4 Ways Negative Yelp Reviews Could Actually Help Your Reputation

Back in 2007, the Harvard Business Review claimed that 70 to 80 percent of market value came from intangible items, like goodwill.

A lot has changed since then.

Now, when consumers want to measure goodwill or brand strength or reputation, they head to one place: Yelp.

By reading through comments others have written about their real-time experiences with brands, consumers can get a good idea of how valuable a business might be. When they form opinions, they can act. And they do act on their Yelp research.

In a Yelp-commissioned study conducted by Neilson, 4 Yelp users in 5 visit the site before they spend money. They check out reviews, confirm details and otherwise do their homework on Yelp before they whip out their wallets.

It’s no surprise, then, that negative Yelp reviews would cause panic. You might assume that a negative review could suck all of the life, and money, out of your business, leaving you with nothing to show for all the hard work you’ve put into building up your brand.

While you might not be exactly thankful for negative Yelp reviews, I think they have a number of benefits. In fact, I can think of four tangible benefits that can come from nasty Yelp comments. And here they are, in no particular order.

You might never get this excited about Yelp reviews, but you can learn to like them.

1. Negative Yelp Reviews Make You Look Real

When it comes to Yelp, consumers want to see the good with the bad. In fact, if you don’t have any bad reviews at all, the little light of suspicion can come on in the minds of your customers.

In a study from Reevoo, 68 percent of consumers trusted Yelp pages more when there were bad reviews mixed in with the good. If there were only good reviews, with no bad comments at all, 30 percent of these consumers suspected that there was some kind of editing or censorship going on.

Now, we all know that pages stuffed full of good comments can come about naturally. Some companies just deliver excellent products and services on a consistent basis, and they leave their consumers with nothing to complain about.

But it’s far more common for businesses to fake reviews in response to a bad comment (so says research from Harvard Business School and Boston University).

But in any case, it’s clear that one or two negative reviews just don’t have the power to torpedo your business. Your consumers both expect those bad notes and they want to see them. If you have negative reviews, there’s really no reason to go into a full-blown panic.

2. Negative Yelp Reviews Can Drive Your SEO and Content Marketing

While you might not need to panic about negative Yelp reviews, you don’t have to passively accept them, either. If you mine the data inside each and every negative comment, you could help to amend and target your SEO strategies.

In the 2015 Benchmark Report from the Content Marketing Institute, 63 percent of B2B marketing teams wanted a better understanding of the audience. I’d bet that B2C marketing teams want the same thing. When you know what your audience wants and what it’s looking for, you can deliver content that kills.

Negative reviews can help you do this. As you read, ask yourself:

• What did this consumer want that we’re not delivering?
• What was this consumer promised that we didn’t match?
• What questions does this consumer have about our products or our company?
• What sorts of searches would lead another consumer to this content?

You could create a series of blog posts or social media posts that address every one of these issues. For example, if the complaint concerns time from order to plate, you could write up posts about your artisan approach to food, highlighting the fact that your orders are made on demand. You’ll understand your audience better, and you might get a new audience that will be less likely to complain.

3. Bad Ratings Can Help You to Address Staffing Challenges

We all know customer service is a key metric, in terms of customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. And there’s a wealth of academic data that can help you to understand what consumers are looking for.

Here’s just one example: Zendesk suggests that 42 percent of consumers think repeated discussions with customer service staffers is the most frustrating part of the customer service experience as a whole. If your callers bounce from rep to rep, that’s a problem to solve.

But Yelp reviews can also provide personalized feedback you could use in order to solve customer service challenges your specific company is facing right now. Consider this Yelper’s comment.

If you’re in charge of PR for this firm, it’s clear that you’ll need to address this employee’s customer service record. This person might need more training, better scripts, or more comprehensive breaks from the phone.

A word of caution: It’s all too easy to simply fire people who are named in a Yelp review. That’s not always smart (as the blogger on this snarky website points out). A review provides just one POV on one transaction. Before you act on a comment, you’ll need to do research to make sure you really understand what happened and why the comment came about.

If you’re part of the marketing team, your role might involve simply highlighting this review and bringing it to the attention of HR or the higher-ups. But whatever you do, don’t ignore the issue. This honest feedback provides the company with the opportunity to improve. And once the company improves, your work in marketing will be much easier to do.

4. Your Responses to Negative Yelp Reviews Help You to Demonstrate Excellent Customer Service

Consumers love to see positive brand interactions on social media. In fact, a study from NM Incite suggests that 71% of people who have a great experience with customer service on a social site are likely to recommend that brand to others. When things go well, people respond to it.

You can tap into that spirit by addressing complaints directly.

Ideally, your response will include a prompt for the consumer to talk with you on a private channel. That way, you can have a one-on-one discussion about what happened and what your stance is on the issue. And, should the conversation go south, you won’t be having it right out in the open.

But, even with this approach, you should address the concern with a few sentences. Something like: “We value your opinions, and we want to know more about what happened. Could you contact us directly? We’d love to hear from you.”

If you handle that touchpoint properly, you might get a consumer that stays with you for life. And again, the more happy customers you have, the easier your marketing program will be to execute. You’ll have fewer mistakes to clean up.

Ready to Get Started?

When it comes to ORM services, time is a definite factor. All of these steps take quite a bit of time to complete, and even then, recovery is rarely immediate. Also, you’ll need to stick to the work once you start it. Every day, you might have a new comment to check on or a new issue to address. But, it’s vital to get started. This is work that could make or break your business, after all.

Source:http://www.searchenginejournal.com/4-ways-negative-yelp-reviews-actually-help-reputation/139434/