Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Yelp, Yelp, Yelp. When will you GET it????

So, I got another email from Yelp today. It read:

Hi Maryling,

Some of your reviews were flagged by the Yelp community, and our Customer Service team has determined that they fall outside our review guidelines (http://www.yelp.com/faq#great_review), specifically as it relates to conflicts of interest. We appreciate that you've disclosed that you own a spa when reviewing other businesses in that category, but in our opinion we believe this presents a conflict of interest and so we need to remove these reviews.

In the future, please remember that your reviews should be unbiased and objective.
If there's any hint of a conflict, please don't post the review. We hope you will
continue to provide great reviews, while keeping in mind our Review Guidelines. See
you on Yelp!

Regards,
Cecilia
Yelp User Support
San Francisco, California

Oh my goodness, all I've got to say is that they have their head further up their collective ass than I thought. Okay, so here are the facts:

1. I had legitimately been to ALL of the day spas or spas that I reviewed as a customer. I handed them my very own precious money.
2. I had great experiences at ALL of the day spas I reviewed, and I posted 4- or 5-star reviews about each one. If I didn't have a great experience, then I did not post a review.
3. For most of those reviews, I did not even own a spa when I had those experiences. So now I can't write about them?

It's okay to leave up a review from someone who's never been to your spa or just wants to write something evil about you because they have a vendetta against you, but it's not okay to preserve a review from a legitimate customer? What gives? And it's not okay for me to say GOOD things about spas that are now my competitors (simply because I bought a spa now, but did not back then)? HUH????????????????

I am scratching my head. Well, just another arrow in my quiver for why I just will never, ever support Yelp financially.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Soul Therapy Room - Finally, a Reality!

More "move your stuff, change your life" - we have cleared out my office and opened up a new "Soul Therapy" room! Yay! Thanks so so so much to Claire, Sushila, Ila, and my very own hubby for helping to make this happen. Without them, that office would a) still be messy and b) still be non-revenue-generating and c) still be mine, and instead, we now have a new haven for taking Soul Therapy clients! I'm so excited.

Can't wait to do Aromatherapy or Herbal Consultations in there...we are going to be doing all Acupuncture, Astrology, Tarot, and Reiki in there from now on! Yee ha! We can truly be a wellness spa now, instead of being a wellness spa masquerading as a day spa.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Laundry, Laundry, Always Laundry

The lifeblood of a spa is....not what you'd think. The phones? Yes. Although these days email and Instant Messaging are also ways for customers to schedule appointments. The employees? Well, yes. Without them, there is no capability to schedule appointments or take customers. But what really brings a spa to its knees? The laundry machines - the washer and the dryer and when they break!!!

Sorry, I feel particularly strongly and particularly emotional right now because at the moment, our dryer is broken. The kicker is, I paid ~$120 over Christmas to have it fixed...first it was squeaking, so we called in an appliance repair team. They came, but then broke the dryer even worse because it stopped working shortly after they came. Turns out, a belt was loose. So I paid another $21 or so to replace the belt, and all was hunky-dory again.

Well, fast forward to February 26. Once again, my staff call me up and tell me the dryer is squeaking again. I get to the spa on Friday, February 27th, and sure enough, the things sounds like an army of mice are caught in it. So I call up the same repair place - yay, it's under warranty. Yay, or so I thought. They come back today, and guess what?!??! They broke it worse again! Not only did they not fix it, but a part caught on fire when they went to plug it in, the dryer sparked, and now it doesn't work any longer. Give me the army of mice any day!!! At least it worked.

AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH! Okay, okay, I am calm now. I am obviously resisting the situation, and I could just choose to drop the resistance....but that doesn't help with my dryer!!!!!