Love it or hate it, Yelp has clout.
People love to complain, and the pseudo-anonymity of the internet is the perfect place to make it happen.
Spend ten minutes on the site and you will be treated to the best and worst than an open platform for opinions has to offer. Just search for the term ‘atrocious’ and you will see my point: people seem to think that waiting in line for ten minutes at the pharmacy is an atrocity. I would love to see how these same folks respond to third-world dictators or domestic corruption. Would we see the same level of outrage?
Not likely.
What is it about the consumer experience that gets people so infuriated? What horrifying experiences could have possibly be so traumatizing at this dry cleaners or that restaurant that they needed to go home, sit down, and devote more of their precious time and energy hyperbolizing the event? I understand that they feel a responsibility to warn their fellow man against falling into the same trap. That they feel empowered by their voice having so much pull in the success or failure of a business.
But before you make a decision about a business or service based on negative Yelp reviews, please consider the following:
How many reviews has the dissatisfied person posted?
An active community member has much more credibility than someone who has only posted once or twice. Consider the possibility of a competitor posting fabricated opinions to harm their mark’s reputation. Take a look at their other reviews: do they commonly overreact to small inconveniences? Are they routinely upset by their experiences? Do they give quantifiable support to their opinions? It is tremendously important to consider the credibility of the source before taking their word as gospel.
Does the dissatisfied party have a photo associated with their account?
This is another tell-tale sign of something being amiss. We love putting our pictures on the internet. And with the ability to login using your facebook credentials, they make it easy. Be particularly careful of putting too much stock into someone’s views when they have not put in the time to clearly identify themselves.
I am going to suspend it there, I need to get to working on some projects for my friends, the New York Movers, (who I am pleased to say rank very favorably in the yelp community).
Until next time,
SR