I have had both good and bad experiences with yelp. it can be a good thing to get reviews posted online by people about your business, but ..... I recently had a customer, who I did not do any work for. just gave them an estimate. and did not charge them anything. (sorry I keep stressing the part about not charging them) anyway.... I had originally told them what the price was in my estimating guide and I also told them it seemed high, and that I would need to look at the car to see why it was so high. I explained that most cars this job was much less and if their car was no different then I would do the job for a lower price. after checking the car and seeing why the estimator had the price like it was I called them, they were not happy with the fact that it was the higher price, I apologized and told them why the price was different than other cars. I was then accused of trying to cheat them, again I did not charge them anything. Back to my problem with yelp... they base your rating online with them by your reviews from people. now in an instance like what I just explained.. both the husband AND the wife left negative reviews for the same visit at my shop. I am ok with this for the people to voice their opinion I guess, but when you are basing a rating system on reviews then something like this can greatly effect your rating. I mean who is to stop someone from writing several reviews if they are unhappy with you. I called yelp to explain this and their response is that they do not limit reviews in any way nor do they remove them even if there are more than one for a single visit to your place of business whether you do anything for the customer or not. that means your rating system is completely biased and flawed , if someone who has never been to your business wants to manipulate your rating they just have to write a bad review or three or more, and according to yelp, there is nothing you can do.
again, I have had some good things happen with yelp but in my opinion, the way their reviews are posted and how they can be manipulated is a major flaw in what could have been, a very good thing
I'm not real excited about Yelp. The information on it for us is incorrect and I've tried to get it changed and nothing happens. Also, once we signed up for the "FREE" then they call and call and call for us to sign up for the paid subscription. I should probably try it again but it is not my first go to for advertising.
I've just started using Yelp by paying. I'll post an update if I see an increase in my customers due to this. I'm doing it on a trial basis for myself not because Yelp offered me an incentive. I absolutely do not like their sales people.
In the past it's been word of mouth and I've been approached for many years very aggressively by Yelp, and others. I've never thought much about Yelp because as a consumer I don't use it. However, almost everyone I know does check reviews on it.
Update: Absolutely no value for me in advertising with them. I canceled after giving them a fair chance. One of the most annoying things was that even when I was their customer I would still get sales calls from them.
I think it helps. Bad reviews can make potential customers look elsewhere. You have to ask your happy customers if they will review your company, since a few bad reviews find their way on there (some bad reviews are actually good since no one is perfect and everyone gets it...there just has to be more good reviews). Future customers will be younger and look to the internet for everything so you have to be there in a good way.
Experiment with paying yelp if you have the money, but track where your new business is coming from. If you get a lot from yelp then make it part of your ad budget. Otherwise keep a free presence on there...it makes google see you as more important and will help organically drive business to you. That is what search engine optimization (SEO) is all about.
Business from Lakewood Ranch, FL
Answered on Jan 12th, 2018
Interesting to read all of the comments. If you are in the service or food industry I would say a yelp profile is very good. Many of my clients come from googling my industry and reading our 5 star Google + and Yelp reviews. If you have many 5 star reviews you will sort to the top of yelp and Google +. You have to be sure to always offer a 5 star service....only then is Yelp helpful. Negative reviews I would imagine would be very detrimental to your business. I pay for the call to action button - $50 a month. I feel like it does generate business for us.
I have a Yelp page, but only had one person call from it and it wasn't when I used their free advertising credit. I didn't see any difference. I would suggest keeping it up to date, adding pictures, etc. But, I agree with everyone else that you don't need to pay for anything. Ask previous customers to give you reviews, etc. As with anything, what you put in is what you get out. Good luck!
As you can see from the answers, it depends. We have a free listing with Yelp and get referrals from them from time to time. We have one review, a five star, which we did not solicit. I believe this helps with service and food businesses (as was mentioned before).
Long story short, if you don't pay for anything and get get good reviews, yes I believe they are helpful. Barring those two things, I would say no.
Our experience with Yelp helps in some ways by posting reviews. But they only post a maximum of 50 reviews. But we have over 150 five star reviews that are legitimate and Yelp does not post them. That does not help us.
So if you are wanting to use Yelp as part of your business exposure know if you do not pay for advertisement you may not get all reviews posted to your account.
They continue to harass me with phone calls even though I have told them more than a dozen times that I do not want to advertise with them. When I tell them no thank you they have been very rude.
However in more recent years, they have updated their system where you can reply to reviews, amongst other things.
What bothers me about yelp is that I can have someone post a one star review who's brand new to yelp. But someone who's left a 4 star and has over 300 reviews gets marks as "Not recommended" due to their algorithm. Also.. if there is ever an issue it's always their "algorithm" not the policy.
Go look at Yelp see out and you'll see what I'm talking about
More from Yelp Rants and Raves
Join Your Local
Business Network
Connect & get quality referrals
from Small Business Owners
Answers (31-40)
I have had both good and bad experiences with yelp. it can be a good thing to get reviews posted online by people about your business, but ..... I recently had a customer, who I did not do any work for. just gave them an estimate. and did not charge them anything. (sorry I keep stressing the part about not charging them) anyway.... I had originally told them what the price was in my estimating guide and I also told them it seemed high, and that I would need to look at the car to see why it was so high. I explained that most cars this job was much less and if their car was no different then I would do the job for a lower price. after checking the car and seeing why the estimator had the price like it was I called them, they were not happy with the fact that it was the higher price, I apologized and told them why the price was different than other cars. I was then accused of trying to cheat them, again I did not charge them anything. Back to my problem with yelp... they base your rating online with them by your reviews from people. now in an instance like what I just explained.. both the husband AND the wife left negative reviews for the same visit at my shop. I am ok with this for the people to voice their opinion I guess, but when you are basing a rating system on reviews then something like this can greatly effect your rating. I mean who is to stop someone from writing several reviews if they are unhappy with you. I called yelp to explain this and their response is that they do not limit reviews in any way nor do they remove them even if there are more than one for a single visit to your place of business whether you do anything for the customer or not. that means your rating system is completely biased and flawed , if someone who has never been to your business wants to manipulate your rating they just have to write a bad review or three or more, and according to yelp, there is nothing you can do.
again, I have had some good things happen with yelp but in my opinion, the way their reviews are posted and how they can be manipulated is a major flaw in what could have been, a very good thing
I'm not real excited about Yelp. The information on it for us is incorrect and I've tried to get it changed and nothing happens. Also, once we signed up for the "FREE" then they call and call and call for us to sign up for the paid subscription. I should probably try it again but it is not my first go to for advertising.
I've just started using Yelp by paying. I'll post an update if I see an increase in my customers due to this. I'm doing it on a trial basis for myself not because Yelp offered me an incentive. I absolutely do not like their sales people.
In the past it's been word of mouth and I've been approached for many years very aggressively by Yelp, and others. I've never thought much about Yelp because as a consumer I don't use it. However, almost everyone I know does check reviews on it.
Update: Absolutely no value for me in advertising with them. I canceled after giving them a fair chance. One of the most annoying things was that even when I was their customer I would still get sales calls from them.
I think it helps. Bad reviews can make potential customers look elsewhere. You have to ask your happy customers if they will review your company, since a few bad reviews find their way on there (some bad reviews are actually good since no one is perfect and everyone gets it...there just has to be more good reviews). Future customers will be younger and look to the internet for everything so you have to be there in a good way.
Experiment with paying yelp if you have the money, but track where your new business is coming from. If you get a lot from yelp then make it part of your ad budget. Otherwise keep a free presence on there...it makes google see you as more important and will help organically drive business to you. That is what search engine optimization (SEO) is all about.
Interesting to read all of the comments. If you are in the service or food industry I would say a yelp profile is very good. Many of my clients come from googling my industry and reading our 5 star Google + and Yelp reviews. If you have many 5 star reviews you will sort to the top of yelp and Google +. You have to be sure to always offer a 5 star service....only then is Yelp helpful. Negative reviews I would imagine would be very detrimental to your business. I pay for the call to action button - $50 a month. I feel like it does generate business for us.
I have a Yelp page, but only had one person call from it and it wasn't when I used their free advertising credit. I didn't see any difference. I would suggest keeping it up to date, adding pictures, etc. But, I agree with everyone else that you don't need to pay for anything. Ask previous customers to give you reviews, etc. As with anything, what you put in is what you get out. Good luck!
As you can see from the answers, it depends. We have a free listing with Yelp and get referrals from them from time to time. We have one review, a five star, which we did not solicit. I believe this helps with service and food businesses (as was mentioned before).
Long story short, if you don't pay for anything and get get good reviews, yes I believe they are helpful. Barring those two things, I would say no.
Dear Lucy,
Our experience with Yelp helps in some ways by posting reviews. But they only post a maximum of 50 reviews. But we have over 150 five star reviews that are legitimate and Yelp does not post them. That does not help us.
So if you are wanting to use Yelp as part of your business exposure know if you do not pay for advertisement you may not get all reviews posted to your account.
They continue to harass me with phone calls even though I have told them more than a dozen times that I do not want to advertise with them. When I tell them no thank you they have been very rude.
I truly despise things like Yelp.
However in more recent years, they have updated their system where you can reply to reviews, amongst other things.
What bothers me about yelp is that I can have someone post a one star review who's brand new to yelp. But someone who's left a 4 star and has over 300 reviews gets marks as "Not recommended" due to their algorithm. Also.. if there is ever an issue it's always their "algorithm" not the policy.
Go look at Yelp see out and you'll see what I'm talking about