RatePoint

Yelp: Can they have their cake and eat it too?

At RatePoint we work with many businesses who are dealing with the difficulty of managing customer reviews and the impact they’re having on their online reputation.  That’s why our interest was piqued by an article from yesterday’s New York Newsday: Businesses can now ‘Yelp’ at critics.  According to the article, Yelp is trying to make their platform more business-friendly by allowing businesses to e-mail critics.

We’re confused though.

This move doesn’t really mesh with recent comments from Yelp’s CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman in a New York Times article (May 19th, 2008) where he said: “We [Yelp] put the community first, the consumer second and the business third.”  True to form, according to the Newsday piece, Yelp’s business service doesn’t have an option for posting general messages to allow businesses to defend themselves against overly negative or inaccurate reviews.  In fact, the article states that the only way a business can defend itself on Yelp is by becoming advertisers, which Newsday claims costs at least $150 a month.

The most disturbing part of the article is a quote from an owner of a hair salon in New York, “…it [Yelp] has little or no regard for business owners…Yes you can e-mail reviewers…But most people use fake names and fake e-mail addresses.”  In the Newsday article, Stoppleman claimed that giving the ability to e-mail reviewers would “encourage productive dialogue,” but how is this possible when a reviewer chooses not to respond, is a competitor who is maliciously attacking the business, or is simply not a real person?

We’ve talked to several businesses dealing with their negative reviews on Yelp, submitted by people using fake identities who post outlandish comments, or even worse are competitors trying to bash their business. These fake reviews will remain a problem to businesses on Yelp, especially when studies show that customers continue to trust online reviews and the popularity of them has reached a point where any review, no matter how inaccurate, can really effect the bottom line.

In the end, it seems that Yelp is trying to have the best of both worlds.  However, we all know that Yelp caters to their community first, and sadly, they’re more than willing to take advantage of businesses while stuffing their wallets in the process.