Running a business means giving consumers the opportunity to leave reviews about their experience with your company. One popular online review platform is Yelp. Often, the reviews reflect a positive experience or an authentic experience at least. But every once in a while, you may get a not-so-glowing, maybe even spammy or completely untrue review.
If you want a successful business, you must manage your reputation by monitoring reviews. We’ll teach you when and how to report Yelp reviews.
When to Raise the Red Flag: Reportable Yelp Reviews
You can’t just get rid of any old review because you don’t like what it says. Instead, you must only report reviews that go against the Yelp review guidelines in one way or another. Below are some reasons you can flag a Yelp review.
False Claims
If you receive a review that is making a false claim against you or your business, then there are things you can do to report it. Reporting the review may get it taken down so no one else sees it.
Defamatory Statements
A defamatory statement is both untrue and damages a person’s reputation or even ability to work. When a tort of reputation happens, both verbal statements or slander as well as written or libelous statements have been made. An example of defamation is saying someone stole from an employer or a client. When this statement is not true and damages someone’s reputation, it is a defamatory statement.
These statements are against Yelp review guidelines. You can and should flag these for removal and Yelp will assist.
Conflicts of Interest
Some businesses run across reviews where there is a conflict of interest. When this is the case, Yelp may remove the review if it is against their Content Guidelines. A conflict of interest happens when the person posting the review is a past employee or is a direct competitor.
Another example is if they are affiliated with the business or seem to receive an incentive or payment for the review. Another conflict of interest comes in the form of someone who is promoting a competitor or other business.
Violating Yelp’s Guidelines
All in all, there are several reasons that Yelp will take down a review. The first is when a conflict of interest is apparent, as discussed above. The second is when the review includes inappropriate material or speech. This can come in the form of threatening language, lewd comments, or even hate speech. Another situation will be if there are private details about patrons or employees. In that case, Yelp will likely remove the review.
Another reason a review may be taken down is if it is not based on the reviewer’s personal experience. If the review describes someone’s friend’s or relative’s experience, if it describes something extraordinary such as media-fueled tales, or if it argues against someone else’s experience, it may be removed. The review may be removed if it is about someone else’s business or if it appears to be plagiarized from another source.
Reporting 101: How to Flag a Yelp Review
Now that you know what type of Yelp reviews you can report or flag, let’s talk about how to flag reviews on Yelp. The process is straightforward, as Yelp wants local businesses to be able to report false or damaging reviews. You can do so from the Yelp website or Yelp app.
