Consumer Reviews Freak Businesses Out

Consumer Reviews Freak Businesses Out

Yelp is a consumer review site that provides a social networking function. Why is this helpful? CNN says, “When we discover something wonderful, we love to tell our friends about it. We also turn to people we trust when we need a good recommendation. Yelp is enabling those conversations to happen on a massive scale.”

People are making a lot of money from it. Anita Lau wrote about the salon at Yelp.com. Lau has posted 2,036 reviews and 1,340 photos, has collected 790 compliments on her work from fellow Yelpers, and has grown her consumer review voice on the site.

80% of shoppers have more trust in brands that feature reviews and that 75% of shoppers say it’s extremely or very important to read customer reviews before making a purchase.

Stick this in the back of your mind and take a trot around the internet. More companies these days are welcoming customer feedback and creating online platforms for user reviews. Web browsers are looking for convenience online as well as off. If a site can provide information as well as community, then it’s good to go; or at least live on someone’s toolbar for a while.

“Your customers are out there saying things about you, whether it’s on Yelp or on some blog. The faster you can fix problems, the better you’re going to do. Customer service is the new marketing.”