How Much Can A Bad Yelp Rating Affect Your Business?

Yelp is one of the most popular third-party review sites that become primary references to the customers’ purchasing decisions. Positive reviews in Yelp can certainly attract potential customers for your business, but like two sides of a coin, negative reviews can also make you lose ones. You can lose 20-60% potential customers with 1-3 negative reviews on Yelp. Yes, it’s that much.

In fact, bad reviews from third parties are the most effective ways to lose customers. It’s simply because the market is now occupied by smart buyers that take strong references into account of their buying decisions. It’s not only Yelp but also other third-party sites where your business has been reviewed there.

In many cases, negative reviews are inevitable and the chances of eliminating them are very low. Business owners must be proactive and initiative to increase their odds of removing negative reviews on their company, products, and services. In most cases, negative reviews can only be “removed” by pushing up more positive reviews against them. When left untreated, even only one bad yelp rating can ruin business for sure.

Consumers Trust Yelp

More than 80% of consumers trust what’s showcased in Yelp and take the reviews to weigh their purchase decisions significantly. That’s also said that Yelp is the third-party review platform that allows you to develop consumer trust. More specifically, business locals are the ones that can optimally take advantage of Yelp where they can use it as the reference for their SEO strategy.

Many local businesses have been relying on reviews and referrals of previous or existing customers in Yelp. Therefore, they consistently encourage their consumers or clients to leave their reviews on the platform. You’d need to do the same thing to develop consumer trust in your business.

However, exposure in Yelp works like two-edged swords for your business. While positive reviews and referrals drive you more conversions, the negative ones can make you lose potential customers. Yes, only a few negative reviews can distrust prospective consumers that decrease your conversion rates.

Therefore, you need to work on your business Yelp page to gain more trust from your consumers. Encourage your existing customers to leave their feedback on Yelp and drive more positive reviews in one or another way. On the other hand,  You need to “remove” and manage any negative review properly. It’s because most consumers would trust Yelp reviews as they’re checking on your business on the platform.

How Yelp Directly Hurts Your Business?

There are many cases in which businesses have suffered from losses due to their exposure to Yelp. While it’s a popular third-party business review site,  Yelp can potentially hurt your business in a very direct manner. While buyers may idolize Yelp reference, business owners are struggling with review-related issues that affect their business.  Learn how Yelp can directly hurt your business.

The Consumer Distrusts over False Bad Reviews

False reviews are one of the primary issues in Yelp that most businesses would likely encounter. You can always get “not recommended” type of reviews and bad ratings from no one. The problem is that you can’t control who would give the rating and reviews on the platform. The false bad reviews are the worst thing that local businesses can experience on Yelp since they can drive consumer distrust so effectively.

Decrease Conversions

When potential consumers distrust your businesses, you’d likely get a lower number of leads and conversions.  These “smart buyers” believe what they’re reading on Yelp but unfortunately, such negative reviews are more impactful. In fact, these reviews have become their primary reference for their purchasing decisions.

Ruin Business Reputation

In the long term, Yelp reviews can either improve or destroy your business reputation.  The impact is hard to measure but it could be devastating when it comes to bad reputation from Yelp. You might have thought that they drive indirect effects that you can interfere and manage but they’re actually not. Since Yelp is one of the most preferred review sites, you can notice the impact pretty much soon.

Make Your Business Less Visible

It’s no longer a secret that Yelp has its own algorithm which is sometimes not favorable especially if the business has bad exposure(negative reviews). While they don’t bury your business, they would certainly decrease your business visibility.

Why a Business May Need to Remove a Bad Review?

There are chances where bad reviews become inevitable in third-party business review sites. Practically, you’re urged to respond to and manage negative reviews to properly maintain your business reputation. However, there are also strong reasons why you as a business owner may need to remove bad reviews.

False Reviews

False reviews refer to ones that contain false claims about your business. These reviews may refer to actual events surrounding your business practices but they might be twisted or misleadingly understood. These reviews can certainly drive a bad reputation for your business. You need to persuade reviewers to remove their reviews and/or you can publicly clarify the false reviews.

Fake Reviews

Fake reviews are just much worse than false claims because they’re simply FAKE. There are no underlying events or people related to your business to support the narration in such reviews. They might not even be your former or current consumers at all.  Fake reviews can be unfairly deployed by your competitors to your business showcase in Yelp to drive distrust among potential consumers.

Guideline Violation

Many reviews are simply violating the rule or TOS of the third-party review sites. While there are various business review sites, they actually share some common policies. Unfortunately, the system can’t automatically detect these violations unless you report them.  The TOS has been made to protect users including businesses reviewed in the platform, so you must request any violating reviews to be removed.

Use Positive Reviews To Protect Your Reputation

When your business is exposed to third-party business review sites like Yelp, you put your business reputation at a stake. The best way to protect the reputation of your business is by driving more and more positive reviews on Yelp pages. Reputation plays a crucial role in business growth so working on this area is mandatory.

Encourage Satisfied Consumers to Provide Reviews

The best way to get positive reviews is to gather them from your customer base. If you have satisfied customers or clients, you should ask them to provide positive reviews about their experience. These reviews would develop a positive foundation for your business.

Respond To The Reviews

Caring services are the ultimate power to develop a strong customer base for your business. Whether it’s praise or complaint you must respond to them to show how you care about your consumers. When it comes to bad reviews, you can offer an apology, clarification, solution, or even compensation.

Manage Negative Reviews

Due to the greater impacts they can drive, you must manage negative reviews properly. You can start by resolving the problems the corresponding customers have complained about. It would depend on the case but you can offer replacements or compensations whenever possible.

Maintain the Review Proportion

Since negative reviews could be devastating, you need to ensure they’re buried deep or blurred among the glowingly positive reviews.  That’s why you must consistently grow a positive base so potential consumers mostly find good things about your business and develop trust.

Consistently Clean Up  Your Review Base

You must know that not all bad reviews are legitimate or appropriate as they can be fake, false, or simply violate the TOS of review sites or regulations.  Report and request deletions for any inappropriate testimonials or comments. Don’t let them ruin your business as they’re read by many of your potential consumers on business review sites.

How To Get A Yelp Review Removed?

If you’ve found any violating reviews on your business page in Yelp, then you can report them to the administrator for removal. You can follow these simple steps to request for a review removal:

1. Choose the corresponding review and report it

2. Select the reasons why Yelp must remove that review

3. Describe your reasoning into more specific details with any relevant information

4. Review your description thoroughly

5. Submit your review removal request

6. Wait for an official response from Yelp that appears on your notification

It should be noted that Yelp may actually respond to your request several days after the submission so you must be patient. Yelp would review your request and determine whether or not the corresponding review violated their guidelines. 

If your request is declined, you still appeal one more time but that’s it. If the second request is still denied, the review would remain on your Yelp page unless the reviewer updates their feedback.

How do I get rid of a bad review on Yelp?

There are two major ways you can actually get rid of a bad review on Yelp.  First, you can report and review bad reviews for violating Yelp guidelines and regulations. Second, you can solicit or respond to unsatisfied reviewers.

Report and Remove Reviews

First of all, the one that can actually remove the reviews systematically is Yelp itself. What you can do is report inappropriate comments/reviews that violate the guidelines and ask for removal.  Your task is to point and prove that the corresponding comments violate Yelp’s guidelines. Yelp would then remove the reviews if they’ve proven to be violating and inappropriate.

Respond to Unsatisfied Reviewers

When it comes to genuine bad or negative reviews, then the best thing you can do is to deal with them. At this point, you need to respond to any unsatisfied reviewers and offer them solutions over what they’ve experienced.

For example, you can replace the defective product, offer a voucher for the next orders, or refund. After resolutions have been accepted, you can ask them to remove their bad reviews or change them into positive ones.

Does yelp ever remove reviews?

Yes, Yelp does remove reviews that violate their guidelines and policies but it won’t take sides on any dispute between the businesses and reviewers.  Yelp would remove a review that meets some criteria like those mentioned below.

• Irrelevant: The reviews contain nothing about consumer experience but any irrelevant rants about employment, belief system, ideologies, etc.
• Inappropriate: Anything containing hate speech, harassment, threats, and bigotries are considered inappropriate and subject to removal.
• Violating Privacy:  Reviews that contain personal or sensitive information, pictures, or videos are strictly restricted.  
• Promotional: Yelp forbids all promotional content in reviews about a related or non-related business
• Asking for Payment: Asking for a refund, replacement, repair, or any kind of compensation in reviews is restricted in Yelp.
• Copied Content:  Yelp forbids any review to contain stolen content from other patrons or sites.
• Conflict of Interest: Yelp doesn’t allow you(as business owners or staff) to review competitors. Reviewing a business owned by your peers, friends, or relatives are also not allowed.

If you find reviews with the characteristics above, you can simply report them and ask Yelp for removal. Once they’ve proven to violate the guidelines, Yelp would simply remove them from your page.  However, if they’re not reported, the reviews would likely stay on your page forever and be disadvantageous for your business.

Can Business Owners Pay Yelp to Remove Bad Reviews?

Short answer, No. You don’t need to and may not pay Yelp to remove bad reviews on your business page on the platform. What you can do as a business owner is to report reviews that appear to violate Yelp’s guidelines. Yelp is renowned to be a consumer-focused platform while the businesses/companies reviewed aren’t prioritized. Don’t even try to bribe Yelp to remove reviews or your business would be red-flagged or even banned on the platform.

Can you ask a customer to remove a yelp review?

Yes, you can. In fact, you’re strongly recommended to persuasively ask the corresponding reviewer who is your existing consumer to change or remove their feedback. You may offer compensation or solutions to their disappointment or unpleasant experiences.  Don’t hesitate to politely ask them to remove or update their comment after both sides have achieved resolutions.

How much does it cost to remove a yelp review

Removing a Yelp review is not free. There are a few ways to remove reviews from your business, but you will have to pay for them.

We offer an option of purchasing the “Negative Review Removal” service which helps to remove negative reviews on your Yelp page.