COMMENTS
Our company has been completely bombarded by negative reviews on sites like Google Maps and Yelp. In fact, when you search our company name in Google the reviews come up before our own website. We are working to move up the page on Google, but because we have so many reviews Google is giving them prominence.
We don't want to send our customers and employees to these sites to write reviews because then they will see all the terrible, negative reviews. Or is that something we should in fact do?
Kristen,
Sorry you're receiving such negative reviews -- how frustrating! We published a great article about how to deal with online criticism here that best sums up our response: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6093/4-Tips-for-Managing-Online-Criticism.aspx
Good luck!
Kristen: That's quite a dilemma to be dealing with. I've used Yelp both as a consumer and as a background checker for prospective business relationships. If you need a fresh perspective I'd be happy to share my opinion of those reviews with you. Please feel free to send me an email with the name of your business and any relevant links to: ZorkaKovacevich@aol.com.
Of course, there is no charge for this review. This would serve both of us as I hope to learn something from it as a case study for social media damage control. You, of course would benefit from a fresh, external opinion with an outsider's perspective. This will help you to assess how much time, energy and money you should be spending on your efforts to deflect the perceived negativity. Who knows... I may have some helpful suggestions.
Kristen,
If you want you can generate positive reviews on the internet by capturing your customer's testimonials and publishing them online. Send me an email and if you are interested we can supply you with the tools to do this in a quick and easy way.
Regards,
David
David Wenner
http://www.localtestimonials.com
Local Hits Media LLC
@Kristen, David makes a great point. I, too, publish my clients testimonials, not because I receive negative reviews, but to showcase more reviews for my company.
@Pamela, do you have to sign up to this app?
I came across one Yelp reviewer (via my Blackberry app) who was so frustrated with Yelp's practices of removing non-paid sponsors' positive reviews and leaving the negative reviews that he vowed to quit using Yelp.
Yelp's debatable strong-arming tactics aside, David's suggestion is a good one. Yelp does allow owners to comment on reviews, as well; as the
Hubspot blog post points out, negative reviews can be a great opportunity for businesses to show they're listening, and that they're willing to take suggestions. An apology for one-time bad service or thanking a reviewer for making a suggestion for improvement can go a long way.
@Mckinley Media Group: Yup. You can get the app for iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Palm Pre smart phones -- http://www.yelp.com/yelpmobile