"You've been Yelped" - How to build or destroy your business using online review sites
Yelp and other review sites are raising the stakes for consumer businesses. Customers air both praise and complaints in public. And the response from the business is often public too. The good news for businesses that have implemented Customer Experience Management (CEM) is that they have the systems, the staff, the training, and the mindset in place to exploit the trend to get powerful, well deserved word of mouth marketing for free.
The article "You've been Yelped" by Max Chafkin of Inc. Magazine is a must read for any front-line leader or executive in a service oriented consumer business. Here a few takeaways:
Employees and managers must be trained to listen, engage and act with the right mindset. Otherwise:
Goodman was angry -- yet another review about the mess -- and she decided to let Sean C. have a piece of her mind. She clicked a link on Yelp's website, opening a tool that allows business owners to send messages to reviewers. "Why don't you come in here and say it to my face?" she wrote. "Are you too much of a coward?" She told him that she knew who he was -- so few people came into the store that it was obvious -- and that the store was a mess because sales were slow. Over the next few hours, she sent several more angry messages. She warned of a "world of pain." "Goodbye pussy boy I will be contacting your employers," she said. And: "Your mom was a bitch and she didn't teach you how to behave. That's why your life is such a mess right now."
Innovative, customer focused businesses are hugely benefiting from review sites and social media. The feedback provides marketing as well as operational guidance and can help grow your business
"When you're in a trend-driven business, if you're not keeping up with the trends, you're just going to get old with your clientele and die," says Hart. She lifted the ban on Internet usage in the office, took a basic computer class at the Apple Store, and showed up at one of the monthly meetings Messinger holds for business owners.
Today, the Root offers deals on its Yelp page -- anyone who mentions the site might get a free conditioning treatment -- to attract new clients, and Hart tries obsessively to avoid negative reviews. When a new client makes an appointment and mentions Yelp, Hart generally checks to see if the person has a profile on the site. If the Yelper has written bad reviews, Hart will make sure she personally cuts the customer's hair. Hart responds to every review -- which in 29 out of 30 cases has meant saying thank you.
Like every business owner, however, Hart cannot help focusing on the rare exceptions. "I've had one negative review," she says. "The customer called in and wanted the owner, and when she came in, I could tell she wasn't my type." The new client seemed edgier than Hart's typical clientele. Hart cut the woman's hair, and at 2 o'clock the next morning, Hart received an automated e-mail about a new review: two stars. She was devastated.
"The fact is, I can walk out this door and trip over salons," she says. "A bad review would be horrible. In this economy, good enough isn't good enough." But unlike Goodman, the bookstore owner, Hart kept her head. She composed an apologetic reply, and, using her Yelp account, sent a private message to the dissatisfied customer. Hart suggested a competing salon and offered to pay for a second haircut there. The result? The two-star review became a four-star review. (For more on how to respond to a bad review, see "Take a Deep Breath.") Hart told me that if a junior stylist were to get a review below three stars, she would consider firing the stylist. "My girls flinch every time we get one of those e-mails," she says.
And yet Hart loves Yelp. Amid a recession that has been disastrous for most retail businesses, sales at the Root have grown 148 percent compared with last year's. .... "There are a lot of business owners who feel like Yelp reviews just happen," she says. "But it's not true. Responding to reviews, giving offers, maintaining your page -- it all makes a huge difference."
You can read The Root's Yelp page here: http://bit.ly/81NPsw
Full article here: http://bit.ly/6dPiWD
About us: Medallia software enables the whole company to listen to customer feedback and systematically act to improve the customer experience: http://medallia.com
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