repuation management letter

[retraction]

Okay, so I got this letter in the mail and it had a hand-written address and my own name on it. I opened it and my bad reviews on Yelp show up. He highlighted the bad stuff for me. I admit, my reputation isn't the best in my area (3 star). And then in the next page he claims that he can help my reputation with legit Yelp reviews. "Studies show that one star increase on Yelp translates into 9% sales increase every month!". He also said that too.

First of all, is this legit? I don't know how you can get good legit reviews for Yelp. Second of all, will a four star rating immensely help my business (restaurant in a medium town)? He's a local and asked for a meeting or a call.

[David Hunter]

Talk to him over the phone and see what he has to offer. You don't have to buy what he's offer.

You're right... I'm not sure how he can get legit reviews on Yelp, unless he coaches you on how to get your Happy Clients to give you great reviews.

I'm interested in hearing what the guy has to say.

[Harold Mansfield]

I don't like being approached like that. I get "We can increase your traffic/reputation/SEO Rankings...blah..blah...blah" emails all of the time.
For the most part reputation services like this don't have strategies that are little more than common sense, fake reviews and fake articles placed on a network of blogs that they own purely for the purposes of posting fake articles.

I agree with David, if you're intrigued do a phone consult and listen to what he has to say. But honestly, if this is something that you are interested in you'd probably bet better off posting on this forum and asking the members for advice of things you can do yourself instead of paying someone to possibly get you blacklisted.

Or hire a real marketing expert to manage your brand.

JMO of course.

[billbenson]

I get "We can increase your traffic/reputation/SEO Rankings...blah..blah...blah" emails all of the time. .

This is the one that really amuses me. I get both unsolicited phone calls and emails. The thing is, I usually place 2 under the manufacturer I represent and most days we are to busy to take lunch. I get big pauses on the phone when I say that.

[Paul]

Okay, so I got this letter in the mail and it had a hand-written address and my own name on it. I opened it and my bad reviews on Yelp show up. He highlighted the bad stuff for me. I admit, my reputation isn't the best in my area (3 star). And then in the next page he claims that he can help my reputation with legit Yelp reviews. "Studies show that one star increase on Yelp translates into 9% sales increase every month!". He also said that too.

First of all, is this legit? I don't know how you can get good legit reviews for Yelp. Second of all, will a four star rating immensely help my business (restaurant in a medium town)? He's a local and asked for a meeting or a call.

Being a restaurant in a medium size town, I think the answer to a better Yelp rating is kind of obvious. I'd focus on whatever the main complaints were and fix them.

I suppose he can help you just by arranging bogus reviews. But, I doubt that will last long if the actual dining experience doesn't live up to the "reviews".

[retraction]

I don't like being approached like that. I get "We can increase your traffic/reputation/SEO Rankings...blah..blah...blah" emails all of the time.
For the most part reputation services like this don't have strategies that are little more than common sense, fake reviews and fake articles placed on a network of blogs that they own purely for the purposes of posting fake articles.

I agree with David, if you're intrigued do a phone consult and listen to what he has to say. But honestly, if this is something that you are interested in you'd probably bet better off posting on this forum and asking the members for advice of things you can do yourself instead of paying someone to possibly get you blacklisted.

Or hire a real marketing expert to manage your brand.

JMO of course.

Okay, I met up with him just right now and he has a very, very interesting system. It's simple, yet effective. Problem is that he is charging $400 a month for a simple system. It's stupid simple, but genius. He told me not to tell anyone else, so I can't tell you how it works. It basically just dilutes the negative reviews and gives me legit good reviews.

Don't know if its worth $400 a month.

[Harold Mansfield]

Okay, I met up with him just right now and he has a very, very interesting system. It's simple, yet effective. Problem is that he is charging $400 a month for a simple system. It's stupid simple, but genius. He told me not to tell anyone else, so I can't tell you how it works. It basically just dilutes the negative reviews and gives me legit good reviews.

Don't know if its worth $400 a month.
You can't "dilute" reviews from someone elses website. I agree with tackling your problems first from the bad reviews, and then embark on a campaign to get new ones. Not sure I'd pay anyone $400 month for cosmetic changes when it looks like your problems come from the root. Actually, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't.

Keep in mind, some of the most well known "reputation management" companies are under fire right now for over promising and not delivering. The bottom line is no one can predict what Google or Yelp will do when it comes to ranking reviews and they can't be manipulated like in the past. The best way to get good reviews is to give good service and provide a well received product. Outside of doing that you are wasting your money paying someone to fake it. There are no shortcuts to success and spending money on them usually never works out.

[Paul]

The best way to get good reviews is to give good service and provide a well received product. Outside of doing that you are wasting your money paying someone to fake it. There are no shortcuts to success and spending money on them usually never works out.

Exactly. Even if manipulating does work what's the point? Anyone who comes in based on a bogus "good" review will be quickly dissapointed if you haven't solved the actual issue. It really shouldn't be too difficult to fix whatever the weak points are in a local restaurant

[ActionMan]

If it is that simple what stops you from implementing it yourself without paying him $400/mo? There must be something that he does that you cannot duplicate; or at least you can't duplicate without spending more than $400/mo. If so, then try it out for a couple of months and see how it affects your sales. If sales increase by more than $400/mo then I would continue the program. Did he provide an estimate of the number of positive reviews that he can get you per month?

[billbenson]

If it is that simple what stops you from implementing it yourself without paying him $400/mo? There must be something that he does that you cannot duplicate; or at least you can't duplicate without spending more than $400/mo. If so, then try it out for a couple of months and see how it affects your sales. If sales increase by more than $400/mo then I would continue the program. Did he provide an estimate of the number of positive reviews that he can get you per month?

I'd be more worried about what may be perceived as spam than improvements in ranking with anything like this.

[Harold Mansfield]

You should read up on the dark side of reputation management services. The fact that this company approached you worries me. I can't think of any scenario where I would cold call a company with "I see your website sucks. I can help you with that." I just don't see legitimate businesses doing that. It's usually the fly by nights that do that. Just my opinion of course.

The Dark Side Of Reputation Management: How It Affects Your Business - Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/05/09/the-dark-side-of-reputation-management-how-it-affects-your-business/)

[ActionMan]

Bill, the OP says, "It basically just dilutes the negative reviews and gives me legit good reviews." If we are to believe that then there is no danger of spam.

I can think of at least one way in which this could be legitimately achieved without fraud or putting up false reviews. If what has been proposed is on the up and up and not a scam then it might not hurt to try it. Even if the OP breaks even with his revenue increase it might be worth to continue paying the piper since his rating average on Yelp will only get better over time. If this system is anything like I envision it to be then I would not use the word "dilutes" for the negative reviews and, in fact, the negative reviews will provide the OP the opportunity to fix things that caused the negative reviews in the first place, thereby reducing the probability of future negative reviews. From my vantage point this looks like a win-win.

[Fulcrum]

In the last few weeks I heard about a restaurant that would offer coupons/credit to customers that would leave good reviews. This is as bad as the guys who can dilute the reviews to bury the bad ones. When reading reviews, I always take a sampling from all ratings so I don't see how this service will help you. I agree with one of the other responses - work to address and fix the problems pointed out in the poor reviews and maybe invite them back to show the improved service or product.

[Harold Mansfield]

Bill, the OP says, "It basically just dilutes the negative reviews and gives me legit good reviews." If we are to believe that then there is no danger of spam.

If you are paying someone for "legit good reviews", they are not legit. To me this sounds like the same concept as buying You Tube plays. The best way to get good reviews and not have to worry about what tricks were used to achieve them and possibly making things worse, is to give good service. You can't pay someone to make it look like you give good service, when you don't. It will backfire and other reviewers will call you on it.

I've seen this on Amazon 100 times. Crappy book or movie has 20 great reviews, and then the next 100 people who believe those reviews, purchase it and watch or read it and then it sucks... come back with a vengeance and bury the good reviews calling them fake, scam, paid for and are more harsh on the product than ever so that no one in their right mind would ever waste their money.

Same with purchased You Tube plays. Looks good at first, and then 1k reviews of "why would anyone watch this crap?".

The bottom line is, people hate being misled and the web is no place to risk that kind of backlash because you can't spend enough to defeat it.


Fix the problem that causes the bad reviews.

[ActionMan]

If you are paying someone for "legit good reviews", they are not legit.

Quite right! The OP never mentioned paying for reviews.


Fix the problem that causes the bad reviews.

I wholeheartedly agree, as I mentioned in my prior response.

Also, regarding the article you linked, there is a dark side to almost everything. We shouldn't allow that to paralyze us. Figure out the best ethical/moral route forward to achieve your goals. The dark side of starting your own business are the statistically proven dismal chances of success. Additionally, you could go broke, lose your marriage or your good health, never see your kids grow up, and so on and so forth. And still we choose to engage in this seemingly futile endeavor on the off-chance that we can perhaps "make it work" (whatever our definition of that is, along with "acceptable costs") like the small fraction of erstwhile entrepreneurs have done before us. :)

[ActionMan]

This is very strange. This thread just fell off of the "New Posts" list. The list consists of threads that have been updated since 8/4 but for some reason, this thread did not make it in there. I'm confused. Can a mod please educate me as to how the "New Posts" list works? I would very much appreciate that.

[pelanasha]

$400/month! That is ridiculous! I used a service from web.com to monitor my reviews for my business for just $10/month.

It pulls in all the reviews from Yelp, Google+, Facebook and other sites and emails them to me. It's awesome. I get all the reviews and then I can make changes to rectify the problems. He is just scamming you because Yelp does not allow anyone to dilute reviews. And Yelp is really careful of not allowing fake reviews to be posted. The best option is to monitor the reviews yourself and fix the problems!

[rcalie]

$400/month! That is ridiculous! I used a service from web.com to monitor my reviews for my business for just $10/month.

It pulls in all the reviews from Yelp, Google+, Facebook and other sites and emails them to me. It's awesome. I get all the reviews and then I can make changes to rectify the problems. He is just scamming you because Yelp does not allow anyone to dilute reviews. And Yelp is really careful of not allowing fake reviews to be posted. The best option is to monitor the reviews yourself and fix the problems!

You're comparing apples to oranges. "Monitoring" your reviews is far short of getting good reviews.

I offer a service that gets your customers to post real reviews, legitimately on review sites like Yelp, Google, Urbanspoon, Citysearch, etc. It keeps bad reviews off of the internet and sends them directly to your inbox so you can make the necessary corrections sans internet drama.

I do charge less than the provider in question for this service for restaurants. I'm not here to underbid the company the OP is talking about, it simply is.

Also there is no way you can guarantee specific returns, numbers of reviews, etc. because there are too many variables (people actually participating, yelp filter, people reacting to the reviews they see, etc.)

Even though I can get their customers with established yelp accounts to post to yelp, it's no guarantee that yelp will not filter them out. Yes even people with real accounts get filtered.



I can't think of any scenario where I would cold call a company with "I see your website sucks. I can help you with that."

Yes and no. Yes the person is pointing out a problem. But the person soliciting the OP was very specific and didn't have to add opinion because the negative reviews speak for themselves. Then they offered a solution. That's marketing/copywriting 101. Define the problem, offer solution, and give a call to action. Maybe you don't like it, think it's crass, or whatever, it works.

[rcalie]

He is just scamming you because Yelp does not allow anyone to dilute reviews. And Yelp is really careful of not allowing fake reviews to be posted.

"Diluting reviews" simply means getting more positive than negative. I am somewhat inclined to agree with you that Yelp does not allow it (because it takes away their leverage to extort advertising $) but they have to post some of the positive reviews, especially when they number in the tens and hundreds.



The best option is to monitor the reviews yourself and fix the problems!

The cheap option is to monitor and fix. You allow the internet drama to unfold and potentially get out of your control and become the next viral story when you just monitor and fix. The system I have built (don't know about the OP's vendor) gives the potential online flamer an outlet for their aggression. That aggression goes to your inbox, not some website who makes money from your destruction and misery (Hello pissedconsumer!).

The best solution (in my opinion) is that which allows you to learn what mistakes are being made without having to do PR damage control. The solution that grows your positive reputation and does it across all of the sites you're listed on, not just the few that customers post to naturally.

Knowing that is an option, what do you think is the "best" solution?

[Qmind]

If he's offering what I'm thinking, it can work if he implements it in the right way. The way he contacted you with the highlighted reviews is a method floating around a few black hat seo forums and is basically a scare tactic. I use to offer something similar to clients as an additional service but stopped do to them not using the service how it was intended. $400 seems a bit pricey. If you do use his service make sure to use it as a tool to improve what customer don't like about your business.