Yelp gives business owners a public voice

In response to criticism that small business were largely powerless against negative reviews on Yelp, the community reviews site has rolled out a feature that allows business owners to respond to reviews of their establishments, whether good or bad.

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a company blog Thursday that the free feature was rolled out Wednesday:

Last night we rolled out a highly anticipated feature that allows business owners to publicly comment on their reviews. Already we've seen a number of sharp-eyed businesses make good use of this new functionality to provide additional context around specific reviews for the benefit of consumers and yelpers alike.

The service was created to give business owners a way to provide constructive feedback in a public forum, instead of the previous system, which required businesses to correspond with users through private messages, Yelp told its " elite users" in an e-mail earlier this month. The feature is expected to help quell some business owners' biggest complaint about the social reviews site--that businesses had few avenues to respond to negative reviews or unfounded claims.

Business owner comments will be given a more stringent review than user comments, and Yelp promises to remove any owner-written comments deemed disparaging, attacking, or pandering with some sort of incentive. The company has put up a guide that clarifies what businesses should and should not do with the new system.

Before business owners can use the comment feature, they must claim ownership of the business at biz.yelp.com, Stoppelman wrote.

The new feature is being introduced in the wake of some business owners resorting to libel lawsuits against former clients. In January, a San Francisco chiropractor filed a lawsuit against a patient who wrote a negative review of him on Yelp, but that suit was quickly settled.

A similar lawsuit soon followed in which a California dentist sued a couple, claiming libel over a negative review posted to Yelp's site. Yelp was named as a defendant in that case, but the plaintiff's attorney indicated at the time that the reviews site would likely be dismissed as a defendant because Web sites are protected against liability for content their users post.

An example of a business owner responding to a negative review on Yelp.

(Credit: Yelp)

[bmail]

Clearly the tide is finally starting to turn against Yelp and their blatantly irresponsible website. That's why they're trying to get the word out that they are being "fair" and now allowing businesses to have a "voice".
The overall Yelp concept was initially a good idea, but the fact that they don't allow business owners to completely opt-out from the site (which would be the right thing to do) and, according to other reports, actually attempt to blackmail businesses into becoming "elite" members so that their negative reviews can be made to "disappear", shows that Yelp is not a site trying to make things better for consumers. They are simply another site trying to make ridiculous amounts of money at the expense of other people while getting free publicity by promoting consumers and businesses to express their differences in public. Any site whose business model is based on such questionable ethics should be avoided at all costs.

[tbennett39]

I have yelp on my iphone but never use it!! Basically its just taking up space... I think I will delete it now!!

[Harrison912]

As a web site owner of safety and security products as well as a conumer both sides of a story need to be told. As Dr. Phil says, "No matter how flat the pancake, it still has two sides." If consumers have a public platform from which to complain then business owners should have a public platform from which to respond. And while we're at it, why not a public platform where business owners can rate their customers?! There are consumers that go from store to store and web site to web site making unrealistic demands because something didn't go their way, hoping if they make enough noise they can score. It's a novel idea...

[FCBarca]

How is it unfair?...Businesses already are unscrupulous in their advertisements, flyers and general disregard for the consumer...Now they're given an avenue to try to 'level' the playing field by spinning bad reviews?...Sounds like Yelp caved to $$$

[blogorama]

You are a perfect example of the anti-business sentiment on yelp. If business owners had a "general disregard for the consumer", they would quickly fail. And we certainly wouldn't need a site like yelp to help facilitate that. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, but the idiots at yelp like to act as if they invented it.

Business owners should have the right to respond publicly to any statement that might harm their business. How a business owner responds will just be an additional view of how that business is run.

I predict that the actual reviewers on yelp will abuse this new feature. This is already a big game to these children, so now they will intentionally post false statements just to see if they can get an angry reaction out of the businesses they intend to harm. And because yelp will only monitor business feedback, and not the actual reviews posted by their reviewers, the problem will quickly get out of control.

[blogorama]

Yelp should allow businesses to opt out of its corrupt site completely. Restaurants and businesses that attract a large number of reviews are the only ones that have a chance at gaining an overall rating that is legitimate. Those businesses that only attract a few reviews because of their nature (auto repair, lawyer, etc.) will generally attract just those people who have a grudge against the business. How would a lawyer, for example, respond to a one star review? Can he/she really explain the details without violating attorney-client privacy or without damaging his/her appearance even more? Many other review sites let businesses opt out, but yelp refuses because it likes businesses that are put in a bad position because it makes blackmailing them so much easier.

[blogorama]

By the way, has anybody else noticed that you can no longer find yelp's own review page through their search feature? Usually you can search for "yelp" near "san francisco, ca" and yelp's own page will return at the top of the results. Today, yelp doesn't show up at all. You can get to it from the following link, but you can't find it through a search. Seems quite odd and suspicious to me.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-san-francisco?rpp=40&sort_by=date_desc

Yelp has been getting a lot of one star reviews from both users and business owners, yet their overall four star rating never drops. I've taken screen shots of yelp's own reviews over time, and it seems pretty clear that they are manipulating their own numbers to save face. Pretty sleazy.

[AustonL]

Apparently the owner of Yelp care about what they do as a internet site. The side which benefits the most is not the consumer but the restaurants. If you think about it waiters and waitress can make alot of money by writing alot of good reviews about the restaurant they work for and tips roll in and so does the restaurant profit. Since it is now a procedure to give a certain percentage of tips when you eat at a restaurant it's a guaranteed that you get tips and for high end restaurant you get hugh tips. Even without returning customers, they can continue to profit from new customers. If say a group of three people rated on Yelp, the rating is overwhelp by the many star ratings made by the overwhelming by workers of the restaurants.

[AustonL]

There has been enormous profits made by artificial high class restaurants to boost business by writing high reviews on Yelp to constantly bring in new customers. Even without Most people who has gone to these restaurants left angry and spitful. It is the internet site's and the government's responsibility to investigate. These scams can add up to billions a year. All I can say is outrageous! Site such as Yelp are not to be trusted.