So Why Should I Write a Yelp Review, Anyway?

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After I wrote my blog entry entitled “How to Have Your Yelp Review Taken Seriously,” I realized some of my blog’s readers might ask “Why should I even write a Yelp review in the first place?” There are several important reasons to review people who provide services or goods to you on Yelp or other websites. Here are a few reasons I can tell you, not necessarily in order of importance, but in the order they’ve occurred to me:

1. You can help other people. If you really liked the service you received from a business, let people know. If there was a problem, you should let people know that, especially if you told the business about the problem and they didn’t solve the problem. While we’ve all heard “word-of-mouth is the strongest advertising,” and I believe that’s true, we don’t always know anyone personally who’s used a particular business, or even the same type of business as the one about which we’d like to learn.
 
While any business could have fake reviews, either positive or negative, the more real, honest reviews people like you post, the less of an effect fake reviews have. This is especially true when people compare your review to obvious “astroturfing” (tons of fake positive reviews that are supposedly from local satisfied customers but aren’t – Astroturf is fake grass roots, get it?); “trolling,” where someone’s enjoying provoking reactions from readers with outrageous claims, name-calling, etc.; “spamming,” where some person is trying to promote some other, usually worthless, product or service by placing ads in review spaces; or simply cranky and vindictive, posts. It’s nice to help people make informed decisions before spending money.
 
2. You can help a business you like without paying extra money. If you liked the service you received from a business, but you aren’t likely to use its services again (very common in the test prep/tutoring field), the best thing you can do to help the business out is to leave a positive Yelp (or other) review.  Even if you liked a business so much that you paid a “tip” in addition to the payment you’d already made for the service, that money would run out soon; it’d be a “one-time thing.”   However, a good review is a “gift that keeps on giving,” if you’ll excuse the advertising cliché. People could possibly see your review many times, and each new customer the business gains as a result would be, essentially, a gift of money from you, or a “tip that keeps on tipping,” if you will.  

Just please, be specific and honest! As I’ve mentioned in my previous blog post, positive reviews that sound like advertising copy, don’t specifically mention what product or service you bought from the business, or that make the business sound “too good to be true” are likely not to be taken seriously. Many readers will think something like “Uh huh, I’ll bet the woman who wrote this review is this guy’s girlfriend, sister, or mother,” and move on. 
 
What I didn’t mention (because I hadn’t thought of it ;-) ) is that if a reader takes a false positive review seriously, then the business has to live up to an unrealistic expectation the review has set up in the reader’s mind.  A review that says “This tutor increased my son’s SAT score by 800 points after 3 tutoring sessions, and my son didn’t even have to study on his own between sessions!” seems likely to result in many people with unrealistic expectations to contact the tutor, book sessions, and then get annoyed when they or their children don’t get the results implicitly promised by the review.
 
3. You can put pressure on businesses that haven’t treated you fairly.  
 
On the other hand, when a business doesn’t live up to your reasonable expectations, and the business refuses to “make it right,” it’s nice to know you really CAN make them regret treating you unfairly. Think about it – until roughly the late 1990s, there really wasn’t much you could do about a business that really screwed you over, but technically didn’t break the law, or a business that did violate the law, but you would have had to sue to get money back. Most likely, you'd just be out of luck. You could complain to anyone who’d listen, maybe post on some online forum, try your luck with newspaper or TV station "We're on YOUR SIDE" columns or news segments to see if they could pressure the business to fix the problem, or sue in small claims court. Most likely, your complaint was going to go nowhere.
 
These days, a negative online review can cause problems for a business, especially if it’s not the only one (one complaint among many positive reviews is likely to be written off as “some stupid complaint by a crank who’s never happy with anything”), and it’s going to be important to the business to show they’ve handled your complaint in a satisfactory way.
 
Again, please be specific and honest in your reviews, especially the bad ones! As I’ve mentioned, you can be sued for libel, or possibly other things, if you post bad reviews that you know (and sometimes even if you only SHOULD know) are false. You’re on much more solid ground if you (1) explain what happened; (2) why it’s a problem; (3) what you asked the company to do to fix the problem, as well as their response to your request; and (4)  don’t embellish or exaggerate the facts.
 
4. You can help your own business. If people think your reviews are helpful, funny, cool, etc., they may be more likely to look at your profile and check out YOUR business (especially if you put your business’ URL on your profile on Yelp or whatever ratings site). People are going to be much more confident about doing business with you (and much less likely to treat you like you’re lying and trying to cheat them) if they already have learned they can trust your online ratings.
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These are just a few thoughts I have on this matter – feel free to add your own comments below! Thanks for reading this.
 
John Linneball

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