SMI – Social Media Influence – reports that yelp recently invited five of its most prolific reviewers (including a teacher, a student and a civil servant) to discuss the growing phenomenon, influence and importance of online reviewing.
They agreed the principle elements they look for when reviewing a business are:
- Originality – if a restaurant style or product idea has been done to death, online reviewers are more likely to give a general review as opposed to a more favourable review (or indeed no review at all).
- Service – all panel members strongly believed that good service – even in the event of something going wrong with their brand ‘experience’ – was the hallmark of a positive review.
- Shareability – the reviewers said they wanted their experience to be ‘fun’ or ‘interesting enough’ to talk about with friends.
Most reviews are positive
Yelp’s Senior Community Editor Alex Shebar noted that the majority of the reviews on Yelp London – 80% – were positive, giving four or five stars.
However, reflecting how expectations of businesses have risen, one panel member commented:
“The way I see it, in the face of a bad review businesses have two options. They can either get angry, or actually listen to the feedback, act and improve their service. After all, if one person has a complaint, chances are others have the same.”
The growing influence of online reviews
Businesses should also be aware of the growing influence of online reviews. “Because there are so many companies in London there aren’t always that many reviews for them across the web,” noted one panellist. “This means, typing a bar’s name plus the word ‘review’ into Google will usually throw up a Yelp review in the top ten results. They’re hugely influential.”
And the group agreed that online reviews are overtaking traditional reviews (for example, papers or magazines), that advertising is not trusted, and that they trusted the personal experience of online reviews.
Businesses need to up their game
The panel were unanimous that businesses must up their game:
“Demonstrating good service to one customer will have an exponentially positive effect on your business, but remember that bad service works the same way – if not more so.”
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