Greetings GLAD WORKS friends and welcome to the wonderful world of Yelp!  We’ve written about Yelp before, but today we’re going to talk about some stuff we bet you didn’t know about it. It looks like more businesses are getting on board the Yelp train lately, and if you’re thinking about it too, this is a good time to read up.

Yelp is cool beans, you guys.  Let us show you…

Not just for restaurants

When folks think about Yelp, most of them think of it as a place to look up a new restaurant before taking a risk and eating something expensive and gross, but the truth is that shopping is actually Yelp’s biggest category.  Restaurants are a very close second, but they have a natural advantage. We think it’s because it’s food related and people have very strong opinions about that. They also have strong opinions about customer service, which must be why shopping and dining experiences get so much attention on Yelp.

Nobody’s really going to go on there to review their dry cleaner, are they?  Maybe, but not as likely as the more fun stuff like eating and shopping. That dry cleaner would have to have some pretty spectacular customer service to motivate people to review them…

Customer service rules all!

Customers appreciate it when the people they encounter are nice, friendly, and helpful. In fact, great customer service is a big way to inspire people to write reviews. Even if the food was bad or the dry cleaner didn’t get that stain out of your favorite shirt, if the customer service was good, people are going to recognize that and their review will reflect it.

Asking people to write a review is naughty

Let’s say you own a hair salon and you have a customer who’s on his or her way out the door positively beaming because they looks so darn good, it might be tempting to ask them to write a review.  Yelp discourages this behavior.  Instead they want customers to come upon the idea on their own.  Perhaps they can be made aware that you’re on Yelp, but they shouldn’t be made to feel like promotional zombies.  Remember you’re there to serve them, not the other way around.  That said, we don’t see why you can’t plant the seed by at least making people aware that you’re on there.

You know, maybe you can slip into their houses at night and whisper “find us on Yelp!” into their ears as they sleep.

Something subtle like that.

If that makes you feel weird, you could just put the Yelp logo on your business card, put a sticker on your cash register, that kind of thing.  Yelp’s Flickr page has a bunch of free downloadable signage for you to use.

You can earn stickers!

Have you seen those “People Love Us on Yelp” stickers?  No?  Well that’s because they’re hard to get, GLAD WORKS friends. They don’t just go giving those out to people.  Instead, they give them only to businesses with high overall ratings.  You pretty much have to be a rock star to get them, but you know what?  It’s a fun thing to strive for and it just might help you motivate yourself to go above and beyond to inspire those great reviews.

If you get a bad review, you don’t have to shut up and take it

But for the love of all that is good and businesslike in this world, don’t respond with anger!  If somebody says something unpleasant about your business, Yelp is fine with it if you want to dispute it.  Just keep it professional because everything on there is public, meaning that everyone can see every word you type.

So are you guys ready to get on board with Yelp? It’s super cool, and if you want, we can help you figure out how to use it to your greatest advantage.  Maybe we can even help you get one of those fancy stickers!  How cool would that be?  Way better than the ones that say “my kid can beat up your kid!”