I'm a big fan of the independent restaurants, grocery stores and dry cleaners. These places take me away from the monotony of chain stores and many of them are hidden gems with high quality goods and services. However, finding out about them can sometimes be a pain, as many of these places may not have the web presence and rely on word of mouth that may or may not always be reliable.
Enter Yelp, a website where people enter in reviews for pretty much anything, though the focus of yelp mainly caters to restaurants, salons, spas, and independent stores. I've used this site quite a bit to look for good restaurants and my wife uses it for the salon and spas, usually in areas that we are new to after moving.
The site is receiving some criticism for its practices with reviews. Since the company receives its money almost exclusively from advertising, businesses that advertise complain that "bad" reviews get posted, even though they pay yelp for ad space. Also, some reviews are not posted, as Yelp periodically "updates" the reviews, and removes others but don't have strong reasoning as to why reviews are removed. On other review websites like TripAdvisor and Cnet, businesses can reply to a particular review if they like it or if they want to correct mistakes, or reply to a bad review. Yelp does not have this feature and asks businesses to reply directly to the reviewer by e-mail.
Much of the frustration comes from lack of Yelp specifying certain policies. I think they can make some simple changes to please both business owners and reviewers alike. The reply feature on TripAdvisor works well for the company to reply to reviews that may seem unfair or inaccurate. Yelp can easily adopt this policy for businesses that advertise. This allows for the people to have their voice, but independent business owners can respond publically. Also, if reviews are removed, there has to be a consistent reason and policy which gives the criteria. It seems as if Yelp is doing it somewhat randomly, and taking off good reviews or bad ones can significantly distort the overall accuracy.
I don't think Yelp should censor bad or good reviews for any company, because the opinion of the reviewer is what makes this site vital. Business owners that advertise on Yelp should understand the risk that they take when advertising with a site that has reviews done by a third party. It is not Yelp's job to remove these reviews. It is the responsibility of the independent store owner to address the review if they deem it unfair or inappropriate.
I like the idea of small, independent businesses using Yelp to leverage their company, especially those with good or bad reputations. I find the businesses that get good reviews from a large variety of sources usually do live up to their word, and the ones with bad reviews are the same way. Of course, you have to take it with a grain of salt, because if there's only one review and its either good or bad, it might not reflect the true accuracy of quality. The quality comes in the number of reviews and the opinions they get. Regardless of opinion, Yelp provides a place for individuals to go to if they aren't sure about the reputation, and they should continue to do so with a few little modifications.
Minus the Wonk
14 years ago
2 comments:
Ah! Based on your title, I was hoping to see a list of a few of your favorite things! Has your wife found a favorite spa in the area?
I fundamentally agree with you that reviews should stand, but I also feel like businesses need some way to be able to protect themselves from defamatory reviews, that are fueled by ire and may or may not be legit. If they can't have those reviews deleted, perhaps Yelp could publish the business' response beneath the review so readers can see that as well?
Hi Steve -
Great analysis of the article on Yelp.
Here are a couple links which you might have already seen, but I thought worth bringing to your attention.
- Jeremy S, Yelp CEO's blog post on the myths that have mysteriously sprung up about Yelp : http://officialblog.yelp.com/2009/02/9-myths-about-yelp.html
- You must have been psychic (or just business savvy) to have predicted the launch of public commenting by business owners: http://officialblog.yelp.com/2009/04/public-comments-for-business-owners.html
- And as far as removing reviews, there's a lot of debate on the subject already. Is it better to allow reviews to be posted without regard to how suspicious the source may be? What if it's from fake accounts that have been created by the business owner himself? What if it's from fake accounts created by a business' competition? Is there a way to help people coming to a review website see only authentic, legitimate content? What are your thoughts on the subject? http://officialblog.yelp.com/2009/02/conspiracy-theories-and-blackbox-algorithms.html
Cheers,
-Kevin L, Yelp DC CM
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