Yelp is a very controversial service for business owners. It’s a website that allows users to review retail services and share their experiences with millions of Yelp visitors. The problem with review sites is that happy customers don’t tend to participate in the review process as much as others. They’re contact to keep spending money. But, the angry sometimes unreasonable customers are the ones who are happy to vent online. Does this really impact the bottom line? According to a Harvard study, each rating star (It’s possible to have between one and five stars) on a Yelp review translates to anywhere from a 5% to 9% effect on revenues.

Here is how to increase the amount of positive reviews on Yelp:

Ask family and friends to leave an honest review for your business. Make sure that they’ve reviewed some other businesses as well since it gives more evidence that a company  is not creating fake reviews.

Ask the happiest customers to leave an honest review.

Offer all customers a significant coupon or reward in exchange for a review. Let them know that it doesn’t matter if it’s one or five stars. Consumers are unlikely to give a bad review when given something for free.

We recently conducted a contest in all of our stores in order to reward the franchisees and the customers who did leave good reviews. After revising all of the OXXO yelp profiles, we have found our winner, with 27 amazing reviews taking him to a five star ranking, we are proud to announce as the winner Elias Tahhan, franchisee from the OXXO Care Cleaners North Bay Village, Florida store. Once again Elias has shown us his profound and spotless dedication to his business and it certainly pays, it is of no surprise to us that as per recent franchise studies, the OXXO North Bay Village store has shown to be the fastest and most consistent growing store within the franchise. Elias is dedicated, hard working, passionate about OXXO and extremely kind to his customers, his good vibes are definitely sprouting throughout the years and his customers are becoming more and more loyal to his service.

Anyone of you can continue with this effort and improve your ranking in Yelp, this is a continuous but fructifying task that can definitely help bring you more profit. The site has a purpose weather you like it or not and by acknowledging it and working with it you will benefit from it.

As a reward to his efforts Elias Tahhan has won an Apple Ipad Mini and we have also chosen the customer with the best review in his profile which will win a $100 Visa Gift Card.

Congratulations Elias and team!