Bad online reviews are the last thing company owners want to deal with, yet they are a big part of running a small business. Learning how to delete lousy Yelp reviews can help a small business restore a substantial portion of its digital presence.
Bad Yelp reviews may permanently damage the image of the business. Just one negative review may significantly impact a company’s bottom line and ability to keep in business.
If someone posts a phony or bad review about your company on Yelp, there are steps you can do to delete it and rebuild your online presence permanently.
Let us know some tips on removing harmful or destructive reviews from Yelp in this article.
When Should a Yelp Review Be Removed?
If your business receives an unfavorable Yelp review, you must act immediately. The longer you leave to reply to a negative online review, the more impact it might cause. However, it is essential to understand that how you reply is equally crucial as when you react.
However, remember that not all negative reviews need to be flagged and reported on the platform.
For instance, if an unsatisfied customer had such a negative experience with you because of poor service, they have a legal right to complain about it online. When a customer has an absolute negative experience, the best part you can do is communicate with them and give a solution.
How to Remove a Negative Yelp Review
As soon as you receive the negative reviews, it’s important to respond as soon as possible. A negative online review might harm your business if you don’t reply quickly enough. The moment of your response is critical, and so is how you answer.
Claim Your Business Profile on Yelp
You must first claim your Yelp page before starting. It enables you to react to customer concerns and submit them to Yelp’s review management personnel.
Fill up the blanks on your page with current business information, such as addresses, phone numbers, operating hours, and photos of your business and product offers. Providing a lot of info makes you care about your company’s image, which is crucial if you run a small business.
Find the reviews you want to remove
On your Yelp business page dashboard, click ‘Reviews’ on the left side. After that, you may search through your page’s previous customer reviews to find the one you don’t want.
If you don’t hear back from Yelp after submitting a negative review on your business page, you should contact them directly for help. I’ll explain how long Yelp often takes to reply to a review in the next part. It’s worth contacting them if you’ve been waiting for a response.
Report the reviews
Whatever reviews that Yelp’s algorithm missed because they violated the site’s terms of service need to submit to the site for complete removal.
To submit a review on Yelp, select the three dots that display next to the incorrect remark and click the “report review” button. Once Yelp moderators get all the reports, they’ll look into it and decide if the content in issue needs to be taken down or not.
It may take several days for the procedure to finish, but you may check on its progress at any moment. Place your mouse on the flag symbol next to the review. The moderators will inform you of their decision after they have concluded their evaluation.
Even if the negative comment isn’t removed, Yelp’s automatic program may find it useless or untrustworthy, in which case it will be concealed under more helpful reviews on the website.
Fill out the form completely
Fill out the form as soon as possible and explain your request to have the Yelp review removed. The platform’s Moderators will then review it.
Be patient for approval
Yelp typically takes between 24 hours and a week to evaluate a report of a bad review. If Yelp moderators determine that the review should be deleted, they will do so promptly and tell the Yelp customer that their review violates their rules. It’s also a measure of how quickly Yelp’s customer service responds to issues.
Why Should Business Owners Flag Reviews?
If the review in question violates Yelp’s Terms of Service, it should be reported to the Yelp moderator team for evaluation. Moreover, Yelp’s platform also has automated tools for detecting and eliminating false reviews.
Since reviews that violate Yelp’s content restrictions will be removed, it’s good to familiarize yourself with their policies.
When it comes to eliminating negative reviews, Yelp focuses on the following standards:
Inadequate content review
Threats, online harassment, and hate speech are all considered improper behavior by Yelp. You should flag the review if you spot a negative review with this type of language.
Privacy
A review should not feature images of other customers (unless those customers have granted permission to do so), nor should it disclose the complete name of any individual.
Personal experience
The only thing that should go into a review is what the author has personally experienced, not what they have “heard” from someone else.
Making a demand for payment
Don’t use Yelp to extort money from someone. According to Yelp’s rules and policies, every review that abuses a business to get money breaches those criteria.
Final Thoughts
Every business may get negative Yelp reviews. It makes a big difference how you answer. You can secure your company against bad reviews by taking various measures.
Reduce the negative Yelp reviews by following the steps in this article. Frustrated employees and unreasonable consumers on Yelp can harm businesses, particularly small ones, so you need to know your solutions if you want to deal with them