Don’t think Yelp applies to your business? Think again

Does your business have its own Yelp page? Yelp is a social review platform that has 83 million unique desktop visitors, 74 million unique mobile visitors and 28 million unique mobile app users each month. It’s growing in popularity by virtually any measure. Yet only about 1 million businesses nationwide have ‘claimed’ their Yelp business page. While a business may have a strong social media presence elsewhere, by disregarding Yelp, it could be missing out on a vital opportunity to demonstrate top-notch customer or client service and to address complaints.

Many business owners and executives think that Yelp doesn’t apply to their business. Yet the reality is that consumers are increasingly turning to Yelp not only for restaurant and retail reviews, but for information on a wide variety of other businesses, including those that provide professional services such as insurance, engineering and architecture. Yelp is for B2C and B2B companies.

Consider ‘claiming’ your business page on Yelp. A vast majority of business pages on Yelp are unclaimed, which unfortunately signals to Yelp users that customer/client satisfaction is not a top priority. While there’s no downside to happy customers or clients simply reporting a good experience with your business, unsatisfied customers publicly posting about their bad experiences can damage your brand’s reputation if you aren’t able to respond to them (which you can only do if you prove you own the business and claim it). Additionally, you could be missing out on a useful communication channel for inquiries about your businesses if Yelp users aren’t able to message you questions, comments, reservation requests, and other concerns.

Finally, don’t forget to have a sign somewhere in your business (and website) that encourages satisfied customers to leave reviews for your company on Yelp. Even this simple call-to-action could make a difference for your reviews count, and more Yelp reviews suggest greater popularity for a business, so you could score new customers through this valuable method as well.