Table of contents Slide 3. Is there a way to make sure I’m found on each and every review site? Slide 7. I recently had a Yelp rep tell me good reviews will get filtered unless we advertise with them. How can they do that? Slide 10. What can I do about derogatory comments? Slide 13. Should I pay to advertise my business on Yelp? Slide 16. How should I respond to a bad review? Slide 21. Should you just ignore unreasonable customers? Slide 24. How can we get better reviews? Slide 29. How do we get good reviews to show? Slide 33. How should we handle a fictitious negative review from a disgruntled former employee posing as a customer? Slide 35. Which review sites should we be most focused on, and why? Slide 39. What are our legal options for bad review removal? Slide 42. Do I need an account for Google Plus, Google Local, Google My Business? What’s the difference?

Q. Is there a way to make sure I’m found on each and every review site?

The short answer? No. But you don’t need to be. Instead, focus on high-impact sites like Yelp and Google+.

Claim your business listings, and make sure all of your information is updated.

- Check that your business name, address, phone number and website are accurate.

- Add a brief description of the services you offer, and fill out all fields related to your services completely.

- Don’t forget to add photos with captions that’ll help prospective customers see what life is like at your business.

Q. I recently had a Yelp rep tell me my restaurant’s good reviews will get filtered unless we advertise with them. Is advertising my only option? How can they do that?

“Advertisers get ads. Period. There’s no amount of money a business can pay to manipulate their reviews or rating, and Yelp doesn’t skew things in favor of advertisers or against businesses that don’t.” ~Yelp www.yelp.com/advertiser_faq

We definitely don’t advise the use of advertising as a stand-in for good customer service and genuine engagement with your customers on review sites.

Q. After I do everything to appease the customer, what can I do about the derogatory comment they left?

There are instances in which a reviewer will edit or remove their negative review based on reaching a resolution with you, but you don’t want to count on that.

Post a public response that sends a clear message, such as: “We care about our customers’ satisfaction and will go above and beyond to ensure each question and/or complaint is addressed.”

Q. Should I pay to advertise my business on Yelp?

It’s your money to blow, but we’d caution against it. The contracts are long, the contracts are expensive and the contracts are hard to get out of.

If you’re only concerned about your rating and getting good reviews, we’d suggest you try other, more direct strategies first.

Flexibility allows you to be the queen on the

internet chessboard, rather than the pawn.

Q. How should I respond to a bad review?

If your business was in the wrong, apologize and take personal responsibility for resolving the issue.

Most customers just want to feel like they’re being heard, so listen. They’ll appreciate the personal attention.

If the customer was wrong, then you need to outline all of the information you gathered about the situation in a matter-of-fact, respectful manner. Oftentimes, it’s just a misunderstanding. The customer may be confused about something, and leaving the review was their way of venting.

Records are your friend. Do you have a copy of their receipt? Can you take a look at the security camera in the corner and verify (or debunk) what they describe?

Q. Should you just ignore unreasonable customers, or should you still respond?

We always suggest responding publicly to show prospective customers and other members of your online community that you are genuinely dedicated to good customer service and to hearing all feedback.

That being said, there are some people who thrive on beating up on others online. If that’s the response you get when you try to engage in a respectful conversation about how you could have better served a customer, you’re better off letting it go.

Q. How can we get better reviews? Happy people don’t write reviews — just problem customers.

Many happy customers don’t realize you need their help and, even if they do, they don’t know how to give it.

Train your staff members to ask customers to review you.

Reinforce the message by putting the site(s) of your choice on your receipts, invoices, brochures, flyers, menus and whatever else you hand out to customers.

The same applies online. Link to the sites from your website for easy access. Cross-promote review sites from Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus, so you engrain how important reviews are to the health of your business.

I'm walking into spiderwebs So leave a message And I'll call you back

Q. How do we get good reviews to show? We have many good ones, but they have been filtered by Yelp.

Yelp tends to filter out users who they deem “untrustworthy,” usually because they’re new/irregular users of the site or their other reviews appear extremely biased/have been flagged for suspicion.

Encourage the reviewer to be an active contributor to the Yelp community. Otherwise, you may want to alter your promotion strategy. Ask current Yelp users to review you there, but ask others to leave reviews on sites without a filter, like Google My Business or TripAdvisor.

If you start seeing a pattern with the same issue coming up again and again, then you have a business problem — not a review site problem.

Q. How should we handle a fictitious negative review from a disgruntled former employee posing as a customer?

Check the site’s Terms of Service and Content Guidelines. This is where you develop your argument — are they posing as a customer or fabricating details? The flagging features generally have a comment box where you can describe why you believe the review ought to be removed, and you can submit your rationale there.

Q. Of all the review pages that are out there, which ones should be your main focus, and why?

The big players across all industries would be Yelp and Google My Business.

From there, it depends on your industry and your location.

For instance, TripAdvisor is great for those in the hospitality industry, but auto shops can’t be listed there. If your customers are active on Yelp, you need to be there, regardless of whether you use or even like it personally.

Q. What are our legal options for bad review removal?

We’re not lawyers, so we wouldn’t be able to give legal advice here.

Technically, the sites can do almost whatever they want. They’re considered forums before they’re considered publishers. Just like WordPress says they can’t always control what bloggers write about on their sites. Your best bet is to flag the review as offensive or fraudulent and hope the site in question agrees with your assessment. If it’s just a run-of-the-mill bad review, we’d advise dealing with it from a customer service standpoint.

Q. I keep hearing Google being called different names … Google Plus, Google Local, Google My Business? Do I need an account for each of these? What’s the difference?

You only need one account. Think of Google like a big umbrella service.

Google My Business is the term they’re using now for the business owner’s portal. It helps you show up across Google products like Google Search, Google Maps and Google Plus, which is what they call the individual, personal and business pages.

You can post on Google Plus, reply to reviews and view your business’s statistics from one dashboard.