A new article on Search Engine Journal says that both Positive and negative Yelp reviews deserve a reply and discusses that how you reply to negative Yelp reviews can have a big impact in digital marketing. Here’s what you need to know.
When it comes to making a purchase decision, the majority of potential customers will look to reviews for help. Yelp is a platform that allows customers to leave such reviews for the businesses they have visited and supported, from cafes to cottage rentals and everything in between.
There are always going to be times when a negative experience brings this average down. It’s important to bear in mind that your responses to these comments can have as much influence as the reviews themselves, both good and bad.
Positive and negative Yelp reviews all warrant a reply, and dedicating the time and resources to doing so can have a big impact. You can use the following advice to inform your positive Yelp reviews response protocol:
- Keep It Short: It’s important to give a meaningful response to your customer’s reviews, but you don’t want to overdo it. When writing Yelp responses to positive comments, try to keep things as concise as possible whilst ensuring that you don’t sound sharp and impersonal.
- Say Thank You: The most important thing to remember when responding to a positive Yelp review is to say thank you. You can express gratitude in a variety of different ways, and it’s good to change up what you say so that your responses sound more genuine. But including thanks right at the start of your reply will make the customer instantly feel good about leaving a review and ensure that you appear humble but showing genuine appreciation.
- Make It Unique: Your responses mustn’t sound like automated messages. If a potential customer visits your Yelp page and sees that all reviews have the same, basic reply, they’ll assume that you don’t actually read them and will be much less inclined to leave one themselves.
- Offer More Value: Whether you include a discount or just some personalized advice in your responses, you can take your customer interaction to the next level by including something valuable in each of your replies. Not only will this be an incentive for more positive reviews, but it’s also a good way to generate repeat business.
- Close with an Invitation: The final sentence of a response to a positive review should always be encouraging the customer to return or repurchase. This doesn’t have to be via a hard sell, but instead a friendly encouragement to continue supporting your business
