Part Two of an article about YELP. This view was a positive one of how Yelp grows small businesses, but there's such a dark side which I've shared some with you. As an advocate for good small business owners, it's disheartening to see their newly formed online presence and reputation impugned by a disgruntled customer, competitor or could be angry ex-spouse. I work with them to prevent these types of reviews and have put into place options to filter out some perhaps troublesome clients or situations and I also help them when reputing a bad review if I am not handling it myself. Often there's little you can do, and I have spent literally hundreds of hours taking baby step actions to either rid a site of a bogus review, researching and proving to a review site including the BBB and Angie's List, on how the posted review is clearly false and submit my evidence. I have the owner respond, calmly and with factual counters including admitting any situation they may have done regardless of intention. Then I ask them to contact writer IF THE NAME IS AVAILABLE SINCE SOME SITES LET ANYONE REVIEW ANONYMOUSLY! I have resorted to taking over customer relations including scheduling, followup, materials lists, answering questions, gathering customer testimonials, etc. in an effort to further prevent negative situation. I will or have done damage control going as far to respond as myself to truly outrageous unfair reviews and picking them apart line by line in a diplomatic but disgusted consumer tone. All and all, it's much easier to prevent a negative review then fix one afterwards. That's the other thing. MOST review sites have no statue of limitations meaning a negative review stays listed indefinitely. Since I'm a great online marketer, that kind of sucks since I make sure customers find my clients, but after a negative review is posted on a directory or business listing where I've done such a through and detailed profile listing that it shows up in many searches which means the negative review does too.
Thanks. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, I'm glad to respond without any obligations or pressure. I really am an advocate...of people in general I guess, but certainly those with questions or concerns I MAY be able to help.
Diana Smith
Diana Smith, SEO Powered Websites & Marketing for Business
Member of the Making a Difference Network
Member of the Making a Difference Network
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