HYelp! The cry for help with Yelp! issues heard ’round the nation

The Yelp RV.
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HYelp! HYelp! My Little Flower Shop is the latest in a long line of wedding businesses to find that Yelp! seems to have a really unfair, arbitrary non-algorithm that pulls down positive reviews left by real customers, leaving subjective, often unfair reviews to sink your online reputation.

Do you Yelp?  Yelp (officially with an exclamation point) is a crowd sourcing review website that is often handy.  When you’re in Omaha, how else would you know where locals get the best Thai food? Unfortunately, some vocal (and prolific) customers have taken the tool that’s meant to share information with the community, and begun to wield it as a weapon against businesses that have displeased them in any way whatsoever.  Say, by telling them we are closed on a holiday weekend, and can’t take their flower order.

So the kicker is, the people at Yelp! know that there are also businesses that try to “game” their system by putting up fake positive reviews.  So they check them all, and pull down ones they think looks suspicious – often they are 100% true, from happy customers.  To top it off there are the rumors of the sales calls where people offer to wipe out bad reviews or restore good ones with the purchase of advertising.  It’s gone as far as groups of small businesses suing the company for extortion. Patt Morrison, Southern California KPCC radio journalist, covered it on her call-in show, with this chat with Yelp! spokesman Vince Sollito. (Patt also has her own hot dog on the menu at Pink’s Hot Dogs.  Now that’s an accomplishment).

My Little Flower Shop needs your help on Yelp!  Are you a happy bride? Happy floral customer?  Please leave a geniune review for us.  We’ll hope that some of them stick!