Businesses, in an attempt to improve their overall image, are contacting customers that leave negative reviews on Yelp and urging them to remove the offending review.
Small and independent businesses that are not backed by a franchise are the most affected by these negative reviews, so business owners are reaching out to customers.
Some customers agree, yet some don't. In the video featured above, one such customer, Eric Winick, had waited about an hour to be served left a negative review and was contacted shortly afterwards to remove it.
"He said that, something along the lines of, we're trying to make a go of it in this area," said Winick. "We all have families to feed, and sort of trying to prey on my sympathies a little bit."
He refused to remove his review. "I thought it was a waste of time, frankly, on the part of the restaurant to do that," said Winick.
In another incident, an Atlanta restaurant launched a Twitter and Facebook campaign against a customer who left a bad review.
"A single person can now go home and get on Facebook, and tell 500 or 1000 people what they think of your restaurant," said social media expert Patrick O'Malley.
A Harvard study found a one star increase in a businesses rating on Yelp can increase business 5 to 9 percent for independent restaurants.
Zalmi Duchman, founder of freshdiet.com, said "We've found in the past, you react to the customer, the better chance you're going to have to get the customer to remove their negative review; because they see you take their comments and their feedback seriously".