Boasting 92 million active mobile users per month, Yelp is a powerful promotional platform for any budding business or startup.
92% of the users make a purchase after visiting Yelp—and of course, those that do buy a product or service are swayed by positive customer reviews.
Positive Yelp reviews (as well as reviews from other popular online directories) will boost your brand awareness and earn more sales. But, on the flipside, bad Yelp reviews will damage your reputation and stunt your commercial growth.
Sometimes, the Yelp reviews you receive are inaccurate, unfair, and unjust. But, believe it or not, you can remove them from the public eye.
Here’s how.
How to remove a negative Yelp review
Before we dig any deeper, we should say that to successfully remove a Yelp review, it has to violate the platform’s TOS (terms of service).
Read through Yelp’s content TOS and if you believe that your bad reviews violate the rules in any way, you can take action.
To remove a bad Yelp review, you need to…
1. Report the bad review in question
To ensure your review is expunged from humanity, first of all you need to report it to Yelp. To do so, need to click the ‘report review’ icon at the foot of the testimonial you would like to remove before selecting the reason for your request from the dropbox provided:
Then…
2. State your case to Yelp
Once you’ve flagged your Yelp review for removal and provided a general reason for your motivation, you will need to explain, in your own words, why you believe the review violates the platform’s content TOS.
When filling in this section, you should aim to be concise, direct, and state exactly why you believe the Yelp review should be removed. In short, be honest and straightforward.
3. Submit and wait
Once you’ve checked and proofed your statement, you can hit the ‘submit’ button. Yelp will review requests and usually get back to you within five business days.
Yelp typically takes both parties’ views into consideration but, if a bad review blatantly violates the platform’s TOS, it will be removed, forever.
Job done.
Final thoughts
When it comes to deciding whether to remove a Yelp review, you should always be objective.
If it’s a relatively neutral review that isn’t overly kind to your business, you may not have grounds for removal. Likewise, consider that a variety of reviews adds authenticity which people will ultimately appreciate and respect. But, if you know that a bad Yelp review is unfair and violates policy, you will have a solid case for removal.
We hope this guide has proved helpful and for more business-based pearls of wisdom, check out our guide to using Thumbtack to generate more sales.