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"A 2011 Harvard study quantified just how big an effect those negative Yelp postings can have: A one-star increase among reviews of Seattle restaurants led to a 5 to 9 percent growth in revenue."

So who else pays attention to customer reviews? I do!

I do. But more and more I am finding that they are rigged and unreliable. I have noticed, for example, that the Movie Reviews on Amazon Video on Demand is completely rigged. My guess is that the movie promoters are paying people to write fake positive reviews, which works, because people like me use those to decide what movie to rent.

Amazon authors have been notorious for paying for shill reviews/pumping up their listings with fake reviews. Yelp is pretty good about removing the spam, but they also remove a lot of legit reviews so... businesses tend to not send people there. I recently read a study that a majority of people still trust Google reviews over Yelp... I need to try and dig that up. When I find it i'll post it on the forum. I read it a little while ago, and I don't think I bookmarked it.

Just a couple of facts to keep in mind... 97% of people read reviews... 70% of those people trust reviews. Whether you read them or not, you have to know that your potential customers are reading them and those reviews may decide if you get more business over your competitors. If you don't ask for a review, I'd put $$$$ on the fact that your customer won't leave one.

Great article in the Post today about a contractor suing a former customer who wrote a negative review on Yelp.

I think this will become more frequent and it is a whole new level of reputation management.

Reviews are such a mixed bag. I take most of them with a grain of salt, but I'd be lying if I said they haven't dissuaded me from eating at certain restaurants or using certain services. It's all a matter of trusting other people, I suppose.

I am one of those individuals who looks for reviews on everything I purchese. I go into it knowing that not all reviews are accurate but it still helps me when im on the fence about something.

It is funny how we as humans are so trusting in certain instances, do not even know or have meet the people posting reviews yet we allow them to guide us in a positive or negative way.

I agree completely, Chad. Some people can't come out of their social shell enough to even trust someone in person, but will take all online reviews at face value. I know for a fact that review trolling is becoming a huge thing, particularly on Yelp and Amazon, which makes me ever-wary of what I read about certain establishments.

It's a crazy world out there. People get bad reviews and they want to sue Google, the person who wrote the bad review, etc... Of course that wouldn't hold up in court unless it could be proven that it was libel (character defamation in written form... spoken defamation is slander). People obviously want to protect their business, and will do anything to protect their reputation. However the best course of action when someone gets a negative review is to reach out to the customer and try to fix the situation. More times than not, if you help the customer fix their issue with your business, they will edit the review and explain what you did to help.