While it must be hard to read negative reviews of your work, business owners should come to terms with the fact that customers are going to turn to online outlets to discuss their experiences. The good, the bad, the ugly –Â it all gets aired for the benefit of consumers. Which makes it really an unfortunate display of unprofessional behavior when businesses come out swinging against their reviewers.
The Yelp reviews overall aren’t too harsh, and mostly focus on the texture of the cake, from things like “sample which was GREAT and scrumptious, but the cake was dry,” and “I threw 2 of them away because they were so dry,” to “The cake part is pretty dense, almost as dense as a brownie.”
And yet on multiple reviews, someone responding with the name of the cupcake shop in their Yelp username has posted with an unprofessional level of vitriol. Oh, and the “Y” button on the keyboard must be broken.
In one review, the customer admitted to trying to convince a worker to swap out some of the cupcakes in an assortment, as she didn’t want a few of the flavors. She ends the review with: “Will I be back? Hmm, well, if the proceeds are for charity and I happen to be in the neighborhood, sure thing, but I won’t make the trip out if it’s just for these cupcakes.”
To which the presumed business owner replies:
I was happi to hear about the pathetic pleading on your part ,to get one of mi girls to break polici. Had [eponymous business owner] been there, it would have never happened!
With regard to your comment about limited flavors, we have a varieti of 27 organic cupcakes available. Dang, how mani flavors do you realli need? (no need to answer – I don’t want to hear it)
You give people too mani options they’ll get confused.
[Our business] bakes 6 days a week to create delicious, fresh, organic cupcakes. What’s not fresh is your bad attitude and crappi disposition. What you refer to as dense, is actualli, qualiti, something you might not be familiar with.
Will you be back??? The question is “are you welcome back?” “Probabli not.” it depends on my mood.
Once some of the negative responses by the business owner come flowing in, a thread started by one reviewer leads to a four-part “Surrealiti Check” by the owner.
“The owner says dissatisfied customers are stupid and don’t know quality cupcakes, then has the nerve to say they aren’t welcome in her own store,” says one reviewer, while another chimes in with, “When I was there she had 4 flavors out of 27. Is this a business or performance art? Totally surreal.”
As to the flavors offered, the purported business owner offers these two “Surrealiti Checks”:
“Surrealiti Check #2 [Our] organic CupCakes are an artistic expression therefore, certain flavors are baked as inspired. “Check Mate”
Surrealiti Check #3 During the week we have 6 flavors available, on weekends we have 9 or more flavors however, it would not have mattered because it would not have satisfied you. “Check Mate”
It might be difficult not to respond to negative opinions of your business, but in the end, holding our tongue and trying to instead improve the customer experience will be a lot more productive than lashing out.
*Thanks for the tip, Maria!
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The snarky replies by the business owner does FAR more damage to the credibility of the business than the mild, mostly polite criticism by the customer. I know if this bakery was in my area, I’d give it a WIDE berth just based on the owners snark..
My favourite review:
Decided to head down as I heard they had the cupcake equivalent of “Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans”.
Sadly, it seems the only flavours I got were “puke” flavoured, because thats what they made me do afterwards.
Certainly won’t be doing THAT again.
Yelp is a bogus site. I hope the government nails them somehow. I posted a bad review of a Chinese place I went to, and now my review has been “filtered”, along with several other negative ones. I didn’t see those reviews when I first posted mine on the page. So now they are just arbitrarily hiding reviews, most likely because the owner has paid them money to do so. I will never trust anything I read on that site ever again. It is not truthful at all.
I don’t know what fascist state you live in, but in the US the government isn’t allowed to shut down a company just because someone moderated content.
The US doesn’t impose thought-police (although the GOP would like to).
I looked at the website and all I can really say is…KILL IT WITH FIRE!
You go Gyrl.
But then again, I can fully understand a business owner acting like this, upset by customers who want to rewrite the rules and if they can’t succeed in getting what they want, throw tantrums and write Supreme Court certiorari style feedback / surveys / reviews used as weapons of mass destruction.
Apparently Basil Fawlty has gone into the cupcake business.
And how come while he supposedly refuses to use the letter “y,” he continues to correctly spell “you,” when this would be the easiest use of the letter to eliminate? (If u know what I mean.)
No wonder her cupcakes are so ‘dri’, she bakes 6 days a week, but the store is only open for 4…
When did this become a “dumb criminal” blog?
Wow, apparently if you have multiple consumerist tabs open, it posts to the last one instead of the active tab. AMAZING CODING
I had a similar experience on yelp here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/rino-trattoria-new-york
some highlights: the owner offers me the coupons they get under there door every day, owner says based on stature of one of the reviewers she might be more suitable for dining in Wendy’s.
I rarely write bad reviews on Yelp unless the situation is really egregious, because it’s usually someone’s livelihood you’re messing with. But so far I’ve been really impressed with how businesses around me have responded (or just left it alone, which I think is also acceptable).
I’ve seen a few horror stories like this one, but thankfully they seem to be the exception.