A Complete Guide to Handling Yelp Business Reviews Strategically

Yelp is one of the most popular tools that influences where people spend their money, considering various factors. Every star rating and review on a business’s Yelp profile can either drive new customers or send its potential customers to its competitors. That’s why the effective management of Yelp business reviews is crucial, especially to stand out in today’s competitorve digital landscape.

According to a study by Textedly, 44% of customers read Yelp reviews before making a purchase. With around 32 million monthly users, Yelp has become one of the most popular review sites since its launch in 2004. 

Imagine receiving great reviews for your top-notch products and services, but the majority of your potential customers are not aware of them. Disappointing, right? 

Effective management of Yelp reviews can help you build public trust and establish a positive online reputation. It can influence your customers to share their personal experiences and motivate others to choose your business over your competitors. In this blog, we’ll explore the helpful tips and tricks for handling Yelp reviews for businesses, what benefits you can achieve with it, and everything in between. 

What are Yelp Business Reviews?

These are the customers’ evaluations of their experience with a business on the Yelp review platform. Customers share the experience they have with a business and rate the same on a scale of 1-5 stars. 

These reviews can significantly impact a business’s online image and influence its potential customers’ decisions to engage with the business. While good Yelp reviews can help a business grow online, negative ones can destroy its digital reputation, and the business can lose many prospective customers. 

Wondering What a Yelp Review Contains?

It can include the written comments of your customers about their overall experience with your business, along with – 

• The quality of the product/service they purchased 
• The behavior of your team 
• The way their issues got resolved 
• The time you took to respond to their query 

If you still have some doubts about the platform, let’s understand Yelp in detail. 

What Is Yelp?

It’s a popular review site where people can write their reviews about various businesses. They rate the company based on their experience with the businesses. 

And the outstanding part? 

Yelp is not only a review site, it’s a discovery platform, a search engine, and an online reputation tracker. It’s a platform that helps people decide where to invest their money and where not to. This platform helps businesses of all sizes across industries.

• Discovery Tool: People can visit the site to find new businesses, especially in their locality. 
• Search Engine: People can search and compare businesses, and make purchase decisions with the help of these tools. 
• Reputation Tracker: People can share their honest reviews about businesses. Each review adds value to those businesses’ online reputation – positive or negative! It helps other people judge a business if they’re worth their investment or not. 

Yelp focuses on long-form reviews rather than shorter ones. Here, customers can write detailed and thorough reviews for businesses, because sometimes writing ‘best product’ or ‘good customer service’ is not enough! 

Note: At the end of 2021, Yelp had almost 244 million reviews and more than 178 million unique website and mobile app users.

Why are Yelp Reviews Important for Businesses? 

If you want to generate a steady flow of customers and sales, you need to develop effective Yelp review management strategies for your business. It’s all about ensuring your consumers can easily find your business when they need the products or services you offer. It also ensures your consumers choose your business over your competitors. 

Did you know that 12% of all US consumers check Yelp business reviews before they engage with any brand?

Thus, Yelp management impacts a business, irrespective of its size and niche. Let’s have a look at why Yelp reviews are important for businesses. 

1. Helps New Customers Discover Your Business

A Yelp listing of your business is more likely to appear at the top of your consumers’ Google search results. This means it will put your business directly in front of your new consumers who search for things like ‘top local brand near me’ or ‘best local business in (city name)’. So, Yelp makes it easy for people to seamlessly find your brand online. 

2. Influences Purchase Decisions 

A Yelp study has revealed that 84% of people trust online reviews just as they trust personal recommendations when they want to buy any product or service. A positive review with a higher rating can drive new customers to your business, while a negative one can influence them to choose your competitors. 

3. Builds Reputation Free of Cost 

Yelp has both free and paid features that you can use. You can use the free features to create a strong Yelp profile and effectively manage your reviews to establish a positive digital reputation. Though the paid version offers more premium features, the free one is ideal for a small business with a limited online marketing budget. Small business owners can use the free version of Yelp for managing their Yelp presence within budget. 

4. Provides Valuable Feedback 

Reviews are the medium to identify your drawbacks and improve those aspects to deliver better customer service. Sometimes, a business owner fails to identify what his/her business lacks. When the business receives valuable feedback from its customers through Yelp, it helps them understand which strategy is not working and how they can ensure repeat business. 

5. Establish Social Proof 

When your business receives positive reviews on Yelp, it acts as social proof of the business’s reliability and credibility. Some consumers often visit a review site like Yelp with specific questions in their mind regarding a business. Positive Yelp reviews about the business can influence them to trust it and make purchases. 

6. Helps You to Answer Customer Queries 

People who require a certain product or service that your business offers may have specific questions about those. If they cannot contact you directly, they are more likely to visit review sites like Yelp to check the experiences of other people with those products/services. A well-customized Yelp profile with a significant number of customer reviews will indirectly answer those consumer queries. 

How to Handle Yelp Business Reviews: Top 7 Helpful Strategies for Business Owners 

Now that you’ve already learned why Yelp reviews are important for your business, it’s time to know how you can handle your Yelp profile and manage the reviews like a PRO. Here is a lineup of the top seven useful strategies for creating a good Yelp profile, handling Yelp reviews for businesses, getting more positive reviews, and promoting it across online channels. 

Have too many doubts about the effective management of Yelp business reviews? Have no skilled team or do you lack enough time to develop personalized strategies for Yelp review management for your business? 

If yes, you can seek tailored online review management services from a renowned agency. And if you’re ready to handle things on your own, follow our proven strategies to get the best result. 

1. Create OR claim Your Business Profile on Yelp

Before you start managing your business reviews on Yelp, it’s time to create your business profile on the platform first. 

Already have an account? Then you don’t need to create another profile; rather, you can claim your Yelp account. No matter whether you create or claim your Yelp business account, you need to undergo a verification process. 

Why? Getting verified on Yelp will help you access a suite of useful yet free tools to enhance your business’s visibility on Yelp. On the other hand, claiming your Yelp business profile can help you – 

• Respond to real reviews via a public comment or direct message
• Update your business photos 
• Enhance your Yelp profile with a biography

Here’s how you can create or claim your business profile on Yelp. 

1. Visit the website – You need to visit the official website of Yelp business.yelp.com, and click on ‘Verify my free listing’ to claim your profile.
2. Search your business – You need to search for your business under the section ‘Your business name’. 
3. Find your business – If your business account already exists on Yelp, you can find it from the dropdown menu. If it isn’t, you need to create an account for your business. 
4. Create a Yelp listing – You need to click on ‘Log in’ on the homepage of that website. You can use your business email address to create a new Yelp profile. 
5. Provide necessary details – You need to provide important details about your business, including name, address, phone number, website link, and categories. 
6. Verify your account – Yelp will send you a verification code via your email or phone call. You need to enter the code to confirm your account ownership. 
7. Manage your listing – Once your account gets verified, you’re all set to receive and manage your business reviews on Yelp. 
8. Personalize your profile – You can customize your Yelp business profile by incorporating photos, specialities, a history section, business hours, and a ‘Meet the owner’ section. 

Note: You shouldn’t use a personal email ID to create a Yelp profile, as this profile will be for your business.  

2. Optimize a Yelp Business Page

Yelp has almost 5.4 million claimed local businesses, which means the local business owners are actively managing their listings. 

But do you know that your Yelp business profile needs to be well-optimized just like your website? 

Yes, you heard that right! You need to optimize your Yelp profile with relevant keywords, valuable links, and attractive photos. These practices are important to ensure maximum results with your Yelp business page. 

• Fill out information – Make sure that all your essential information about your business is filled out properly. If you present an incomplete profile, it may not attract your existing customers to leave their reviews. 
• Add relevant keywords – To perform SEO for your website, you may have found relevant keywords for your business. You can optimize your Yelp content with those keywords and phrases for which you want your Yelp profile to rank. 

Example: A Chinese restaurant can use keywords like ‘best Chinese food in town’ or ‘Chinese takeaway near me’. A lawyer can optimize their Yelp profile with ‘best estate planning lawyer near me’ or ‘top divorce attorney in nearby area’

• Generate valuable backlinks – Yelp has a ‘check in’ feature that you can use to allow people to mark that they’ve visited your business. You need to encourage every customer to use that feature. And the fun part? That’s a backlink every time someone clicks on the ‘check in’ button.
• Add Relevant Photos – You can add photos of your offline store, staff, products/services, and events to your Yelp profile. People love to watch visual elements! Adding these photos can encourage more people to visit your business. 

3. Ensure Customers are Aware of Your Presence on Yelp

It is one of the most crucial online review management strategies for businesses if they use Yelp. It’s time to ask yourself – are your potential customers aware of your business’s Yelp presence?

If the answer is no, then it is a BIG problem for you! 

No matter how premium your products and services are, if your potential customers are not aware of your brand’s presence on Yelp, they will not be able to decide whether to invest in your offerings or not. Similarly, the existing ones who’ve just purchased something from your brand will not be able to review it on Yelp! 

Your potential customers want to know your business location when they want to purchase any products or services you offer. Similarly, your potential customers will check your existing customers’ Yelp business reviews to make informed decisions regarding the purchase from your brand. 

What to do? You need to fill out as much information as possible on Yelp. So that your Yelp business page provides every possible information about your business, they need to locate your business and make their purchase decisions. 

What to add? 

You can add the following details on your Yelp business page – 

• Your business’s physical store location 
• Website URL 
• Email address
• Accessible contact number 
• Detailed descriptions of the products/services you offer 
• Updated business hours and store closing time, 

Here are some other tips to inform your potential and existing customers about your business’s presence on Yelp. 

1. Post a “Find us on Yelp” Sign – You can place a ‘Find us on Yelp’ sticker or poster on the window, door, or even in the billing section of your physical store. You can also add the sign or badge to your website. 

Note: You can request a free ‘Find us on Yelp’ sticker from Yelp after the successful creation of your Yelp business page and filling out a form to submit the request. You can find the request form on Yelp’s “Find Us on Yelp” sticker request page. 

2. Host a Yelp Event – You can host a Yelp event to influence the Yelp users to visit your business in person. With this tactic, you can establish yourself as an active member of the Yelp community as well. 

Wondering how you can host a Yelp event? Follow these steps mentioned below: 

Visit the website link business.yelp.com > Locate your business > click on the ‘Add an Event’ button > fill out all the necessary information about your event (name, date, time, location, and description) > create the event by clicking on the ‘Create Event’ button. 

Now it’s time to promote your Yelp event. You can send invites to the Yelp users who’ve already visited your business or those who’ve recently reviewed a business on Yelp similar to your niche. Additionally, you can contact local Yelp Elites (mega-Yelpers with a lot of influence) to request their help to promote your Yelp event. 

A Bonus tip! We suggest you offer some interesting giveaways during your Yelp event, such as discounts on product purchases and coupons. You can also organize quizzes for those who’ll attend your Yelp event – make it fun and exciting for the attendees! 

3. Post a Yelp Deal – This is the best way to drive exceptional foot traffic to your physical store. You can offer prepaid vouchers to your customers at a discounted price. These deals are redeemable for your products or services. Customers who’ll leverage those deals are more likely to be active Yelp users and review your business on Yelp. 

4. Provide a QR Code of Your Yelp  Review Page – You can provide this code to your customers and influence them to review your business. Review submission through a Yelp QR code is the easiest way, especially for Yelp mobile app users. 

Follow the steps to generate a QR code of your Yelp review page – 

Copy the URL of your Yelp review page > use an online QR code generator to convert the URL into a scannable QR code > download the code and use it on your website, physical store, or you can even send it through email or social media channels

5. Add a Link to Your Newsletter – You can add a link to your Yelp review page on your newsletter to influence subscribers to review your business on Yelp. It’s a great way to get more positive reviews. 

6. Add a Yelp Badge to Your Website – Your website is the cornerstone of your business’s online presence. According to a 2021 study by PR Newswire, 76% of consumers are more likely to check your online presence before they visit your physical store. Thus, adding a Yelp badge on your website can help you drive more traffic to your Yelp business page. This way, the potential customers will get to see the existing Yelp reviews on your profile as well. 

4. Use the Yelp Business App for a Seamless Experience 

Did you know that there are an average of 92 million unique monthly mobile app users of Yelp?  

Yes, Yelp has a mobile app as well for smartphone users. It provides an extensive range of features for businesses to engage with their customers through reviews. Through the app, you can get data regarding your user views, customer leads, and other activity on your Yelp business page. 

Want real-time insights? Imagine you’ve run ads on Yelp; you can get the insights into the total number of Ad clicks through the Yelp mobile app. 

Apart from these, you can seamlessly perform the following practices if you use the Yelp mobile app. 

• You can effortlessly chat with your potential customers even when you’re not at the office. 
• You can promptly respond to reviews, messages, leads, and even job requests. 
• With the help of the mobile app, you can get customized push notifications for new messages and reviews. 
• You can monitor your Yelp business page’s performance – how many users have visited your page or the number of leads you have acquired. 
• You can make necessary changes to your Yelp business page – adjusting the services you offer, updating your business hours, or adding new attributes. 
• Want to contact the customer support team? Just tap on ‘Need Help?’ to connect with e Yelp customer support executive on call. 
• Take your business’s photos on your phone and swiftly upload them with a caption right on the mobile app. It’s just that simple!  
• The app also allows you to manage the paid features like Yelp ads, package upgradation, campaign performance review, and necessary updates on the ad – everything on the go!  
• No need to sign in every time! Your Yelp messages will be saved, and the last business you searched for will stay as selected next time you open the app. 

Enough benefits, right? It’s time to switch to the Yelp mobile app. 

5. Effectively Use the Features of the Yelp App 

The mobile app comes with a list of useful features that you can use to increase the functionality of your Yelp business page and better handle Yelp business reviews. Unless you don’t have a clear idea of the features the app offers, you cannot use them effectively. 

Here we’ve mentioned the 7 major features that Yelp has added within the last few years. 

1. Request a Quote: This feature is extremely beneficial for small quote-based businesses. This feature was launched in 2016 as an update to the already present messaging feature. Yelp listings under event planning, automotive, home services, financial services, and professional local services can have this button attached to them. This feature has driven a 250% increase in message response rates from businesses. 
2. Custom Search Filters: Launched in 2021, this feature has completely transformed how consumers used to search for businesses. The feature allows you to use new filters like virtual consultations. 
3. COVID-19 Updates: This update allows businesses to instantly list any changes to their business hours. They can also share COVID-19 policies through personalized banner alerts. 
4. Custom Location Targeting: Now your business reach is not dependent on where your business is located! It allows businesses to select the specific geographic area where they want to run their ads, regarding their business location. Previously, businesses were able to choose only a specific radius that was surrounded by their business location. 
5. Ad Text Guidance: Love customized texts? Yelp allows you to personalize the text that appears on your Yelp business page. Don’t have a copywriting team? Don’t worry! You can use this feature to see user-tailored texts and create the best ad copy possible to promote your business on Yelp. 
6. Minority-Owned Business Finder: If you belong to a minority group, this feature of Yelp allows you to provide this information directly on your business listing. How does it help? It helps those who are interested in supporting a minority-owned business to find your business more easily. 
7. Customizable Calls-to-Actions: Since 2021, Yelp has started allowing businesses to use customized CTAs that appear on their posts with the text they want. 

6. Earn Customer Reviews Without Asking Your Customer 

You will have to earn customer reviews, but you cannot bother your customers by asking them to share their reviews. 

Sounds illogical? But this is a trick! 

The easiest way to get customer reviews of your business is to ask them to do so. But bothering them for a review is not something in Yelp’s review policy. The platform doesn’t want you to solicit reviews from your customers! 

In a 2017 blog post, Yelp covers this policy in detail – 

“Asking for reviews at all, even if the business breaks norms and attempts to ask more than just their happy customers, can create a bias away from organically motivated reviews.

When some businesses ask for reviews and others don’t, it becomes difficult for users to compare reviews across businesses. Not only does solicitation lead to bias, it’s a bad experience for customers, too.”

Now the question comes: how can you encourage your customers to review your business without asking them directly? 

Here are some easy methods to encourage more customer reviews. Apart from these, you can implement beneficial customer review management strategies to know about the secret of effective review requests. 

• Decorate Your Physical Store With Yelp Branding Assets 

If you want to target your store customers to review on your Yelp business page, then you can decorate your store with a Yelp badge, posters, or stickers. That in-store branding must be planned for a noticeable area – preferably at the entry or exit points, or the reception/billing counter. These visual reminders can help you build your reputation and inform your store visitors that you’re active on Yelp. 

Note: Use ‘Find Us on Yelp’ or ‘People Love Us on Yelp’ stickers to decorate your physical store. 

• Create Memorable Moments That Customers Want to Share 

Your customers will not share their reviews about your business if they had an average experience; they will review it if your customer service stands out. 

The only thing to ensure delivering an exceptional experience for your customers is to create memorable, fun moments with them. It can be your extraordinary customer service, unique atmosphere at your physical store, or a fun surprise. For example, if you own a coffee shop, you can surprise your regular customers with a complimentary latte with their orders. A local boutique can wrap its products like gifts and plan a surprise delivery to the customers. 

• Respond to Existing Reviews Promptly

Do you have many reviews on your Yelp profile? Try to respond to them swiftly and showcase how much you value your customers’ feedback. This trick can work especially when a reviewer has asked a query or voiced a concern. A study has revealed that 71% of consumers believe that a quick, thoughtful response from the service team of a business can drastically improve their customer experience.

Your customers will love to be acknowledged; professional responses to those Yelp business reviews can create a great impression for your business. How you respond to positive and negative Yelp reviews says a lot about your business. An ignored review can make your business seem unresponsive! 

• Promote Your Yelp Business Page and Highlight Top Reviews

Customers who don’t know you’re on Yelp won’t leave a review there. You need to make your Yelp business page visible through social media platforms and emails. These two are the most natural ways to encourage customer engagement on your Yelp business page. 

These have two benefits: 

1. You can promote your Yelp business page and drive more reviews without asking for them from your customers. 
2. To do this, you don’t need to violate Yelp’s guidelines. 

Here are some ways to promote your Yelp business page.

1. You can share your Yelp reviews on your social media profiles. 
2. Additionally, you can include a Yelp badge or link in your email signature. 
3. Featuring your reviews in newsletters can help you provide social proof and encourage more reviews. 
4. You can also send a follow-up email to your customers who’ve just visited your business or purchased anything. A friendly “Hope you enjoyed your visit!” email can remind the customers about their experience and encourage them to leave a review on Yelp (if you add a Yelp badge in the email).

• Add Happy Staff Photos

Who doesn’t love friendly, smiling photos? It’s time to feature such photos of your waving staff members on your Yelp page. It will create a positive first impression on your Yelp page visitors. Such photos can even discourage your dissatisfied customers from posting any nasty reviews about your business. 

• Print Out & Showcase Positive Yelp Reviews

One expert technique is to print those positive reviews out and hang them on the wall of your physical store. Always enlarge the reviews to make them easy to read; you can also frame them. When your new customers see your existing positive reviews, they’ll feel more interested in your business and will be more likely to think positively about it.

• Ask for Your Customers’ Experiences, Not Reviews

The last but not least strategy to earn positive customer reviews is to request your customers to share their experience. If you ask for reviews, it may showcase that you’re only concerned about building a positive reputation, not about delivering the best possible experience for your customers. 

This is where most businesses make a common mistake! They ask their customers to leave reviews directly. But asking for shared experiences will only help you to get more reviews, but in an indirect manner! 

When people see that you are more interested in knowing about the experience your clients and customers have with your business, they will be more likely to see you as a credible, reliable, and authoritative source. 

7. Respond to All Reviews – Both Positive and Negative

Do you prioritize both positive and negative reviews? If not, then you’re making a BIG mistake! 

It’s important to respond to every review you receive on Yelp. But there are some specific ways to respond to the Yelp reviews more effectively. Let’s have a quick look at how you can respond to both positive and negative Yelp reviews for your business. 

How to Respond to Positive Reviews on Yelp? 

The following are some beneficial ways through which you can respond to positive Yelp reviews. 

• Show Your Appreciation – Never forget to show your appreciation for those who have left positive reviews about your business. A paragraph showing how much you appreciate the reviews for taking the time to review your business and how much you value their feedback is better than just a simple ‘thank you’. 
• Personalize Your Response – A Personalized response to reviews makes the reviewers feel more valued and appreciated. You can address the reviewers by their names when you respond to their reviews. 
• Emphasize Positive Aspects of the Review – A reviewer who has shared a positive experience with your business must have mentioned various positive aspects. You can address those aspects in your response and acknowledge their appreciation for those factors. 

How to Respond to Negative Yelp Reviews? 

You cannot please everyone – this is the truth! Even the renowned large enterprises get negative reviews on Yelp. So it’s common and natural for every business to receive the same. The only difference here is the number of negative Yelp business reviews you receive on Yelp. 

Never get worried if you receive negative reviews. There are specific ways you can handle the situation, as a negative review helps you – 

• Learn from your mistakes 
• Identify your brand’s drawbacks 
• Improve your offerings 
• Earn back those reviewers’ trust 
• Turn your negative reviewers into loyal customers 

You can develop and implement effective strategies to handle negative online reviews better. Here are some easy ways to effectively respond to negative Yelp reviews. 

• Don’t Respond Negatively – Seeing your business getting criticized online is painful! But you should not respond negatively, no matter how the review is. Getting involved in an online conflict can severely impact your brand reputation on Yelp. A negative response to a negative review can escalate the situation. 
• Choose the Offline Way to Solve Issues – Never get involved in an online conflict with your customers. If the situation demands a personal discussion, you can request the reviewer to meet you in person at your office. You can also call them or email them personally to handle things offline.
• Analyze the Reviewer’s Mindset – Try to understand why the reviewer has shared such feedback about your business. What did they not like? Understanding the reviewer’s mindset can help you resolve the issue promptly. 
• Address the Issue in a Professional Way – You must professionally address the issue. Apologize to the reviewer if the fault was from your end. If not, you can communicate with them with utmost empathy and try to understand their opinion. 
• Offer Compensation – You can offer compensation to the reviewer who had an unfortunate experience with your business. A discount coupon for their next visit or a free consultation may work great! We suggest you send a private message to the reviewer to request that they visit your store. 
• Make Use of Constructive Criticism – Bad reviews are not necessarily a bad thing! You can get real customer feedback on how you can improve your products/customer service. If the reviews contain legitimate concerns, you can address them and let your Yelp community know that you’re making genuine efforts to deliver the best possible service to your customers. 
• Report the Review if Necessary – Does the review contain fraudulent statements or inappropriate language? Then you’ve all right to report those reviews on Yelp. The team will investigate it and take appropriate action if they find that the review has violated their policies. They may remove the reviews from your business page. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid While Handling Yelp Business Reviews

Now you’ve a clear idea of the Yelp review management strategies, right?

But even with the best strategies, we are all prone to make certain common mistakes that can ruin our hard work. To avoid these pitfalls, you need to identify them well. Here we’ve mentioned the six most common mistakes that you must avoid while managing your Yelp business reviews. 

1. Ignoring Negative Reviews 

Do you ignore negative reviews that your business receives? A big no-no! 

Most people tend to avoid responding to negative reviews. This is specifically to avoid online conflicts with your customers. Even if it’s harsh criticism, you must respond to it with utmost professionalism and empathy. 

If you don’t, it may convey a wrong message! It can showcase your business as unresponsive and even portray that you don’t care about customer opinions. You can check and respond to every review regularly, acknowledging their concerns and showcasing your commitment to delivering exceptional customer service.

2. Being Defensive 

Let’s be real – we all have the tendency to be defensive when someone criticises us! 

But you cannot do this while receiving negative reviews about your business. It’s not a good idea to lash out or argue with a customer online; this is never-ending. Doing so can make you look unprofessional and can escalate the situation. It’s important to provide a good solution to the reviewer rather than defending your actions. A calm and strategic response in such situations is the key to winning back your customer’s trust.

3. Buying Yelp Reviews 

Why put so much effort into creating and managing a Yelp business profile when you can just buy reviews? 

This tactic can be tempting to many business owners! But do you know that Yelp can flag and penalize your business profile if you buy reviews? Yelp will place a public notice on your profile to inform your potential customers that your business is involved in deceptive review practices. 

The notice can appear on your Yelp page for months, showing your ratings are not trustworthy! It can leave a negative first impression of your business on your potential customers. You can lose your brand credibility and potential business opportunities. Always remember – a 5-star review is not something you can buy! 

4. Bribing the Customers to Share Reviews 

Do you want to pay your customers for leaving good reviews about your brand? 

It’s not a good idea, though! Many businesses prefer to take this easy route to fill up their Yelp profile with positive reviews and higher ratings. Business owners often pay money or offer incentives to their customers and ask them to leave positive reviews about their business in return. 

This practice can showcase you engaging in fraudulent activities to generate fake reviews. Once caught, your future customers may lose trust in your brand’s credibility. 

5. Bothering Your Customers Too Much 

Some businesses often overwhelm their customers with excessive nudges to leave reviews. This is not the way review requests should be done! The customers may get irritated by the constant nudges if you bother them unnecessarily multiple times. 

It may show that you’re only concerned about the reviews and building their online reputation, not the experience of their customers. For example, if a customer sees a Yelp sticker at your entrance and another sign at the checkout, then gets numerous review requests from the server, they may feel pressured to leave a review rather than encouraged. 

6. Responding Too Late

Another common mistake is responding to the reviews too late. In today’s fast-paced digital world, time plays a huge role everywhere. A delayed response can show you as uninterested and not concerned about acknowledging your customer feedback.  

It can also happen that the customer may have already moved on or shared their negative experience with others by the time you respond. According to a study, Yelp users are 33% more likely to upgrade their review if a business responds with a personalized message within 24 hours. So you can set up alerts on your Yelp page to get notified when your business receives a review on it. 

A Real-Life Example of How Strong Yelp Review Management Drives Results

A&W (Allen and Wright) is the oldest franchise restaurant chain in the United States, with more than 550 branches in different locations. But it was losing its local search rankings. They realized that their website was not ranking for ‘food near me’ and local customers were not showing up. The reasons were – 

• Inaccurate business listings 
• Poor online search visibility 
• Lack of insights from customers 

To address the situation, A&W partnered with Chatmeter to manage its Yelp presence and optimize its brand’s local SEO. The agency helped them claim and optimize their Yelp listings. They also helped them monitor and respond to Yelp reviews and analyze their customer sentiment to identify their drawbacks. 

Within just four months, A&W witnessed a drastic improvement in its business page’s appearance on Yelp and engagement on Google. They witnessed an increase in their five-star reviews and improved response rates to customer feedback. They drove exceptional store visits and revenue for their business.  

FAQs

The following are some frequently asked questions about Yelp reviews for businesses. 

Conclusion 

Yelp reviews are crucial for businesses and customers. Businesses can promote their positive reviews on Yelp to acquire new customers and improve their customer service by identifying their drawbacks through negative reviews. On the other hand, potential customers can choose businesses to invest in after seeing Yelp reviews from other customers. 

Yelp is an all-in-one review platform that provides a range of useful features for businesses to use. All it requires is the effective management of Yelp business reviews. We hope that our comprehensive guide will help you understand Yelp in detail and handle the reviews to leverage every benefit the platform offers. Still have doubts? You can hire a reputable online reputation management agency to seek their tailored online review management services for your business.