• Big Fat Daddys
• -
• Press, Uncategorized

We Hate Yelp Tips for Food Business Owners

WE HATE YELP. After speaking to so many other small business owners, we felt the need to call out our mere hatred for  YELP and explain how much we loathe them, based on our own experience and actual facts of what happened. For us, we got reviewed by a drive by non-consumer who didn’t buy a freakin’ thing, which turned into yelp burying 18 good reviews of ours which drove down our rating.  Suffice to say, this is our story and what we chose to do about it. Now if you buy our food and are dissatisfied, we have a great system in place to give you a make up meal.  This user didn’t even APPROACH OUR STANDS.

First off, if you get a bad YELP review  what Yelp refers to as their trusted reviewers, YELP BURIES YOUR GOOD REVIEWS. They will of course say it’s an algorithm. If so, it’s broken. Here’s their little “not recommended review.”   We talked to someone who worked at Yelp, that said their system is set up to hold more “clout” to the users who use Yelp all the time, and not ones that sign in while they are there and post a review.  So if you have someone who uses Yelp once in awhile, their review may not be as recommended as a power users who is yelpin’ all over the place.    Out of 22 of our 5 star reviews, we got 18 of those 22 buried thanks to this algorithm or was it the “trusted user”?

 

ABOUT THE TRUSTED USER

• WHO WAS NOT EVEN A CONSUMER,
• DID NOT BUY A THING FROM US
• and Yelp has done nothing about it.

Under normal circumstances, for a small business is quite disconcerting. Lucky for us, we don’t give a damn about Yelp but have networked with so many other small business owners who it does matter to so we are here to call out Yelp .

WE INVESTIGATED THIS CHAOS.

Here’s what we found.

Upon closer inspection, we found a company online which offers a $1500 service that guarantees to get your Bad Yelp Review Removed.  Wow.  What kind of racket is this?  We tried to get our own bad yelp review removed based on a non consumer review of lies,  but Yelp wouldn’t do a gosh darn thing except keep trying to get us to pay for advertising.  Hmmm seems a little dicey, no?

We also found some user profiles out there on sites like Fiverr, whose users are clearly violating Fiverr’s Terms of Service by offering paid slanderous reviews on social media sites. Sounds like a way for competitors to get ya doesn’t it?  Once those users are reported Fiverr will most likely shut them down or take that gig off, but other sites also exist.  ( Once we got 20 people’s negative reviews on facebook giving us 1 star rating for grilling cows. They all lived in TURKEY.  They all came within 10 minutes of each other. We were able to trace them down and got most of them removed.)

After inspecting the trusted USER’s profile, her image shows out of country car tags, and scathing restaurant reviews all over the place. This so called user must have a very divine lifestyle or upscale taste because half of the restaurants in the area don’t stand a chance to her critiques. Lucky for us, she didn’t eat anything, but still claims she gave us a zero rating saying she drove by but no one was wearing masks, so she didn’t feel comfortable eating. So we contacted Yelp, who informed us to go via the Small Biz Yelp App and challenge the review.

TAKEAWAY:  Isn’t Yelp supposed to be a consumer platform? As in the Consumer who BUYS THINGS?   They sure try to sell services to help the small business, but does this experience sound to you like they are helping?

FACEBOOK GROUP:  There’s even a facebook group of business owners who hate Yelp.  All these stories are similar. (7) Business Owners Against YELP | Facebook

During Covid, in our area, restaurants were told by their local Health Inspectors via the Department of Agriculture to wear masks, while cooking, service or waiting on customers. For the outdoor curbside, we were allowed to walk outside our serving area and remove the mask to breathe in between customers . Now thanks to social media, we have 100’s of photos taken by our staff, crew, and also customers of us wearing masks out side in our stand standing in 100 degree heat behind 350 degree fryers and grills, but this lady still said she drove by an no one was wearing a mask so she gave us a 0.  So we decided to catch her in the lie…

HOW WE CAUGHT HER LYING

When we challenged her review, (which is what Yelp asks you to do via the Yelp Biz Platform) she revised it and said she came to both locations, (of which we tricked her because at the time of her review we didn’t have both open weekly all the time. )

She also said the “gentlemen” weren’t wearing masks when in fact one of the two locations (if open like she said) would have been all female.

So we caught her red handed with LIES LIES LIES,

SO WE ASKED AGAIN FOR YELP TO REMOVE IT.

Did Yelp hear our cry  after we wrote to them and remove it? NOoooooooooo.  It remains.

So here’s the math on Yelp.

4 reviews out of 5 count as good, one counts from the non consumer drive by liar.  What competitor does she work for? Who paid her?  We are at a 4 star rating.  Half the area restaurants are between 2-3 I guess we should consider this good. 

In actuality, We have 22 actual 5 star reviews and one from the non consumer drive by liar which Yelp won’t count the other 18.  That puts us as 22/23 and hella close to 5 star rating. Here’s some actual reviews that were “hidden”. Please note the one that says June runs a competition truck in the area and she gave us 5 stars.  We’re even feeding other vendors!  So damn we’re doing something right!

YELP DOES NOT RULE THE WORLD. 

So what we are here to tell small business owners is that ALL OF OUR PAYING CUSTOMERS love us.  You are always going to have one person who you can’t please.  Also you may have fake users on social media who may work for the competition or be paid to write bogus reviews. Maybe you pissed off an ex employee who is out to get you.  Or in this user’s case, maybe just be a hatful person out to hurt small business or someone that even the man upstairs can’t cook a good meal for based on the fact she leaves LIES.

TIPS FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

• Do the best you can and put out a good quality product.
• Manage and run your own business, don’t trust others to do it for you.
• Treat your customers right and make up for any mistakes. We’re human, mistakes are gonna happen.
• Use social media in a good way.
• Don’t lose sleep over the haters but use constructive criticism in a good way.
• Spend money on sites that can help you with advertising, not hurt you as a small business.

Based on what happened to us, Yelp will never see a penny from us.