How do you deal with false negative Yelp reviews. I have a family member who owns a small business and she recently received a false negative Yelp review and it could really hurt her business. She doesn't know what to do.

I am and there is nothing you can do, unless you join Yelp, or whatever review site it is.

I have this problem with Trip Advisor all the time.

True: There is a review on there that says we served them rotten seafood for dinner. Hello: WE DON'T SERVE DINNER! :P WE AREN'T EVEN A RESTAURANT! The reviewer mistook us for a restaurant they had eaten at in the area.

So easy enough, it was a mix up, tell Trip Advisor, have them delete it. Yeah! NO!
TA says we need to start an account with them in order to request a review be removed. Good news is, starting an account is free! Yeah! NO! Starting an account is free. Keeping it is a monthly charge.

Point being, six years later, there is still a review on there telling the whole world we served rotten seafood.

Now a few years before that they posted several pictures of a run down motel claiming it was ours. When we requested the pictures be taken down they pulled that same "Sign up with us shit". At that point we contacted a lawyer who called them, and the pics were gone ten minutes later.

I suppose we could get a lawyer to help with the seafood review but that has turned out not to be such a big deal. Several other people have posted their own reviews stating that the seafood thing is a big flub and should be ignored. I doubt it cost us any business. Pics of a dive that made Bates Motel look like the Waldorf, that was costing us business, so we had to act on that.

Usually the best way to deal with that is to respond in a truthful and courteous manner. It's no different than normal customer service. Reply, be apologetic, and make offers to correct the problem. It shows that the business is willing to reach out and correct problems for customers, which is better than just trying to delete it. Negative reviews are normal, they need to learn how to effectively deal with them.

That's horrible news, indeed. We live in a world where someone can ruin people's lives with misinformation on the internet.

see edit
there are more extreme measures you can take.

BTW I could write a book on BS reviews. :P

-We are out of towels.
-Can I get you some more?
-No, we are checking out today, don't bother.
-Are you sure? I could grab some.
-No, no, don't worry.

Week later, Trip Advisor review:

"We asked for towels, [name] refused to give us any." :P

That's fair as long as it's professional. Like tinyE said, they said he served rotten food and they don't serve food. There's nothing wrong with pointing out that they must be mistaken cause you don't serve food. As long as it's done in a polite way. Although in the example tinyE gave it sounds more like a personal vendetta thing if they were posting fake pictures years later. You should've replied to the review, "Bullshit, we don't even have towels"

Oh yeah, I forgot.

For a while one site had us on the map wrong. :P 150 miles from our actual location. :P Had my sister in law call them on that one, make up some story about litigation. It was fixed.

And then there was "Open June though September".
We're open ALL YEAR!

What makes it more infuriating is that the person who wrote the false negative review was never a customer. Are there people who just leave false negative reviews of small businesses just to ruin people's lives for fun? WTF?

tell her to run a better business? also who the hell even uses yelp? is it more popular in bigger cities?

"With all due respect, you're completely full of shit."

"The customer is always right. Except for this clown."

; )

But yeah, firstpasthepost pretty much said it, along with tinyE.

It's unfortunate that the business needs to pay - one way or another - to fix erroneous entries or reviews.

LOL I wish she could say that but I know words like "shit" would be too unprofessional for her to write. And I read, it's not good for business owners to direct their words at the "customer" but instead should direct the words at the "customer's" words. I say "customer" and "customer's" because the person who wrote it was never a customer in the first place.

Try this:

Dear Sir
Fuck You


ps. Strongly worded letter to follow.

There probably are people who do that. And just think, if a person does that for fun, what do you think they would do if they found out that review had been removed? It'll just encourage them to screw with you further.

That's why the best thing is to respond, be polite and offer to help fix the problem they said happen. If they are unwilling to accept any mediating efforts from the business it shows everyone else the person is just being a dick.