BizSugar.com › Customer Service › How to Deal With a Negative Review on Yelp!

If your small business is a restaurant, retailer, salon or bar—the type of business that relies on local customers and word-of-mouth—you’ve probably had some experience with review and ratings site Yelp!. How much weight do Yelp! reviews carry with consumers? A study by University of California, Berkeley, economists, reported on Mashable.com, found that an improvement of just half a star in a restaurant’s Yelp! ratings can increase business by nearly 20 percent during peak dining hours.