Yelp Reviews

As more and more people use Yelp to decide whom to shop with, it becomes more important that we keep our rating up. We sometimes get bad ratings from disguised competitors who want to injure our reputation, or disgruntled people who wanted to sell us something for $1 million that was worth $100, so we have to counter that with great reviews from happy customers!

So the following is to become policy for all BUYERS, SELLERS, and REPAIR and CANNOT be ignored. And all staff members even if not in those departments are encouraged to ask for reviews at every opportunity.

1. We ask everyone, as in EVERYONE, like 100% OF OUR CUSTOMERS TO WRITE REVIEWS. To put this another way…NO ONE is left out (can I get any plainer?) Ask everyone, “Do you like (or use) Yelp?”
2. You should ask them right after they agree to the deal (sale, repair, or buy), as they are now a happy customer.
3. If they say, “Yes” to the above question, then ask them to PLEASE write a review right now while you are finishing the paperwork.
4. If they don’t use YELP then ask, “Do you have a Gmail email?” If they reply “Yes,” then ask for a Google Review. See policy on how to do a Google review.
5. If they don’t have a Gmail email address they can still do Facebook so ask them to like us, check in, AND to do a Facebook review. Ask them to go to our Facebook page through their FB app.
6. On YELP ask them to write longer rather than shorter reviews and to take and post a picture to go with their review while they’re in the store. Pictures of your smiling face, and/or them holding the check for buys – them wearing their new jewelry/watch for sales – or the newly repaired item for repairs – would be great!
7. You really want them to do it NOW. Do it for them. But if you can’t, for some reason, get them to do it now then you MUST follow up with an email, and a letter or card, asking them to do so. The letter or card is even better as it will arrive while they are at home or work and sitting by a device. Write the email as soon as you can so the next time they read their mail they will see it. But, obviously, it is better to get them to DO IT NOW!

So the order is:

1. Do you YELP? If “Yes” then do it now! If “No”
2. Do you have a Gmail email? If Yes, leave a review as per Google policy. If “no” then
3. Leave Facebook review, check in, and “Like” us on FB.

Here’s a quick explanation on how to get a Yelp review on a mobile device.

1. Open Yelp app
2. Search for “Leo Hamel Fine Jewelers”
3. Tap the gray stars at the top of the page. Tap the 5th star for a 5-star review; 4th star for 4 stars, 3rd star for 3 stars, and so on. This will take you to another page with the stars highlighted in red.
4. Write your review. The longer, the better. More information is helpful to other Yelp users, but this will also help the review remain on our page, rather than being filtered.
5. Click the camera icon to upload a photo. Captioning the photo is also helpful.
6. When finished, select “Post Review.”

Here are some tips to help “hack” the Yelp algorithm.

1. The unfiltered reviews are often lengthy, at least 100 words and 500 characters with spaces.
2. The unfiltered reviews often have a historical context like a story/experience, mentioning timelines, time frames, date or month references.
3. The reviewer often has at least a few reviews already completed. If you observe the filtered reviews, you can see that many/most are from new users with few reviews (and, conversely, frequent posters get less filtered).
4. The reviewer may typically be an active Yelp user, not necessarily making reviews, but being logged in to Yelp and researching companies.

NO BONUS FOR SALESPEOPLE AND ESTATE BUYERS

Salespeople and estate buyers do not get a bonus for reviews. They now earn additional commission for reviews instead.

EVERYONE OTHER THAN SALESPEOPLE AND BUYERS GETS $10 PER REVIEW

Admin personnel, sales assistants, repair admin, and everyone other than salespeople and buyers will receive $10 per posted 5-star Yelp review with written content that also ideally names the person who helped the customer.

Salespeople can email their happy customers after each sale and send them this link www.yelp.com/biz/leo-hamel-fine-jewelers-san-diego that will take them to our Yelp page.

Repair can email their happy customers after each delivered repair. Estate Buyers can email their happy buy customers after each successful buy.

Any employee is eligible to participate; the only catch is that we have to be able to identify the customer to pay the commission or reward. Ideally, the customer will mention your name in the review; if so, the reward is automatic. For Sales and Repair we can verify in BM (if we can ID the customer on Yelp – most people use first name, last initial or an alias). For anyone else, you will probably have to be mentioned in the review, or otherwise find some way to prove it was your contact that caused the review.

Obviously, the review has to be a good one, so we will only pay commission or bonus for 5 stars!

All incentive type bonuses of this kind can only be paid through our regular weekly payroll and may be canceled in the future. Marketing will send out an email every week showing who got reviews, and Accounting will put the spiffs on those employees’ checks.

REMEMBER It is NOT helpful to have a customer create a Yelp account just to review our store. Their account needs to have some traction in order to stick on our page. If they are not active Yelpers, their review will more than likely be filtered, which does nothing for our ratings. If they do not have a Yelp account or are not active on Yelp, ask them to leave a Google or Facebook review instead.

If you ever need help, please feel free to page Marketing to ask one of us for assistance.