Business Owners Ask Customers To Remove Negative Reviews

Eric Winick raved about the food, but was frustrated that dinner at the restaurant took an hour to serve.

"I said, in a review, that they had taken a ridiculously long time to bring the food," said Winick.

He was surprised to get an email from the restaurant's owner asking him to take it down.

"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."

More businesses are reaching out to customers about bad reviews, and sometimes things get nasty. 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 you're 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.

"In the last few years it has changed the way we have done business," said Zalmi Duchman, freshdiet.com founder.

Duchman says he's requested reviews be removed, saying they've been damaging.

"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," said Duchman.

Winick 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.