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Understanding Google My Business & Local Search

Why Reviews are Hard – A look at the numbers

Reviews are hard. Particularly at Yelp.

Most Americans have no desire to leave a review. When you combine that fact with fragmented market share and review site policies it becomes even more difficult.

Here are some numbers to put the difficulties with Yelp in perspective. Let’s start with emailing 100 of your customers to calculate how many folks are left to possibly leave reviews in the end:

 %

# of People left that might have a review published at Yelp

Customers 

100

Typical Email Open Rate

40%

40

% of US American Adults Unlikely to leave a review1

78%

8.8

% of those that like you enough to leave a review2

88%

7.75

% of Adults that prefer Yelp3

17.5%

1.3

% that Yelp will nuke4

25%

0.9755

1 Based on my research 58.2% of all Americans have never left a review and another 19.6% almost never leave reviews. Only 6.6% of American adults report leaving 5 or more reviews a year. Convincing them to leave a review is unlikely.

2 Having looked at over a quarter of a million emails at GetFiveStars.com*, 88% of all consumer feedback rated businesses a 9 or 10 on the Net Promoter Score scale of 0-10 and are considered promoters of those businesses.

3 Yelp is in a virtual tie for second place as a preferred spot to leave reviews. The research indicates 17.5% of consumers prefer Yelp although there is a margin of error of 3% so it could be as low as 14.% or has high as 20%. But remember that is an average and in many places it is less.

4 By Yelp’s own admission the number removed is 25%. In cases I have looked at it is actually much higher. And if you are in a market where Yelp is less popular it is more likely higher.

Remember that this .975 is the person NOT the review, you still need them to want to write a review and take the time to write one.

* I am a partner in GetFiveStars.com