Yelp, a leading provider of user reviews of products and services, is introducing a series of new features designed to support small service businesses.
From the research phase to discovery stage, to writing an online review, the features support users through each stage of a project.
Yelp Cost Guides for Small Service Businesses
The updates to Yelp’s services are aimed at helping businesses connect with consumers, through better-matched and relevant high-intent leads.
Through the Request-A-Quote feature, Yelp helps solve hiring a services business frictions by asking consumers a handful of tailored questions about the specific job they need working on.
This is incredibly valuable for businesses as it streamlines the matching process by collating details about a project. As such, the quality of leads is improved, saving small businesses time, and wasted energy in inappropriate projects.
In a blog post, Yelp describes the aims of its new updates designed to help connect consumers with the right service businesses:
“At Yelp, we’re always looking for new ways to better partner with a wide range of service professionals across industries. We’re continuing to develop new machine learning models that better match consumers with services businesses and help bring more opportunities to the marketplace. We’re also focused on accommodating businesses that can easily provide a quote online, as well as businesses that may require more information on a consultation before they can provide a bespoke quote, ultimately making the hiring experience more seamless for consumers.”
Project Cost Guides
Among the new features are Project Cost Guides, which share valuable information on the average cost of services in a specific area. The guides can prove useful to small businesses and services professionals, providing insight into the average cost of services for their business category.
Custom Search Filters
Yelp has enhanced the search experience for services through custom search filters. Users can filter for a fast-responding business, those that provide virtual consultations, and the specific jobs businesses specialize in.
The savviest of small businesses on Yelp would be wise to cater for popular demands, such as responding quickly and providing virtual consultations, so they appear in custom search filters.
Themed Ads
The new themed ads feature showcases differentiated Yelp advertisers at the top of search results if a business is providing special offers or the are responding to Request-A-Quote projects within two hours.
Again, business users wanting to get more out of Yelp should use the themed ads feature to their advantage, by offering components like fast responses and special offers to consumers.
Easier Way to Write Reviews
Designed to help service businesses generate more reviews is Yelp’s updated Request-A-Quote project, which encourages users to write reviews with ease through asking a series of questions to kick-off the process.
Subsequently, businesses receive higher quality and more reliable reviews.
Image: yelp
I love what Yelp has done for customer reviews, but I’m conflicted about them as a company because of they way they have handled their ad business. I’m hopeful it’s improving.