I just meant why not ask the lady who came out about it?
What I don’t understand is why when the OP had her bad experience, waiting 35 minutes and left, that she didn’t ask someone about her order? The owner came out, and she watched him walk out and back into the kitchen. Before I leave, I would have yelled back, “Excuse me!!! I’m here to pick up my order.” End of story. Seems somewhat passive aggressive to not do that, but then go home and write up a negative review and post it online.
And now to get so angst about the situation that you’re seeking advice about it. Who gives a shit what the owner and waitstaff think about your Yelp reviews. As long as they’re not standing outside your house…I wouldn’t really call what they’re doing as stalking. Welcome to the internet. You posted some negative things about them…they are going to post some negative things about you. Get over it.
I don’t know that I’d go barging in to the kitchen to find someone. I’d probably just leave and never go back. However, them calling and getting mad at the OP, after being told that she *had *been there to pick it up and got no service, is what would cause me to write a negative review. If they had called and were apologetic and offered to fix the mistake, I would have been satisfied and would continue to go there (and not leave a negative review).
why not tell Yelp that the Chinese place has closed and a Roy Rogers opened there?
On Yelp specifically all reviews are filtered using a proprietary algorithm that is supposed to weed out the fake reviews, both positive and negative. In theory this keeps things legit, but it’s a double edged sword and can hurt a business as much as letting negative reviews through. For example, my business page on Yelp has three 5-star reviews, all legit from people I’ve worked with, but you wouldn’t know it because all three are filtered so it looks like I’ve had no clients at all. Yelp has been basically useless in driving traffic or leads to me. I’ve never gotten so much as an inquiry from them (and no longer really pay attention to my page because of this).
And yes, I have asked for the reviews to be unfiltered, but Yelp won’t do it because “that’s the algorithm” and “it’s intended to be as fair as possible” and manually altering things would violate the integrity of the site, or whatever.
I have no idea if other review sites (like Amazon or Zappos) have filters in place.
People talk about their bad (and good!) customer experiences all the time, with or without the internet. This is nothing new. I’ve recommended restaurants to my friends. I’ve also warned friends away from places I had bad experiences at.
Apologize for the screw-up and offer restitution of some sort, publicly. Most people get “having a bad night” but they will want to see it was an anomaly and not the usual, judging by how you respond.
Part of running a business is realizing that customers 1> have a choice in where they go for what you offer and 2> talk to each other. Social media like review sites can be used to great advantage by a business, but you have to remember that you’re not the only game in town and you better give people a reason to like your offerings better. Consumers have more options for nearly everything now than ever before, which means they’re going to be a hell of a lot more picky about their experience with a business, too. They have a much lower tolerance for BS because they can just pick up and move on to the business down the street.
Only to have some deranged Roy Rogers lover stalk me when all they find is chow mein there? No thanks! 