Better: With a business review site I worked on previously, we tinkered with a system that allowed business to openly respond to reviews. It worked really well.

Better: With a business review site I worked on previously, we tinkered with a system that allowed business to openly respond to reviews. It worked really well. It gave the other side of the story and provided a LOT of engagement with the user. I believe yelp has adopted something similar now. We tried it with a private system (rebuttals not viewable by the public) and a public system. The private system showed FAR less engagement in terms of the business and the user working out their differences. When it was all done out in the open the users seemed much more willing to engage with the business owner. In our test greater than 70% of the conflicts were resolved. In private the number was much lower (I don't remember the exact number, but it was less than 40%). I'd love to see that on the respective markets.