We use it for our business and I'm trying to talk my partner into dumping it. We had a PR person doing our social media for a while and she set up all this accts (facebook, twitter, yelp, etc) and they sort of sit out there and spin. However it seems now they are more trouble than they are worth at least in my opinion. Let me explain why
A few weeks back we had a client come in for boarding. We always give require all pets be current on vaccines and always give estimates which are signed when the owner drops off. No different in this case. As is common in FL in October, the storms come through and some pets don't tolerate it so we called the owner and recommended some light sedation. The owner OKed some valium for her dog. When the nephew picked the dog up he amazed at the bill which was $20.00 over the signed estimate presented to the aunt. He went home and "yelped" us. Now looking at his other reviews, this kid loves to 1 and 2 star review. Everything from "worse burger I ever ate" to "chicken wings not edible even after I washed the sauce off" type of stuff. OK no biggie but we did contact the aunt and make sure she was fine. We sent a letter explaining and she was fine with everything.
Now comes the kicker. On 10/11 of this year one pops up from a former employee (she worked 2 days last December, as in 11 months ago), claiming I beat, kicked a dog in the head and choked it. This is a 5 paragraph biography about what a bastard I am and how I abuse my patients. In essence she is accusing me of breaking the law and that she had reported me to the authorities. You can be sure none of this happened. Additionally prior to her employment she signed a nondisclosure agreement stating she would not discuss anything that occurred inside the building (standard practice, just like human medicine). I didn't notice the review until I had a client call asking it I was going to be working! Now I have numerous reviews about how wonderful I am, what a great practice we have, etc... but one review like this makes all the others irrelevant.
Of course we have contacted yelp to ask the review be remove since its from an ex employee and not a review but rather an attempt to discredit a former employer. Also contacting my lawyer tomorrow and considering filing some type of order against her. Not heard back from yelp yet and the review is still there. But boy does it piss you off.
I guess my thinking is that what does a service like yelp get me? I'm not thinking any "good clients" come by way of yelp, right? If you were looking for a veterinarian, would you go to Yelp? Would you ask a neighbor? Is the trouble caused by bad reviews worth the benefit of good reviews? When you read the reviews on a site do you put as much emphasis on the positives as the negatives?
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