Dr. Seuss said many years ago, “I’m sorry to say so but, sadly it’s true, that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.”
Picazzo’s Organic Italian Kitchen serves over 1,500 guests daily with much success between 5 locations in Arizona and sometimes we make mistakes. Have you watched a few restaurant makeover shows lately, to know about the many moving parts there are that form a restaurant?
News Alert: Picazzo’s employs human’s. Honestly, it’s a wonder to me, how restaurants make everything work.
Yelp is a business for profit. Yelp charges businesses for “enhanced programs” and the opportunity to “advertise”. Most businesses need to pay someone to manage this program. A business doesn’t have to purchase any additional services, but in a highly competitive retail/service and restaurant environment, it’s probably something a business needs to pay attention to. Guess who ultimately pays for this privilege to Yelp about their experiences? YOU! Please read more to be a little more informed before you write your next review.
Behind the Curtain of Yelp’s Powerful Reviews
“Comparing Yelp to the non-profit Consumer Reports, Zandan adds, “Due to the fact that it is a public company, they are supposed to overreach. It is in the business to make money.”
The basic Yelp program is offered to all businesses for free. One just needs to “claim” their business listing. However, the enhanced program costs as much as $65-$75 per location per month to post your own photographs that may be a little more professional that portray your business better and be more appealing to others looking for a certain business, service or restaurant. The enhanced program also gives the business the opportunity to “call out” and share a discounts to entice a guest in. We know that potential guests searching for a restaurant can be influenced not only by the restaurant’s scores, but how the food looks. Interestingly Yelp’s enhanced program supposedly keeps competitors off your businesses pages. However, there is really no practical way to check this as everything is random and unaccountable.
We were recently called by YELP service advisor who calls regularly to talk about upgrading our enhanced program that they sold us several months ago. This nice young man proceeded to tell us that we are not utilizing the enhanced program and we can now advertise for $25 per month, per location and place an ad for .70 per click up to $300 for an introductory offer. That is a jump from $65 per location x 5 =$325 to up to $300 per location for $1,500 per month. (We have to sell 60 large pizzas just to pay for a guest to potentially choose us to dine.) When you see the advertisement at the top of a Yelp search and you click on it, it costs that business .70 whether or not you purchase with them or not. They do not sell a program to place you higher in the ratings. As far as I can see, the ratings are not even based fairly on the number of total reviews and the percentage of 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 review scores like Trip Advisor. He could not offer a good explanation or partial list of items that make up their algorithm to rate the randomness of their ranking of order of listing businesses on their site.
Since I respond to all of the social media outlets, I can tell you that generally the nature of reviewers is not an average score of 3 with Yelp. Usually, a business receives high scores (4 or 5) when a guest or customer is extremely satisfied OR a (1 or 2 score) when they are incredibly disappointed. Businesses have no right to rebuttal.
The days of the customer is always right, is just not true anymore. Thank goodness!
In the Face of Ruinous Online Reviews, Businesses Today Are Turning the Table
The popularity of the Food Network channels and social media has turned the public into self appointed critics. Businesses pour their heart and soul into their investments and sometimes we have human moments. Also, everyone’s personal experiences are subjective to their personal expectations. Sometimes, that is a tall order to fulfill unreasonable expectations. If only we all remembered everything we should have learned in Kindergarten (a guide for global leadership)?
Picazzo’s Organic Italian Kitchen would love the opportunity to work out your dining experiences on our turf “playground”, before you take your opinions to the www. HINT: Ask for the Manager on Duty! We encourage ALL guests when in one of our five locations, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Sedona and Flagstaff, that if for any reason you are not receiving satisfying service, your food doesn’t meet your expectations, or there is something unsatisfactory about the ambiance. Please give us the opportunity to make your dining situation better. THANK YOU!
So, my review for Yelp is a 2 star because it rarely gets used. How random is that? If yelp truly could be explained how it benefits businesses, if the ratings made sense and were truly something a business could achieve to be rated higher, if a company’s specialties truly were searchable, if they were not a business for profit, if they allowed more requirements of a review that were helpful to businesses to improve, if they would allow us to nix the “angry” people that may have been having a bad day, I may consider changing my review!
Ahhhhhh, that feels better now! Was this review helpful?
