How To Respond to Negative Reviews (Yelp)

I received a Yelp Newslet­ter today in my inbox and could not agree more with their mes­sage. Their top­ic was to not be afraid about neg­a­tive reviews. Almost all online direc­to­ries give busi­ness own­ers the abil­i­ty to respond to a neg­a­tive review. I am in full agree­ment with Yelp’s staff that get­ting a few neg­a­tive reviews will not hurt you and in fact, it might even help your rank­ing. A neg­a­tive review that you’ve respond­ed to can some­times influ­ence a vis­i­tor to call you for an esti­mate. Every­one makes mis­takes, but it is how you deal with those mis­takes that keeps cus­tomers com­ing back. This is not to say there are not a few nut cas­es out there who will nev­er change a 1 star into a 4 or 5 star and refuse to talk to you, but if we only focus on the 1 stars, it will real­ly stress us out. So, wel­come those neg­a­tive reviews. Tell cus­tomers to be hon­est. If they write a 2 – 3 star, call them up and ask if there is a way to change that low­er rat­ing to a 5? If you can make that hap­pen, do it! Con­sumers are get­ting smarter online and will fig­ure out soon, if not already, what a ​“fake” or ​“paid” review looks like. Below is a short tes­ti­mo­ni­al video pro­duced by Yelp that real­ly says it best: