Some New York Times Thoughts on Reviews for Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July to our American readers.

As an ex-resident of New York I'm still a fan of the Times. Someone passed along this article to me on how companies are using review sites like Yelp to manage their reputation.

I thought this part of the article particularly insightful, and good advice for our renovators and listed companies:

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with Forrester Research, said in an e-mail message that smart business owners would “get involved in Yelp, listening, responding and being an active part of the dialogue, some going so far as to place signs on their physical doors requesting reviews.”

At HomeStars we encourage companies to respond to reviews. It opens up the dialogue and provides more insight into to what went wrong, and what went right.

The most important thing we suggest for companies listed on Homestars who get bad reviews - and, face it, you can't be perfect all the time - is to honestly respond to the bad, and primarily get more reviews by encouraging your customers to talk you up online. Readers appreciate the honesty comes with a company responding to a bad review, and that everyone can't be perfect all the time.

Posted by Brian
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