. It could all fall on one, two, or a few sales people who are creating this crisis.

Jose, thanks!

Ef, awesome. Hopefully they'll humanize the response and contribute to the positive shift in perception. These are pretty strong accusations and as Stowe says, "reality may be reality" here.

Karl, well said. You nailed it here, "Yelps not going anywhere, but they do need to do a better job of encouraging good citizenship of their Yelp power users and growing a community that HELPs businesses be better and manage their brand and reputation better."

By: Karl Long

Karl Long — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 22:58:00 +0000

Great post Brian, this is a comment I left over at Stowe’s blog but I thought it relevant. It brings to mind the great philosopher Stan Lee “with great power comes great responsibility”. Yelp does wield tremendous power over local businesses, as increasingly yelp is the number one result on searches for those businesses. I for one am skeptical of this accusation indicating some sort of systemic corruption yelp and believe it has more to do with some potentially unscrupulous sales people (see glengarry glenross), AND some very scared small businesses who believe they are being unfairly treated. Small businesses that provide average services are not going to do well on Yelp and often cry foul looking for excuses in either rogue yelpers or some kind of competitors conspiracy. The truth is that businesses that do very well on yelp are businesses that offer extraordinary services and get very good reviews, businesses that suffer are either average or bellow average in how they deliver their services to their customers. Yelps not going anywhere, but they do need to do a better job of encouraging good citizenship of their Yelp power users and growing a community that HELPs businesses be better and manage their brand and reputation better. One thing that strikes me is how little the business model at Yelp has evolved over the years to manage their community more effectively, why have they not grown better leaders in their community, and encouraged a more mature approach to reviewing businesses?

By: Ef Rodriguez

Ef Rodriguez — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 22:52:00 +0000

This is a great post, Brian. I had absolutely no idea any of this was going on, and it's distressing.

I've only begun using Yelp! over the last few months after hearing one of their reps speak in Denver. I love the spirit of the site, but this new stuff is troubling.

Thanks for shedding some light on it.

By: Jose Antonio

Jose Antonio — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:59:00 +0000

I live in San Francisco and I’ve been hearing these stories about Yelp for a long time.

They are under pressure to make profits. Their sales people did call some friends (restaurants owners) to offer shady advantages.

Here is a free alternative to Yelp for local businesses http://www.rateitall.com/promote

By: Peter Spook

Peter Spook — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:52:00 +0000

I agree with this post, and the conclusions presented.

This is not unlike Dateline and other news programs being accused of changing stories when their advertising dollars are threatened, except that here Yelp is accused of making the business proposition.

Sales people will sell, and they'll use what tactics they can to get the sale. Comes down to what puts money in the pocket.

By: Chrissy in Parker CO

Chrissy in Parker CO — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:44:00 +0000

I am an Elite Yelper for ’08 ’09 and I can tell you that I have quite a few “friends” on the Yelp site and all of us write our reviews from our own perspective and don’t receive compensation. I’ve given bad reviews to bad restaurants and great reviews to great ones! To attack the entire group of volunteer Yelpers because a few are corrupt saddens me. I plan on continuing to add my 2cents worth in Colorado. And I hope if this is happening with employee’s that they are fired! In this economy you need to do your job, not take advantage of other small businesses.