Hi,
What you have found is not limited to animal hospitals and vets, and
not limited to yelp... in some cases it is 'review stuffing', people
paid to review good or bad, and you may find reviews from accounts that
are in and out of the local area that the business is located. You may
find that with car dealerships as well, especially with the negative
reviews.
I have been helping businesses deal with that short of thing and
marketing online for over 10 years now, and you will find that some
businesses will stoop to new lows when it comes to doing things like
that online. Reviews are still helpful, but it is more work than it's
worth for business owners and customers to have do the extra work to
verify the sources and the legitamcy of the reviews, and then how to
respond to them - even when they are fake or something seems 'off'
about them.
The user that left the review usually has a viewable profile, and
one can sometimes see the last few reviews they have left and for
who/what/where.
If the reviews from a user have a common thread - for example, there
may be reviews from a user that are all negative reviews to different
companies, and the user that left the review is not even located in or
remotely near the location of the businesses service area, that's a
sort of a 'red flag' and should take those reviews with caution/grain
of salt... Yes that is monotonous and time consuming, that is part of
that 'extra work', and it's about as bad as having to perform 'due
dilligence'... and is unfortunate that one would have to go that far
when considering reviews online from others, but I do it all the time
when looking for services of local businesses in my town, and when
buying products online. I look online for some reviews, and have to dig
a little deeper than just the review itself, but usually pays off in
the long run. I am sorry to hear that your local animal hospital(s)
have fallen victim to such practices, and that others may be engaging
in them...
That's my 2 cents worth, and the fuzzies want control of the keyvboard
now... :)
Howard
[Posted in FML 7842]
|
