| • | Don’t ask your customers to review your business; just say "Find us on Yelp" |
| • | Yelp uses automated software that aims to showcase opinions that best reflect the Yelp community, so we don’t recommend every review. The recommendation software runs daily so a review might be recommended one day but not the next, or vice versa, as the recommendation software considers new information each day. Learn more. |
I clicked "Learn More" for the first time and found a very vague description of what content is a red flag to Yelp's algorithm.
- There are a number of reasons why a review might not be recommended. For example, the review might have been posted by a less established user, or it may seem like an unhelpful rant or rave. Some of these reviews are fakes (like the ones that originate from the same computer) and some suggest a bias (like the ones written by a friend of the business owner), but many are real reviews from real customers who we just don’t know much about and therefore can’t recommend.
This may work for restaurants or retail stores and I want to stress that I'm not attacking Yelp as an entity, but wanting to create a dialog about how a site (Yelp if they wanted) could review tattoo artists and studios better. When you go to Denny's you could have a bad experience because someone else at your table got a fly in their meal, or because the night staff isn't as good, or because you haven't been there since you were a kid and it has gone downhill. You can review it, and then review another place for lunch and another for dinner. Then you can review four retail establishments, a cafe, then a couple bars and call it a night. You'd be a superyelper (and likely broke from shopping all day), but it wouldn't mean you knew more about tattoos. In fact, most of the experiences above aren't good ways to determine if a tattoo artist is right for you, and if they are, it doesn't mean that they're right for everyone that reads your review.
The choice to pick a tattoo artist is not one to be taken as lightly as where to go for a mocha.
You should never trust a review or a referral. I know a lot of tattooers are like "Shut your face, Lisa, we make a living on word-of-mouth", but it's true. You listen to reviews and referrals, and use them as leads which you should investigate yourself.
Suppressing the friends of the business owner has some flaws. I like the baristas at the Starbucks on Woodside road, they're good people and they are always kind. I know about the girl who cut her hours to go to school more, her dad games on his laptop sometimes and I wave to him. They all show me when they get new tattoos. One of their baristas is a bonafide maven of macchiatos and he will never cease to try to get me to switch from soy to coconut milk. I'm not sure I'd call them friends, but I spend more time with them than half of my facebook "friends", so if I saw they had reviews calling their service shitty I would write a good one and say that they rock. Hell yes I would.
In tattooing specifically, we do a job more personal and permanent than making coffee. I don't need to explain how personal it is, anyone who read this far already knows. With anything involving striking a personal connection for money (or commissioned art of any kind), sometimes the connection is stronger than others. I had a guy I talked to three jobs ago reccomend his girlfriend to see my tattoo page. She shared and image which was liked by a sweet girl I never met. I don't know how I never met her, because she also used to test games and grew up in my neighborhood and hung out at the same haunts with many of the same people. She's now a good friend, and I am happy to have her in my life (I'm looking at you Emily!) But I haven't really seen her outside of the times we sit down and I tattoo her and we talk and get coffee and talk more and make awesome art together. It is a friendship that was born of this business, born of referrals and word-of-mouth. If she's showing my page to a friend (which she has and would do I'm sure) and sees that I've got dumpy reviews (I actually don't have any reviews on my business yet since I just claimed it) and she wants to review me, shouldn't she be allowed to? She can attest to expectations upon meeting me and the fulfillment of them, to my customer service, cleanliness, and everything else. If there's a bias, good! The experience I have given her left her totally into what I do.
I hope you only get tattooed by people who make you biased. I hope you write reviews telling Yelpers proudly how much you love it. Don't ever slam someone on there because if you didn't connect, you shouldn't have gotten the tattoo. You should know the artist's ability and be comfortable before they ever put on gloves or before you pay a deposit. If it's too late, fuckitall and lose your deposit because shame and coverups and lasers cost more than that. If it was a real "infection" you'd have gone to the doctor and they'd contact the health department, this isn't an issue for Yelp it's a public health issue get out of here and save the others, don't walk around with a fresh zombie bite.
Yelp isn't good for reviewing tattoos. Walk around and talk to people with tattoos (don't touch), ask your friends on facebook or instagram, go to expos, walk into some shops and talk to the artists. Drive around town and collect some business cards until you have a list of who you might want to do your piece, then talk to a few of them. Don't string them along, let them know you're considering a few artists and they'll be honest whether they're into doing it or not. Be biased about your tattoo artist because you know they are so much better for you than the other guys, not because they have a higher score but because you thoroughly checked so you know for fucking sure. Then use Yelp to find a Starbucks and bring the artist a dirty soy chai.
