Thu 9 Apr 2009
Yelp to allow Businesses to respond to reviews publically.
Posted by Michael Hraba under Hospitality Marketing
550 views | [4] Comments
Below was sent to “elite” (read “drunken”) members of yelp. This is INCREDIBLY exciting. This will legitimize yelp, and I have to say this is the most important development in the last couple months in social media. This is huge, exciting, and I am very happy to explore this with my hotels. What a PHENOMENAL tool.
———–from yelp————
As a member of the Elite Squad, I wanted you to be among the first to know about a new feature that is rolling out in about a week or so. It’s called Business Owner Comments, and as the name suggests, it will allow a business owner to write a public Comment after any given review. Comments will be the latest addition to the free Business Owner’s Account that any business owner can sign up for, and that lets them add Photos, post Special Offers and create an ‘About This Business’ section (for more info, read up *here*). As a reviewer, you’ll be emailed each time you receive a new Comment, just like when you get a Compliment.
The goal is for all Comments to be pleasant and useful. For example, if you wrote a glowing 5-star review some months ago about your favorite pub, in which you mention drinking Harp because they didn’t carry Guinness… both you and other readers would probably be happy to see a new Comment saying, “Just got our Guinness tap last week. Hope to see you soon!” Here are a couple other example Comments.
Comments will NOT be a forum for a business owner to disparage a reviewer. As you’ve probably seen with Private Messages, most business owners are actually appreciative of honest and constructive opinions, and realize that being rude to customers is — both on and off Yelp — bad for business. But for those few ill-mannered folks out there, we have come up with some fairly strict Comment Guidelines — and our customer service team will remove violating posts.
Interesting. Did you know? If “I”/someone who has reviews removed, and “thinks” they are back up because THEY see them? Try logging out of your account, log onto one of the biz’s you reviewed, and guess what? Not there. Hmmmmm…interesting…
oops,sorry, meant to post this on your April 13th blog.
This is a very important element of any social review site. It’s hard to believe they didn’t offer it earlier.
As for the yelp allowing comments… it is interesting to me. They have seemed either very resist to change, too busy with marketing for site change, or something else. I think there is a lot of pressure with the success of the site, networking effect (in the bay area at least, even though it is now in the UK..) to actually make it profitable. I am not sure if they are simply trying to figure out how to monetize the thing, but you can’t monetize a social media site based off of trustworthy reviews. At least not in the way they are doing it, charging businesses for enhanced listings, etc. The idea of adding code or programming a site that doesn’t immediately create money might be last on their to-do list.
Regardless of those idiosyncrasies, I *really* like these public responses for the hotel…(This is why social media is a long term thing to get to ROI). You have to reply to every review right?
I try to craft the management responses to the future-guest looking at the online reviewer and owner exchange – just as much, if not more, than the actual reviewer. I address the review directly, with enthusiasm.
I attempt (IE Probably Fail) to be deferential, accountable, professional, but fun and quirky (it’s a tight rope to walk yeah?). For one thing the latter part really diffuses the reviewer/previous guest and sort of disarms any argument. There might be a problem that still exists, but no further argument. From there you attempt to resolve the problem.
Second, it really takes the steam out of any sort of negative public argument. There is nothing worse than a business looking defensive or ignorant. A bad review is damaging to some extent, but reacting badly is suicide.
Frankly, negative reviewers can even end up a boon, as most line managers have experienced at one time or another at a property. Your worst critic becoming your biggest fan? I have seen it happen a lot simply because you validate them and follow through to the end of the problem. Often, negative reviewers, or at least a vast majority of them, are simply grumpy people, and they just dislike everything. It isn’t just your property, I promise. Albeit grumpy, I think they are really just trying to inform the management of their bad experience (for better or worse, honest or not). When management truly responds, the reviewer sees a (pardon the buzz words) transparent and earnest human reacting along with their negative stay. Just by being honest and myself, I have gotten reviews taken down, altered, updated on both TA and Yelp. In that, these grumps just want someone to agree with them and hug them a bit. =)
The end result is that damned ROI people keep yammering about… and the fact that I get a lot of interest and bookings from the tripadvisor management postings… someone sees how I am reacting to guests and they really like the style. It is incredibly effective, and I think it does more for your brand image and ability to really convert conversation into bookings (C.I.B. – yes I just made that up) than a cold call or print ad impression. Just my two cents. Thanks for the comment… one little thing will make my brain go off the deep end rambling. I am so bad like that. Haha… cheers!
Michael