I hope you enjoy this post, I'm an international business coach. I have coached for non profits, startup companies, executive professionals, world known CEOs and operational management teams across the world starting in Arizona and all the way to Brisbane Australia, Argentina, London, Indonesia, and Canada. I have a and Undergrad & Masters in Business Administration. I have launched my own companies - some have failed some have grown beautifully. My wife is a local business professional and entrepreneur. I mention this because as you read, I want you to not think about me as a complainer or pissed consumer. Even though I am bothered.
But what do I mean Yelp's Business Model?
Yelp is not in business for the businesses.
Here are my thoughts on all this.
Instead of showing Unrecommended Reviews that consumers can see, Yelp should completely hide them just like other items in the business' dashboard. Keep the ranking effect but hide the review to avoid confusion, which is done to intimidate businesses to pay for 'marketing'. Which in their mind marketing is paying for what you would think is basic features of being on the page..like not having competitors on your own business page, or being able to add pictures for free in the order you want... If they hid the "good but somehow bad reviews" consumers wouldn't think bad about a business for no reason.
Notice I am not talking about the legitimate fake or complaint reviews..I'm talking solely about the reviews that are generic, good, praising type reviews that get move to the unrecommended section.
Consumers should know that when a business has ZERO reviews, that can actually be a good thing. You see consumers don't typically go to review sites when they are satisfied. They pay and expect to be satisfied... But when a consumer gets ripped off or is some how unpleased, they will immediately show their complaints and thoughts to the world. So ZERO reviews is a good thing. Yelp should at least help business a little with some educational tips through the reviewers' pages. After all even they say they are not in the business for businesses, by definition they are because they make their money from these businesses. They do it through extortion but since they are within legal limits, by proxy their clients are businesses not reviewers.
Money For Lies:
"There's been some horrible companies in America. Companies who have literally poisoned consumers, companies who evade all taxation etc... But, by a large margin, the most evil is Yelp."
Extorsion and Bogus Filter:
"They solicit you to pay a monthly charge with the promise you can control any negative reviews,thats wrong,then the so called filters filter out legit and positive reviews."
Brandon L: Oh sure, they'll take these "reviews" down. But actual/provable fake reviews, competitor reviews, purchased reviews, those get to stay?
Paul N: Here's a review for you: Yelp sucks
Modern Internet Gangsters:
"Our business recently received several positive reviews from legitimate existing live people - our customers. We were very pleased to see these reviews posted to Yelp. However, to our surprise, within 24-hours all of these positive, recommended reviews were moved by Yelp into the non-recommended category."
This are only 5 of the millions of complaints about Yelp. There are so many Yelp complaints from business owners that the government has tried to intervene. Unfortunately the way Yelp's business model is set up forces the FTC to not being able to follow suit on Yelp's manipulation of the business side platform that searching consumers get to see.
Before you continue consider this:
Elon Musk and his partners including, Jeremy Stoppelman, sold PayPal back in early 2000's. Elon Musk (a folk hero now) used all of this personal wealth created from this to finance research of innovative and disruptive technology for self driving, electric, fully smart vehicles and also founded an innovative solar company and financed the startup of a space exploration company known as SpaceX - now competing so greatly with NASA, Boeing and other established companies that NASA has almost given up in building their own engines and shuttles and just hire SpaceX. You know about Tesla and Solar City. Think about that. Now consider that Jeremy, invested all his wealth into launching Yelp. But not in the technology, programming is expensive but not billions of dollars expensive. Jeremy and his investors put all their money into the marketing of what Yelp was to be. ALL INTO MARKETING - MAKING THE AVERAGE CONSUMER (YOU) THINK THAT YELP IS A GOOD HEAVENLY SENT SERVICE THAT IS ALL COMMUNITY DRIVEN. Think about that..that kind of marketing power playing with your head and priming you to think a certain way.
But what do I mean Yelp's Business Model?
Well, Yelp is not in the Review business - as much as you might think so. Yelp is in the Search Marketing business. Think Google but with less transparency and not only the front search results being sold but also what is inside the pages once you click on the links. Yelp is in the business of selling their marketing investment - they have convinced so many searching consumers into their platform that it forces businesses to be there as well. But once you are there they extort you for everything that you see. Yelp manipulates everything on the business' side. FTC said because Yelp is a business whose model is focused on serving the searchers they can do whatever they want with businesses. Is it legal? Yes. Is it unethical? Yes.
Yelp lobbied and won,Yelp Says FTC Won’t Act on Complaints About Its Reviews
"Yelp said the FTC had examined the software it uses to manage consumer reviews on its site and how Yelp ensures that salespeople can’t manipulate reviews"
This last part in red is key. They twist their offering ideas so they don't get in trouble. The complaint is not about consumers. The complaints are about who much they screw businesses over money, how they have ran down families and their investments into their businesses by manipulating what reviews show, how many competitors they show in your business page, etc. Yelp says it manages the site for the benefit of consumers and not small business owners. It has prevailed over businesses in prior complaints.
My wife has a business of her own as well. She just recently started a page in Yelp. We have nothing but satisfied customers. One of the reviews a gentlemen left in her Yelp page was put in the not recommended. I called Yelp for her and ask to remove the review from the "unrecommended" section and they told me to forget about it that in Yelp's mind they make no mistake and that even though the review was legitimate, they can track the IP for the computer, they don't focus on the business side because it just doesn't really matter to them. What matters is that the consumer comes to them by any means. So as it might be fair to Yelp and the consumer sees no difference the businesses are getting screwed over left and right by Yelp every single hour of every single day.
The problem? When the searchers sees a new business with 5 reviews and 3 or even 1 of them is shown as unrecommended, they will most likely think something like "Oh, this business is new because they have little reviews..oh and look! Looks like Yelp caught them with shady reviews or reviewing themselves! - Yeah, I think I'll skip this business..."
Honest Maids, my wife's business have received comments from people that do a Google search and search various links amongst them, Yelp, and tell us that if it had been only on what they see on Yelp, they would have not called us.
My wife has a business of her own as well. She just recently started a page in Yelp. We have nothing but satisfied customers. One of the reviews a gentlemen left in her Yelp page was put in the not recommended. I called Yelp for her and ask to remove the review from the "unrecommended" section and they told me to forget about it that in Yelp's mind they make no mistake and that even though the review was legitimate, they can track the IP for the computer, they don't focus on the business side because it just doesn't really matter to them. What matters is that the consumer comes to them by any means. So as it might be fair to Yelp and the consumer sees no difference the businesses are getting screwed over left and right by Yelp every single hour of every single day.
The problem? When the searchers sees a new business with 5 reviews and 3 or even 1 of them is shown as unrecommended, they will most likely think something like "Oh, this business is new because they have little reviews..oh and look! Looks like Yelp caught them with shady reviews or reviewing themselves! - Yeah, I think I'll skip this business..."
Honest Maids, my wife's business have received comments from people that do a Google search and search various links amongst them, Yelp, and tell us that if it had been only on what they see on Yelp, they would have not called us.
Yelp is not in business for the businesses.
Here are my thoughts on all this.
Instead of showing Unrecommended Reviews that consumers can see, Yelp should completely hide them just like other items in the business' dashboard. Keep the ranking effect but hide the review to avoid confusion, which is done to intimidate businesses to pay for 'marketing'. Which in their mind marketing is paying for what you would think is basic features of being on the page..like not having competitors on your own business page, or being able to add pictures for free in the order you want... If they hid the "good but somehow bad reviews" consumers wouldn't think bad about a business for no reason.
Notice I am not talking about the legitimate fake or complaint reviews..I'm talking solely about the reviews that are generic, good, praising type reviews that get move to the unrecommended section.
Consumers should know that when a business has ZERO reviews, that can actually be a good thing. You see consumers don't typically go to review sites when they are satisfied. They pay and expect to be satisfied... But when a consumer gets ripped off or is some how unpleased, they will immediately show their complaints and thoughts to the world. So ZERO reviews is a good thing. Yelp should at least help business a little with some educational tips through the reviewers' pages. After all even they say they are not in the business for businesses, by definition they are because they make their money from these businesses. They do it through extortion but since they are within legal limits, by proxy their clients are businesses not reviewers.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/06/yelp-says-ftc-wont-act-on-complaints-about-its-reviews/
http://yelp.pissedconsumer.com/
here are some common google searches: what do businesses think of yelp
Yelp facts business owners should know (but most don't)
what do businesses think about yelp?
yelp suck
here are some common google searches: what do businesses think of yelp
Yelp facts business owners should know (but most don't)
what do businesses think about yelp?
yelp suck
