When she opened Les Amis Bakery Shoppe on Coursey Boulevard nearly five years ago, owner Stephanie Hansen was not prepared for the incoming wave of customer feedback she would receive.
Her plan was to respond to every posted comment and review, but it became overwhelming. So, as Business Report details in a feature from the current issue, Hansen hired Main Street Hub to manage her social media accounts, including Yelp.
Since outsourcing her social media duties, Hansen says the bakery’s quarterly performance evaluations show both a rise in business and an uptick in customer Yelp reviews. Is there a correlation between the stronger Yelp presence and higher revenues? Hansen can’t say for certain, but she does know this: It helps.
Hansen’s marketing philosophy is increasingly shared by others in business though—especially those in service industries.
Local restaurants and hotels are more and more often relying on online review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor as an alternative to traditional marketing techniques.
Yelp bills itself as a community of “engaged locals who connect online and off to share their opinions about local businesses.” The site has 155 million posted reviews as of March 1, and the company says most users are both college educated (59%) and earn more than $100,000 annually (49.6%).
Rebecca Whyte, Yelp’s Baton Rouge community manager, says though ratings on Yelp and TripAdvisor are based on customer reviews, small business owners have options to make the most of their Yelp presence, like responding to reviewers as Hanson has made a priority.
Most important, she advises, is for businesses to claim their Yelp pages, which allows access to free tools, such as a check-in option for customers, which shows the business how many visitors they receive for metrics purposes.
Read the full feature. Send your comments to editor@businessreport.com.
