You read that correctly, your 5+ star yelp reviews will go against your business. Sometimes it can be just as bad as a negative review..no I lied but it’s a possibility. People usually read the negative reviews first then the positive reviews. Top rated businesses on yelp scores about a 4 star to a 5 stars but usually 4 stars means you’re doing something right.

Client’s expectations go up and you’re “over-hyped”

No one is perfect

The few that scores 4.5 stars with over 500+reviews you’re in the gold. But even then people with 4.5 stars still have a good few bad apples but it’s just the nature of the game. Unfortunately you need to play this “5 star yelp review game”.  There are businesses that ask for yelp reviews which is frowned upon yelp.

I personally don’t ask for yelp reviews

If I know you booked via yelp app, I usually just say

“I hope everything went well, I’ll see you on yelp again”.

I don’t ask but it’s a way to hint a review.

Here’s how yelp recommended review works:

 

I learned the following from  yelpers that went to my salon …

(Note: Not exact transcript but this is how it went.)

Yelper: You have so many high reviews and I love them.

Me: Thank you, we try our best, what made you come here?

Yelper: The feedback from the reviews and your response time

Me: Great! I appreciate that.

Yelper: I also saw your #1 review, she said the following:

“Good Music, Good service, Good prices, Quick response“

Me: ” We are fine..we just take care of everyone on how they want to be treated”

Here’s my analysis:

Music: 

Not once did I advertise I have good music. I know I play music but I never told the customers I do. Music is too subjective and there’s not much for a reason for us to brag about it.  I’m not a DJ.

I wrote about this in this article Music for Nail Salons. Remember, music is just part of the whole nail salon experience but not in the web site, yelp business, or google ads do we have “Come in, our salon for good music”

+1 Expectations.  I want clients to recognize music but not expect it. 

Service:

This is one thing I’m big on and the only thing I want to “brag” about. I want customers to expect I do service well because it’s one of the differences I can provide to clients.

You need to keep this consistent. Having a bad day? Suck it up. Once you screw up one of the things you’re known for, you may lose the customer.

They read on the reviews that 80% of it has the word “service”.

+1 Expectations. My customer’s know my good service.

Prices:

This is very easy to do and easy to screw up. If the customer is expecting $25 for a pedicure then you need to charge $25, not a penny more. Everything that “adds” cost, you need to tell them ahead of time. You don’t want an angry customer and have a price war.

A lot of yelpers will write the pricing on the review. If your price ever goes up, make sure to inform them it did, months ahead of time.

For the “special” cases, always have a disclaimer.

As you can see customers are very price sensitive and they are expecting the price when they walk in.

+1 Expectations. My customer’s know our pricing. 

Quick Response:

This one is obvious because it’s posted on yelp, see below:

So again, client’s will be expecting this from the company and don’t care what your excuses are. If it says “responds” in about 30 mins then you better get as close to that as possible.

Keep this expectation very high because it’s “public”.

What I mean by public is, it’s outside of the normal operating location of the business. The response rate is written on the internet vs someone calling on the phone.

+1 Expectations. My customer’s know my response rate

 

What does this all mean? 

My customer’s are now expecting everything that is on our yelp page. This will mean more work for you to keep up the standard. It sounds bad on this blog, but most of it is already 2nd nature for us business owners. The yelpers will read your positive and negative reviews and make their own expectations.

Whatever it says on the yelp review will be expected so watch what your customer’s say.

The “over-hype”

There’s really not much you can do to avoid this because after a certain amount of reviews, the new yelpers will raise the expectations even higher. They will be disappointed when they don’t get the experience they were looking for.

MORE REVIEWS = MORE EXPECTATIONS

It’s the nature of the game and I been to a lot of 4.5 star restaurants/shops etc and I also had the “overhype” feeling. Don’t get me wrong, they are good places but when you’re expecting nothing but 4.5+ stars you expect the same experience. However if you’re having an overhype problem, you already have a strong client-base

All in all, just be happy if you have 4 star reviews, you’ll never have it perfect.