Google “Yelp Extortion”. What comes up is a littany of offenses comitted by Yelp, and class action suits by businesses against Yelp. What their sales department does is call up businesses and say that if you advertise with Yelp they will remove negative reviews. I have been a victim of this insidious practice, and I know firsthand other business owners who have been as well.
But Yelp’s insidious practices go further. For many companies, and I do not entirely understand the algorithm, no matter who posts a positive customer review, within weeks it will be removed leaving only or mostly negative reviews. I have tested this theorem in many different ways:
We have posted fake reviews and those reviews were removed because Yelp could ascertain that they were coming from the same IP address and from a Yelp user that did not have a significant customer review history. We have posted fake reviews from different IP addresses, and from Yelp identities for which we have created significant review history. They are still removed. We have had customers post genuine reviews. Those too, are removed within weeks. We installed a Yelp station in one of our facilities and photographed actual consumers Yelping us from our waiting room. Those reviews have also been removed, leaving our facilities with predominanly negative reviews.
Often times when a consumer or a prospective employee brings up Yelp I dare them to go home and write a positive customer review for us so that they can experience for themselves what happens. Time and again, I have pulled back the curtain of veiled truth on Yelp and their business practices.
How many hundreds of thousands in revenue has Yelp’s predatory practices cost our business? Its hard to say. Suffice it to say, that any prospective customer who goes to Yelp will not be a customer of ours. However, if a prospective customer goes to any other online review site we certainly have a competitive opportunity to garner their businesses. Yelp, however, is still the number one company for online customer reviews, and those reviews are highly optimized.
How many millions has Yelps practices cost other businesses, either by way of extortion payments made to Yelp or through steering consumers away from a business? And how many businesses have been fully destroyed because of Yelps practices?
Yelp’s hypocracy goes even further. Their business model is to allow users free access so that they can squeeze local businesses. This is the Google model also. Users can search for free and businesses pay to advertise. What this free usage accomplishes for Yelp is an extraordinary data base. That data base is huge, and within it, Yelp can ascertain what companies a user likes, frequents or doesnt like. Based upon this information Yelp is now exceptionally positioned to sell directly to that individual.
Yelp has recently launched its own daily deal site. This allows them to generate revenue off local businesses and service providers while not being responsible for the customer service that a Yelp customer receives. This means that Yelp is generating revenues directly from a broad swath of goods and services, from facials to hot air balloon rides, but if a customer has a lousy customer service experience, it isnt Yelp who suffers the sting of that customers rebuke. That blow is dealt exclusively to the local business partner with whom Yelp ran their daily deal. This means that Yelp can sell goods and services with impunity while the rest of live in a constant state of anxiety about our next bad review.
Have you ever Yelped “Yelp”?
The results are as you would expect.
In a world where online customer reviews are gaining more credence, business owners need to ban together to ensure that companies like Yelp, and their lousy business practices, are stopped.
