Yelp is a site that allows customers from all over to go online and write reviews on small businesses such as stores, restaurants, and more. Reviews can be a great thing as they can provide great word of mouth advertising. However, the only problem with this is that businesses can’t go online and respond to any of their reviews. Soon however, this will be possible.
Small Business Trends recently did an article on the planned change on the yelp site allowing businesses to fight back on their negative reviews. Meaning, the customer could have had a bad day and over dramatized the situation, the customer may not have mentioned all the thing’s the business did to try and rectify the situation, etc. There are always two sides to every story, and now it loo’s as though small businesses are going to get their chance to tell their side of the story.
Online consumer reviews have been great for consumers to make informed choices. But the situation has been lopsided. A business owner could do nothing if there was an inaccurate review – say, something just plain wrong, like complaining about a poorly cooked menu item at a restaurant that doesn’t even serve that item. There also have been reports of nasty reviews written by competitors solely for the purpose of making the business look bad.
What do you think about Yelp adding this new feature to their site?