What Businesses Need To Know About Yelping On Yelp

If you’ve ever looked for a cozy Italian restaurant in your neighborhood, a dentist near your new office, or a pet groomer who knows just how to make your Labradoodle look his best, chances are you’ve visited Yelp.com. With more than 108 million unique visitors per month, Yelp is billed as “an online urban city guide that helps people find cool places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, based on the informed opinions of a vibrant and active community of locals in the know.” It sounds great, but business owners know all too well that a lousy review on Yelp can do a lot of collateral damage to their profits.

Yelping at Yelp: How You Handle Negative Online Reviews Can Leave a Lasting impression

In the video interview above, Marc Silverstein talks to Mark Wright, author of Yelping at Yelp: How you handle negative online reviews can leave a lasting impression, about best practices to consider when responding to customers on Yelp.

Responding to Yelp reviews, whether bad or good, is an art form and not for the faint of heart, Wright suggests. And because roughly 70 percent of consumers reference an online review before making a purchasing decision, it is crucial that business owners diplomatically address both positive and negative reviews on Yelp. Wright’s advice to business owners responding to reviews on Yelp? Sleep on it. Allow time to pass between writing and posting a response