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Second Opinion: Yelp Can Be Detrimental to Your Practice: Ways to Combat It by Leonard F. Tau, DMD

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Yelp Can Be Detrimental to Your Practice; Ways You Can Combat It
Leonard F. Tau, DMD
Second opinions are common in health care, whether a doctor is sorting out a difficult case or a patient is not sure what to do next. In the context of our magazine, the first opinion will always belong to the reader. This feature will allow fellow dental professionals to share their opinions on various topics, providing you with a "second opinion." Perhaps some of these observations will change your mind, while others will solidify your position. In the end, our goal is to create discussion and debate to enrich our profession.
- Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

Are you well liked? Do you even know? "Liking" has become part of our everyday vernacular due to the huge proliferation of social media, specifically Facebook. But I am not referring to a Facebook "like" here, rather, what is being said about you online - about you, your office and/or your team. Reputation management has become so important in attracting new patients to a dental office. Positive reviews about your practice can attract new patients while a poor reputation can turn prospective patients away. It is important to use the power of the Internet, including your website, Google Local search, social media and mobile marketing, to maintain your online reputation.

Currently there are more than 120 websites that collect and republish reviews from consumers (our patients). Some of the more visible and important ones out there are Google+ Local (formerly Google Places), Yahoo Local, City Search, Insider Pages, Judy's Book, Angie's List, Doctoroogle and Rate MDs.

There is one very prominent website that I have left off this list that I wish to pinpoint because it is wreaking havoc on the dental profession and small businesses all over the world. Countless complaints have been reported all over the Internet, countless Facebook pages have been started against this company, numerous lawsuits have been filed, and it has even been accused of running an extortion campaign. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, I am referring to the website Yelp. Unfortunately Yelp has become even more important since it has partnered with one of the most powerful technology companies to provide reviews on its device - Apple. In case you are not aware, Apple is using Yelp to provide reviews since Apple recently dropped Google from the iPhone. What I mean by this is if you were to ask Siri who the best dentist in your town is, it would report back using reviews from Yelp, and those reviews have been integrated into the new Apple Maps. All of those Google reviews that you have (or should have) been collecting over the years are now only visible when doing a Google search on your iPhone web browser. The positive side of all this is Google search represents 95 percent on mobile devices, so how much you may be affected by this change is unknown at this point.

For those who are not aware of how Yelp operates, Yelp is a free directory service that you can set up and register for a business page, upload your practice information, photos and offers, and have your patients leave reviews about your office. This profile is free and does not cost you anything. Yelp is well respected by Google (one of the better citations) and thus ranks high when someone searches for your name or practice name when doing a Google search.

There is really no need to pay Yelp for its services. Once you have received a couple of reviews you will receive a call from a Yelp salesperson (I got my call from a Yelp representative named Sonia) who congratulated me on getting some positive feedback from my patients and wanted to know if I would like to start advertising with Yelp (she said it could cost me as little as $300 per month). I asked her what paying Yelp got me and she explained that patients are often distracted by the information about other dentists and once you become a paying customer those other ads are removed. I graciously told her I was not interested. Sonia then asked if I was sure as “not having Yelp would be very detrimental” to my business. She was serious. I again declined and thanked her for calling.

A few days later, during my normal routine check of several review sites, I checked my Yelp reviews and noticed that all three of my reviews were no longer visible. I went from having three five-star reviews to having no reviews whatsoever. I could not understand what happened until I noticed a little link under the review section that read, "three filtered reviews." I was shocked to see that all three five-star reviews had been filtered and were no longer visible to potential patients searching for me. I immediately called Yelp and was told by another salesperson that they were filtered because of the strong review filter they use and not because of whether I pay them for advertising. That was more than three years ago and needless to say I have had an incredibly hard time getting any reviews at all to stay on the site. In total I have received 19 reviews (16 five-star reviews, one threestar review and two one-star reviews), and of the 19, only three have remained unfiltered. All 19 are from real patients of mine but it does not seem to matter. If you search online for "issues with Yelp" many small businesses claim the same thing. Once they told Yelp they were not interested in paying for a "free" listing, their reputation has significantly suffered from the inability to have positive reviews visible to people searching for them. Every employee at Yelp with whom I have spoken uses the "review filter" as an excuse for all the issues and they say there is nothing they can do about it. I have taken it upon myself to overcome some of these issues.

Some dentists have their patients sign a Mutual Privacy Agreement, which gives the practice copyright over anything written online. This has backfired on some of them as it has gotten the dentists some very bad PR. To me, Yelp is doing the same thing by taking away a reviewers' freedom of speech by filtering the reviews.

In my office, I have set up a system for generating reviews. Among the items in my review armamentarium include a social media survey, which my patients fill out when they come into my office. We ask what sites they use and have left reviews on before. If someone indicates Yelp, I ask them if they are active on Yelp (aka, a Yelper), and when we send them an e-mail after the appointment we ask for feedback to be left on Yelp. From my research and experience, it seems that this is the best way to get reviews to stay unfiltered. In addition, we ask those patients to also check in to our office when they arrive to indicate to Yelp that they are real patients. I want as many reviews as possible spread throughout as many sites as possible so when someone Googles my name or office name many different sites come up with ratings. I do not want to put all my eggs in one basket when it comes to reviews, as many did prior to Google removing all third-party reviews in July 2011. Overnight, Google leveled the playing field and dentists lost all of their reviews. In my opinion, diversity is now the key. I want to spread the wealth across many different sites and you should do the same.

Academic studies from Harvard Business School and UC Berkeley have demonstrated the impact a business's Yelp reviews can have on its success. As I am writing this, Yelp has announced that it is now "cracking down" on what it considers fake reviews. Yelp will place a consumer alert message on a business's profile page when it determines there has been a significant effort to mislead consumers by soliciting reviews. To me it is just another way to convince dentists and other professions that they need to pay up or Yelp would be "detrimental" to their businesses.

A press release on October 18, 2012, from the Vice President of Consumer Products and Mobile of Yelp, Eric Singley, said, "Yelp has become so influential in the consumers' decision-making process that some businesses will go to extreme lengths to bolster their reviews. While our review filter already does a great job of highlighting the most useful content, we think consumers have a right to know when someone is going to great lengths to mislead them." The Consumer Alert Program will also let consumers know if a business has had a large number of reviews submitted from the same Internet Protocol (IP) address, which they claim can be a helpful indicator that the reviews lack authenticity.

Here are my suggestions on dealing with Yelp in regard to your dental office:
  • Ask patients who are Yelpers to leave feedback about their visit to your office.
  • Push as many reviews as possible to Yelp but don't give in to its extortion campaign and pay them for advertising.
  • Make collecting reviews an integral part of your marketing campaign and diversify where the reviews are being left.

Some of you might have had an entirely different experience with Yelp, but be cautious. Yelp could indeed be detrimental to your dental office.

References
http://officialblog.yelp.com/2011/10/harvard-study-yelp-drives-demand-for-independent-restaurants.html
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/04/yelp-lawsuit-extortion/
http://www.facebook.com/WeHateYelp
http://www.facebook.com/IHateYelpcom
http://saveusfromyelp.com/
http://yelplawsuit.com/
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2012/09/05/yes-yelp-fills-restaurants-uc-berkeley.html

Author's Bio
Dr. Leonard F. Tau maintains a full-time private practice in Northeast Philadelphia focusing on general, cosmetic, reconstructive and implant dentistry. He received his dental degree from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts, and a Certificate in Advanced Education in General Dentistry at UMDNJ in Somerdale, New Jersey. He is an active member of many dental organizations including the AACD, AGD and Dentaltown. Dr. Tau lectures locally and regionally to fellow dentists on Internet marketing and social media. His primary focus in his practice is patient comfort and painless dentistry.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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