Question 1

Reviews Policy for Businesses

Accepted Answer

Yell is committed to being a trusted online destination for consumers to connect with businesses. Central to this trust is Yell Reviews. We ask businesses to share our values so that consumers can trust reviews and post new ones.

Requesting a review

We encourage you to proactively manage your online reputation. This includes the ability to request reviews from your customers. This can be done via the ‘Request a new review' feature through your Yell online account (accessible through the Yell Business App).

Offline requests can also be made by directing consumers to Yell.com/reviews.

You can find additional support for managing reviews by logging into your Yell online account and visiting the ‘promote your reviews’ link.

Reviews are accessed and reflected in your business listing. Specific reviews are accessible via your profile page.

We will ascribe an overall reviews star rating for your business, using an algorithm that looks at volumes of reviews by star rating. Star ratings will feature against your listing, and within your business profile.

In some cases, reviews are also published in third party search results e.g. Google.

You must not:

request fake or misleading reviews from customers
leave a revie for your own business
request reviews from friends or family
incentivise customers to leave you a review
pressure a customer to remove a review
make resolving a customer complaint contingent on the customer not leaving or remove a negative review

Responding to a review

Where you have the review notification functionality switched on in your Yell online account, you will be informed whenever a new review of your business is posted.

You can respond to reviews via the ‘Received Reviews’ page within your Yell online account. When you respond to a review you will be highlighted to consumers as the business owner via the ‘Business Response’ flag. Please remember that your response will be published in real-time and will be visible to anyone who visits Yell.com, so it should be constructive, appropriate and written in a non-biased way. We have further guidance on how to respond to reviews here.

Reporting a Review

We actively encourage anyone to report a review that they believe contravenes our Reviews Policy for Reviewers or this Reviews Policy for Businesses. You can report the review by using the ‘report review’ link on the specific review you want to report.

If a review on your listing is reported to us as being in breach of this Reviews Policy, we will investigate in a fair, impartial and timely manner.

We may temporarily remove the review whilst we investigate the report.

Where we determine the review does comply with our Reviews Policy for Reviewers and/or this Reviews Policy for Businesses, it will remain in place.

Where we determine the review does not comply with the Reviews Policy for Reviewers, we may take such action as is set out in that Policy.

Where we determine the review does not comply with this Reviews Policy for Businesses, we may:

Remove the review;
Issue you with a warning;
Suspend the reviews functionality on your listing;
Permanently disable the reviews functionality on your listing; and/or

Take such other action as we believe is appropriate

We will not remove a review solely on the basis it is negative, or because you do not like the content. If we believe you are misusing our reporting process, for example, reporting numerous negative reviews or reporting a review numerous times despite us already having investigated the review, we can refuse to investigate any further reports you make.

Question 2

Can I remove a negative review on my Yell listing?

Accepted Answer

So that Yell’s published reviews are genuine and free from bias we only remove reviews if they breach our reviews policy or Yell conditions of use.

If you feel strongly that a review is inaccurate or breaches this policy, press the Report Review button which appears within each review box on Yell.com.

For information about how best to handle negative reviews, view our guide to managing negative reviews.

Question 3

How do I remove a review?

Accepted Answer

If you believe a review or comment on Yell.com is inappropriate, or violates Yell’s Reviews Policy, click on the Report review link next to it. Our Customer Care team will evaluate the content against our guidelines and email you with a notification of the outcome. 

Alternatively, you can contact Customer Care:

Live message – Click the Send Message Now button at https://yell.com/contactus/ to message our Customer Care team Mon - Fri 8am-5pm. 

Call us – Speak to a member of our team on 0800 555 444, Mon-Thu 9am-5pm, Fri 9am-4.30pm   
All queries regarding reviews are handled on a case by case basis. Read Yell’s Conditions of Use to find out when we may decide to remove a review.

Question 4

How do I encourage my customers to post reviews of my business?

Accepted Answer

The best way to encourage your customers to leave a review for your business on Yell.com is through our Request a Review feature, which lets you customise an email to your customers and track whether it resulted in a review. Access this feature in the Reviews section of business account. You can also do this from the Yell for Business App.

Please note that for reviews to get published, your customers will need to create an account on Yell.com or login with Facebook or Google. We will not send any irrelevant emails to them and they can manage their email preferences at any time.

To promote your Yell Reviews offline, request a batch of our Review us on Yell.com stickers, which you can attach to your shop window, van, restaurant door or more. To order your free stickers, please contact our Customer Care team:

Live message – Click the Send Message Now button at https://www.yell.com/contactus/ to message our Customer Care team Mon-Fri 8am-5pm.
Call us – Speak to a member of our team on 0800 555 444, Mon-Thu 9am-5pm, Fri 9am-4.30pm.

Question 5

My customer posted a review but it is pending or not visible on my listing?

Accepted Answer

This happens most often because your customer has created a new Yell account to leave the review but has not verified their email address. To prevent review spam, and unverified reviews on your business listing we require everyone who leaves a review to verify their email address. 

When your customer signed up for a Yell account, they will have received an email with a verification link. All they need to do is find this email (check any junk folders) and click the Confirm Email button (indicated by the red arrow below.) This will release their review from a pending state and the review will shortly be published on your Yell listing. The email looks like this:

If your customer cannot find this email, they can request it is resent. Simply ask them to go to yell.com and ask that they login. They will then see the following page, where they can click 'Verify' (indicated by the red arrow) to resend the verification email. Then they just click the button as described above and the review will be published.

Question 6

Can I opt out of receiving reviews or Quick Rates?

Accepted Answer

If you feel strongly that Yell Reviews is not helpful for your business, the final option you may wish to consider is to disable the review facility completely. We would suggest you only use this facility only as a last resort as having a lot of ratings helps your listing to stand out from the competition. Yell Reviews are a great way of obtaining customer feedback and attracting more business through positive word of mouth
 
Don’t forget that if you do choose to suppress Yell Reviews, all comments displayed against your listing will be hidden. New users will not be allowed to review your business whilst the feature is disabled. We can re-activate the review feature for your listing at a later date.
 
You can also choose to opt out of the Quick Rates functionality on your listing without disabling the reviews feature.
 
To suppress reviews, or quick rates on your business profile page, please contact our Customer Care team:

Live message – Click the Send Message Now button at https://www.yell.com/contactus/ to message our Customer Care team Mon-Fri 8am-5pm. 
Call us – Speak to a member of our team on 0800 555 444, Mon-Thu 9am-5pm, Fri 9am-4.30pm.

Question 7

What is quick rate?

Accepted Answer

Quick Rate is a simple way to review a business where a user can give an honest star rating to a business, without leaving a detailed text comment. This also allows businesses to quickly collect more customer feedback.

Currently it is available only to our iOS and Android app users and for some business classifications on Yell.com mobile, but we are working to make the feature available to all listings.

Question 8

Can I write my own reviews?

Accepted Answer

As a business owner, you are welcome to write reviews of any other companies or venues that you have genuinely used or visited. However, you are not allowed to misrepresent yourself as a consumer, review your own business services, or post any reviews that might be viewed as competitor activity.

Any reviews found to be fake, inaccurate or inappropriate about a business or its competitors will be removed and accounts connected to them can be deleted at Yell’s discretion.

Question 9

What is Yell Reviews?

Accepted Answer

Yell Reviews is a free platform where our community of Yell.com users can share feedback of local businesses, restaurants, cafes, shops and more.

Reviews on Yell.com help our users make informed choices when they are looking to choose a business in the UK. Reviews can often be the deciding factor for choosing your business over your competition.

Yell Reviews makes it easy for your business to provide users with up-to-date relevant feedback and take control of your online reputation for free.

For more information on Yell Reviews and a how-to guide to get you started, please download our Ratings & Reviews brochure.

Question 10

How do I get the most out of Yell Reviews for my business?

Accepted Answer

Here are few easy steps to take to make sure your business makes the most out of the reviews feature on your Yell.com business profile page: 

Turn on email notifications Keep an eye on your online reputation and get informed immediately when a new review or comment is left on your business profile page with our review notifications. To turn on these alerts, visit the Reviews tab in your business account, select the Notification Settings, type in your email address, tick box and hit save.
Request a Review Get regular feedback and grow your Yell.com reviews by inviting your customers to write a review with our Request a Review feature. Find this in the Reviews section of your business account.
Reply to reviews with Business Response Respond as the business owner to show your customers and prospective customers that you appreciate all their feedback. To do this, simply reply to each review from your business account. For more information about making the most of Yell Reviews for business owners, check out our Yell.com Ratings & Reviews brochure for more features and step by step guidance. Or login to your business account to start using our reviews features now.

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Yell Reviews - Help for business owners