The power of Yelp

[darien87]

Hey dudes,

I've used Yelp a few times when before checking out a new restaurant or business, but I didn't realize the apparent power that a bad Yelp review can have on a business. Some of you might have seen my recent posts about my issues with getting tires recently. The shop scratched the hell out of all 4 of my rims. To their credit the shop immediately admitted to the damage and agreed to fix my rims. But after taking my car to a local repair shop, they balked at the price to repair the damage.

Not only that but I at the same time I had them install a caster/camber kit and immediately after I noticed a knocking coming from the front end. The shop told me that I had a bad tie rod end and ball joint on the right side. I tried checking these parts at home and I couldn't find anything wrong with them. I took the car back and the tech tried to show me how the tie rod and ball joints were bad by shaking the hell out of the tire. Sure it's going to look loose if you shake it hella hard. But I figured fine the car does have 120,000 miles on it go ahead and change them and might as well do both sides.

So I bring the car in last Saturday morning at 8:30am. The car sits there all day and they don't get it finished! Not only that but they don't have anyone working on Sunday that can finish the job so I have to wait until Monday to get my car back. They give me a piece of crap Buick as a loaner car. If I wanted to drive a piece of crap Buick I would own a piece of crap Buick. So I Yelp about my experience on Sunday. I get a call from the owner of the shop on Monday. He says he read my Yelp review and he's sorry for all the trouble I've had and that he is going to remove all of the labor cost for the work I had done so I only have to pay for the parts. It ended up taking about $500 off my bill. In return he asked me to delete my Yelp review.

I also had a TV calibrator offer me $450 to fix a couple of speakers of mine that he had damaged after reading my Yelp review of his service.

So I guess good businesses actually pay attention to their Yelp reviews, especially the bad ones. If you have a bad experience with a business, Yelp about it. You never know what you might get in return.

 

[j_garcia]

LOL. We went to this very expensive restaurant with the family for my mom's retirement. My brother's wife said her friend got terrible service there and wrote a bad yelp. The owner of that place (2 Michelin star restaurant) called her to apologize and have her come back for free. Yelp can definitely be bad for business, even ONE really bad review can hurt them.

 

[darien87]

But I've also read that Yelp can be shady with businesses. I've heard they'll offer to delete negative reviews if you pay money to advertise with them. I've even heard of Yelp posting up phony negative reviews to get businesses to spend money with them.

 

[darien87]

On the positive side, I Yelped about a French restaurant in SF that had great food. The dish I had was sitting on a bed of red cabbage that was absolutely delicious. I Yelped that I don't know if they soaked that cabbage in butter or what but that I loved it. The owner e-mailed me thanking me for my review and gave me the recipe for the cabbage!

 

[j_garcia]

But I've also read that Yelp can be shady with businesses. I've heard they'll offer to delete negative reviews if you pay money to advertise with them. I've even heard of Yelp posting up phony negative reviews to get businesses to spend money with them.

That would not surprise me. I have a friend who works there.

 

[lsiberian]

My friends mom was threatened with a lawsuit for a negative Urbanspoon review of a German place. She said it wasn't authentic(She's German). My friend and I have eaten there and the roast was dry and the potato balls were flat. Dry roast at a German place is bad mark. She removed her bad review, but we added ours. I haven't been threatened, but I really wanted to be. Oh to take them to town in court would have been fun.

 

[j_garcia]

If someone threatened me I would write a SECOND bad review noting this with the threat included

 

[lsiberian]

If someone threatened me I would write a SECOND bad review noting this with the threat included

I had all sorts of plans. I even know a guy in the papers, but it's probably for the best, my wife doesn't like me with my lawyer on. There is only so long a man can go without fresh homemade apple pie.

 

[adwilk]

As a former business owner these types of sites suck. They exist to exploit businesses. That's all- while providing mediocre service to its audience. I'm glad you were able to use it as a consumer as leverage to get the kind of service you ultimately deserved and paid for, but unfortunately that's the anomaly I'm afraid.

In one instance, I had "reviews" from customers before a "soft launch" and I never interacted with the public. Our service was proprietary to a very specific business group, and yet we still had BS posted on a couple of sites. Quite humorous actually.. I do, however, have serious sympathy for honest business owners getting shanghai'ed by this scheme.

 

[j_garcia]

The idea is right, but yes there will always be people trying to scam the system. An then there are places like audioreview where any knucklehead with an internet connection can write a review regardless of whether or not they have any actual useful information.

 

[Grador]

As a former business owner these types of sites suck. They exist to exploit businesses. That's all- while providing mediocre service to its audience. I'm glad you were able to use it as a consumer as leverage to get the kind of service you ultimately deserved and paid for, but unfortunately that's the anomaly I'm afraid.

In one instance, I had "reviews" from customers before a "soft launch" and I never interacted with the public. Our service was proprietary to a very specific business group, and yet we still had BS posted on a couple of sites. Quite humorous actually.. I do, however, have serious sympathy for honest business owners getting shanghai'ed by this scheme.

This is why I pretty much only trust stuff with a large number of reviews. There's always someone with an ax to grind, or a senseless fanboy, but if there's a large body of data sites like this can be pretty useful.

 

[darien87]

Yeah when I look up a business on Yelp I'll try to read at least 10 reviews or so to try and get a better picture of the average customer experience. On a recent Vegas trip I wanted to go see Criss Angel. I've liked his TV specials and since it was done with Cirque du Soleil I figured it must be good. The show had a VAST majority of bad reviews though so we ended up seeing Absinthe instead, (great show).

I was bummed out though because I was really looking forward to seeing Criss Angel. But if the Yelp reviews are to be believed it saved us from wasting our money.

Cirque Du Soleil - Criss Angel Believe - Eastside - Las Vegas, NV