Yahoo and Yelp have partnered to incorporate Yelp listings and reviews from local businesses into Yahoo’s site. (see the example below)
It is anticipated that Yelp reviews will be phased in over the coming months for all business. At the current time there are still some business pages that only display Yahoo reviews.
What does this mean for you?
This makes having a strong reputation management strategy even more important as customers rely more and more on the ratings they see online. The integration of Yelp into Yahoo search results will make it easier for customers to find reviews. Some common misconceptions have been that it is hard for customers to find online reviews. While that was true 4 or 5 years ago, access to online customer ratings is no longer hidden.
Reputation Management Basics
A basic reputation strategy includes the following:
- Reputation monitoring – You can’t respond to reviews you don’t see so choose a service that aggregates all of your reviews in one location and provides alerts.
- Respond to positive and negative reviews – Ignoring online reviews is like not answering your phone when a customer calls with feedback.
- Encourage reviews – You want to encourage your customers to provide online reviews of your company. This feedback helps you to improve if there is an issue and if you obtain numerous positive reviews these can overshadow your occasional negative reviews.