Yelp emails are killing me !

In the last few weeks I've been getting lots of customers emails through Yelp, they are killing me !! All they ask are prices and they never reply back or call, I felt I was wasting my time replying to their emails, I made a template and just copy paste them to my reply now and I just replace the name of each customer in my reply.
I understand people shop around but some of these emails are ridiculous, they need same day service and almost demanded that I reply immediately, I almost feel like ignoring all of them now but that might prompt them to give me a negative review which happened to other service companies before. It sucks !!

I think you just gave your competition an idea on how to hurt your reputation.

I don't like the idea of being held hostage by a system like that....this small town sounds better to be every time I hear things like this.

Well, the good thing is my competition don't know my company's name, that's why I don't put them on my profile here, lol.
Yeah it sucks that a couple of my negative reviews are actually from people that don't use my service, but the good thing is they're pretty much buried down a few pages now, surprisingly people seems to not see them nor care about them cause I heard people are saying you have a perfect reviews, no negatives, I told them I actually do have a few negatives, didn't stop them from making an appointment ( the ones whom prices are not their first concern ).
it's still baffling to me that people would email instead of calling when they need same day service.

That's a good way to handle it DP, copy and paste and if they need more info they can call. The price shoppers are probably doing the same thing to get their quotes from the businesses. 

What I like about the online request quote form on my website is that it doesn't allow them to send the request unless they input their phone number. Too bad you can't do that with the yelp quote request. I have always had the angies service request forms include their phone number as well.

Like how many email info request/day?
Could it be a robo? Making it seem like Yelp is bringing you a lot of "potential" customers.? Then they are going to call you and say" your traffic is x, sign up, good buddy. You'll make a killing".

About 20 - 25 emails / week.
I'm already on Yelp's ads program, the lowest one though, $ 350 / month.
The emails came from Yelp's server, so they are Yelpers, you can see their yelp ids from there, the sketchy ones, the ones who gives more negatives than positive gets the VIP treatments of $ 1 / Sq ft cleaning wall to wall carpets, lol. They usually back down quick, ha..ha....

I hate when people email thru yelp because its not a part of my regular routine to check email on yelp.

Ac, set it up so you're notified threw your email you check daily........ it's a setting, there in your biz account, and you can also respond to them threw that email, never having to logon to Yelp.

I still like the idea of just making it go away altogether, by only allowing them to call you, which I bet 90% wouldn't do and almost eliminate the problem.....but I guess the cheap price shoppers need their own silly way too of wasting our time!

Davey Cracker wrote:I still like the idea of just making it go away altogether, by only allowing them to call you, which I bet 90% wouldn't do and almost eliminate the problem.....but I guess the cheap price shoppers need their own silly way too of wasting our time!

Couldn't have said it better, 99.9% of those emails started by "how much do you charge ?" And some of them is obvious that they sent the same emails to 20 different companies. It's annoying !!

Gotta love those price shoppers. I actually once had to tell this guy (big time price shopper) Sorry sir that is what I charge, Good work is never cheap and Cheap work is never good, however you want to say it! I did say it to this one guy, he laughed and said "ok, so how soon can you do it"

dp1 wrote:

Davey Cracker wrote:I still like the idea of just making it go away altogether, by only allowing them to call you, which I bet 90% wouldn't do and almost eliminate the problem.....but I guess the cheap price shoppers need their own silly way too of wasting our time!

Couldn't have said it better, 99.9% of those emails started by "how much do you charge ?" And some of them is obvious that they sent the same emails to 20 different companies. It's annoying !!

I got one today, another one looking for best price of course.............you can tell when it's the first words out.

Maybe we should start posting here, "The best of Yelp cheap ass time waster emails"!!

Or better yet, we should expose them here Dave !
Why isn't there "Yelp for business owners" that review those cheap mean bastards aka bad customers.
Or better yet, someone should start "Davey's list" to put those bad customers list in there and it should be able to sync in to house call pro or any other scheduling software, when those names popped up, it should give a loud siren noise, lol.

Flagging a bad customer would be awesome, but sometimes they are only a bad customer for one cleaner and not another.

I clean for an elderly lady by the local college who still has some vintage wool carpet. I was told by most cleaners around here to avoid her like the plague as she likes to hover over the job and nit-pick everything.

The first time I cleaned for her, we spent the whole time talking about where the best cheeseburgers were in the US. It helped that despite being in her 70's, she and her husband were faithful Jimmy Buffett fans.....as am I.

By the way, the best cheeseburger for me was located in New Orleans at a small 50's style diner. You got a bucket of peanuts in the shell at each table and the shells were just tossed on the floor. They made a Swiss Mushroom burger that was incredible!!

That's true !! You seems to have a way to connect with people, sometimes I think I have a pretty good people skills but when I see these kinds of reply from you, your people skills blown mine away

I'm low-tech, I have no other way to do it. it may be my best attribute in this business....sometimes my only one, but I figure if they like you, they will not complain about that vase you broke with the hose.

Wow, I just got 2 back to back, and to my surprise from one extreme to the other.

Most are like this first one, that's a price shopper looking for lowest price and doesn't even provide their phone number so you can call them........so I just responded via email like normal, and there's prob a 1% chance of hearing back from them, because they're low price driven, which isn't what they can get from me.

Then there's the surprise, something I've never seen before from a person sending a Yelp message............just a 'don't need price, come do it' type customer.  So maybe there is hope that they're not all bad!

First one: Typical looking for Lowest price.....

I have a sofa that needs to be steamed. It's about 80" in length. Not very big, honestly, but I spilled sangria all one it. About how much would it run me? Or do you even do upholstery?

Surprising one: Just come do it.........

I don'f need an estimate, just an appointment to clean approx 1000 sq ft with some pet stains 13 stair steps with 2 landings and an 8 ft couch. 808-867-5309
L-----.

She is scheduled for tomorrow, and never asked about price.

Never asked for estimate calls are great, but I would still provide a working estimate before you start.

Most of my residential are by references and they rarely ask me about price, but I have had some that were upset with the bill. The reason is simple, they based the price off of what their friend told them it would probably cost and their memory isn't always so great or maybe I cut them a deal at the time.

Right now, your customer has a number in mind as to what the cost will be. It is a very good idea to confirm the number to make certain the two of you are not way off in expectations.

Wow, I've never had anyone sent me an email asking to make an appointment without asking for prices, so you had me beat there, lol.
Rob, yeah we do that here, we always give a price quote prior to starting the work, this area is not short of carpet cleaners, you can find prices from $ 100 for a whole house to $ 0.50 - $ 0.60 / sq ft, may be even more than that, it's crazy when you have such a big gap in prices in the market.

milspec6 wrote:Never asked for estimate calls are great, but I would still provide a working estimate before you start.

Most of my residential are by references and they rarely ask me about price, but I have had some that were upset with the bill.  The reason is simple, they based the price off of what their friend told them it would probably cost and their memory isn't always so great or maybe I cut them a deal at the time.

Right now, your customer has a number in mind as to what the cost will be.  It is a very good idea to confirm the number to make certain the two of you are not way off in expectations.

I never do a job without giving the exact price before starting work, and also the customers authorization signature.
It was just surprising to get a yelp message that wasn't priority 1 price driven.

I actually got one earlier this week that asked me for estimate of sofa and love seat cleaning that they had snagged from the curb off the street in LA, I sent an email back to call me instead, the call never come

I did a job on a 4000 sf ft home for carpet and tile and the guy didn't care what it cost. I love those. I was recommended by his financial planner and I have no idea who his financial planner was should have asked

dp1 wrote:I actually got one earlier this week that asked me for estimate of sofa and love seat cleaning that they had snagged from the curb off the street in LA, I sent an email back to call me instead, the call never come

I've had more than I can count this month that I told to call me, and they never did.... why do you think they don't give their number, they don't want to talk, they just want that cheapest price in B&W in their inbox!! Sorry, wrong guy.

I just got this one, oh wonderful. So I referred him to you DP!
And I am exposing this one, to warren others, of this Nigerian scam!! LOL


New Message from Wojciech P.
Hi. I am wondering how much for my organic couch and spring box and mattress to be streamed and cleaned because I am highly sensitive from Bird Mites so I believe they live in them so pest control can't do with my couch and mattress. The stream will good enough to kill mites such as Bird and Dust. I need a reasonable price so I can pay immediately after you done. Let me know. Cheers

Am I the only one that thinks that might be a job^^ you would do for free/never get paid on?

Or Am I just too paranoid?

Wont Yelp, wont YP, wont Angie, wont wont wont! I have a
better program.