Guest Appearance: Jessica Carlin

Yelp: Should I ask for a yelp review? The Short Answer is No and here’s why

Jessica Carlin
“Stop focusing on what is next; start stewarding what is now.”

Message the Guest

Message the Guest

About Yelp, Inc.

Partner Sales Director at Yelp, Jessica Carlin draws from her considerable experience, as a former Brand Ambassador, and through over six years of working for Yelp as a Partner Sales Director, we will address the most pressing questions we receive from entrepreneurs at the Ignite Your Business Radio Show. I hope these segments are as exciting for you as they are for all of us here at Ignite Your Business Radio Show!

Partner Sales Director at Yelp, Jessica Carlin draws from her considerable experience, as a former Brand Ambassador, and through over six years of working for Yelp as a Partner Sales Director, we will address the most pressing questions we receive from entrepreneurs at the Ignite Your Business Radio Show. I hope these segments are as exciting for you as they are for all of us here at Ignite Your Business Radio Show!

About Episode

We’re breaking from our traditional episodes for these special interview segments with Yelp Partner Sales Director Jessica Carlin.

We’ve received a lot of questions from our listeners all over the country regarding Yelp. Because of that, we decided to take some time and break down and answer these questions directly for you, our listeners.

Should I ask for a yelp review? The Short Answer is No and here’s why

 

A Bounce House owner in El Segundo, California asks: Am I allowed to ask my customers for reviews after they used our services and products?

I think it’s safe to say that we all wish we could be the owner of this business and owning a bounce house business has to be a ton of fun!

Here’s the excellent answer to this commonly asked question from Yelp’s own Jessica Carlin:

That is a wonderful question. And definitely, one that we hear at least once a day. Yelp’s stance, which if you’re not aware, is really focused on not soliciting any kind of review, good or bad. I would like to discuss this further.

Yelp works very hard to protect the integrity of our website (yelp.com) and the consumer trust in all that we do. Because of this, Yelp takes a hard strong stance on not asking for reviews as that leads to bias content. We want to make our site as unbiased as possible.

Unfortunately, what happens in an instance where a business is caught asking for reviews or soliciting reviews, in the most extreme case, a consumer alert can actually appear on the public profile of the business’s yelp page. This consumer alert will be front and center of the page that says “this business was caught soliciting reviews.” For potential customers and visitors to that business’ yelp page, we are telling them, “take the reviews that you see for this business with a grain of salt.”

I see this as being similar to what I would tell my future children when it comes to cheating on a college exam. You may be able to get away with it once or twice but are the consequences and repercussions worth it?!

It may sound a bit cliche, but this is very simple. Do a great service and treat your customers well, especially if you are on Yelp and advertising with us. From this, you will receive 10-times more exposure than your competitors every time. Of those customers you do attract, 11% of those will leave reviews of their experience, good or bad. This is one of the many ways you can generate a large amount of user-generated content.

Resources and Important Links

Do you have some questions for the show? Something about graphic design, marketing strategies, how to maintain brand awareness in a professional crisis, or anything else you might think of? Drop us a line at [email protected]! Here at Ignite Your Business Radio Show, we want to give you, our listeners, an opportunity to get to the topics, questions, and concerns you might be having, and get them answered right away!

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