It appears that Yelp, one of many controversial consumer review sites, will be looking to expand it's appeal by alerting users when a restaurant has a poor food safety score. As reported by the
Washington Post, Yelp is currently testing the new alerts in San Francisco. Restaurants who received food safety scores in the bottom 5% locally will now show an alert that states "Following a recent inspection, this facility received a food safety rating that is in the bottom %5 locally, and is categorized by inspectors as "poor".
Yelp is infamous in the hospitality industry, with many restauranteurs feeling the
service strong arms business owners into paying for the site's advertising features. This new move looks on the face to be a boon for consumers, though certainly business owners will have some negative opinions. Yelp is partnering with Michael Luca, of HarvardBusiness School, to track the effects the warnings may have on restaurant traffic and consumers' reviews. It will be interesting to see if the warnings cause consumers to shy away from affected restaurants, especially if those establishments have otherwise good reviews. Yelp is pulling this information from public government sources, so consumers already have access, but this move will no doubt make the information much more visible to average restaurant-goers. When you visit an affected restaurant's Yelp page, the warning floats over top of the reviews, requiring users to actively dismiss the warning before reading about a restaurant, so Yelp is making the notices very, very visible.
According to Luther Lowe, Yelp's head of public policy,
"Yelp’s job is to predict in an online way the experience consumers can expect will happen in the offline world." While that may sound contradictory in light of Yelp's history of
turbulent relationships with businesses, a great many number of consumers utilize the site, and getting the word out about safety scores could very well encourage restaurants to do better. On the other hand, as the
Washington Post points out, this could push some restaurants out of business before they have a chance to react (the internet has a history of sensationalizing pretty much everything). As food safety is a
rising concern, especially in our
share-everything-instantly, internet-connected world, it will be interesting to see if Yelp implements these new warnings nationally, and how consumers react.
What do you think about this food safety score test? Are you worried about how your restaurant or business will be affected? Let us know what you think via Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Also, be sure to check out the Washington Post's article for more information.
Source:
Washington Post
Image Credit:
Yelp
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