Yelp Releases New Discovery, Contribution, Services and AI-powered Features
January 30 2024 - 6:00AM
Business Wire
A new visual home feed, search experience and
AI-powered business summaries enhance discovery; New updates to the
services experience make it easier than ever to hire professionals;
A revamped Yelp for Business surfaces valuable insights to help
business owners succeed
Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP), the company that connects people with
great local businesses, today is announcing its Winter Product
Release with more than 20 new features that elevate the Yelp
experience for both consumers and business owners. The company is
releasing new AI-powered business summaries that make it even
easier for people to find a business that fits their needs at a
glance and new Recognitions celebrate and distinguish reviewers who
are passionate about a specific food, cuisine or nightlife
category. A new AI-powered visual home feed and updated search
experience enhance discovery, helping consumers quickly and easily
find their new favorite restaurant. While new updates to the
services experience, including enhancements to Request a Quote and
new 'Projects' features, help simplify finding the right service
professional for their needs. Lastly, new data-driven features for
business owners and advertisers on the Yelp for Business experience
surface unique insights that help them grow and succeed on
Yelp.
This press release features multimedia. View
the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240130148539/en/
Yelp announces a series of new discovery,
contribution, services and AI-powered features, enhancing
connections between consumers and local businesses. (Graphic:
Business Wire)
“We’re continuing to enhance the search and discovery experience
for consumers on Yelp, as well as unlock more value for business
owners,” said Craig Saldanha, chief product officer at Yelp. “These
new features harness our rich, trusted content to inspire even more
meaningful connections across the platform, from supporting the
contributors who make Yelp the one-stop local platform we are today
to helping local businesses and service professionals thrive in
their communities. Rolling out features that make life easier,
delight our users and leverage advanced technology allow us to
deliver a seamless consumer experience and more effectively match
businesses with valuable leads.”
Enhancing the business discovery and review experience on
Yelp
In 2023, tens of millions of reviews, photos and videos were
contributed to Yelp. With its commitment to delivering helpful and
reliable content, the platform continues to build new features to
engage users and inspire them to contribute high-quality
content.
- New AI-powered home feed: Yelp’s new home feed
experience on iOS uses AI to help consumers discover new businesses
in their community — surfacing relevant user photos, Collections
from Yelp Elites and video content from nearby businesses. In the
coming months, the homepage will also feature user videos and roll
out on Android.
- A more visual iOS search experience: New updates
throughout the Yelp search journey create a more visual and
engaging experience for consumers. From the beginning of the search
experience, a new suggestions page highlights popular and recent
searches. For restaurant, food and nightlife searches, users will
find more visual, photo-heavy business listings, a new “People also
search for” component that helps users narrow down their choices
with search recommendations and new carousels that highlight user
photos of popular dishes for frequently searched foods. This new
search experience will be available on Android later this
year.
- AI-powered business summaries: Yelp is using LLMs to
parse recent reviews and surface unique descriptions about
restaurant, food and nightlife businesses at the top of the
business page — highlighting elements such as the atmosphere,
service, amenities, value, or a popular dish. Business summaries
will roll out to Yelp’s Android app and website later this
year.
- Recognitions: To celebrate Yelp's engaged contributors,
users can now earn Recognitions for writing reviews in more than
165 restaurants, food and nightlife categories — including tacos,
cocktails, coffee and more. Recognitions are earned for writing at
least three reviews within a year for businesses within the same
select category and are featured in the ‘Achievements’ section on
the ‘Me Tab’ in the Yelp iOS app. Additional categories and
platforms will roll out later this year.
- More review topics: To alleviate writer’s block when
users are drafting a review, Yelp is expanding its interactive
review topics to new categories across home, local, professional
and auto services, as well as beauty, shopping, health and medical.
Review topics light up green when common themes are covered in
reviews to remind reviewers of helpful details that other people
would want to know about.
Streamlining the services experience and connecting people
with pros faster
Yelp continues to release new features that reduce friction for
consumers when hiring services pros, further solidifying the
platform as a destination for services. With millions of projects
started on Yelp every year, the company’s latest updates make it
easier and more seamless to confidently find and hire service
professionals.
- New ‘Projects’ features: Yelp is adding a series of new
features to the ‘Projects’ experience to simplify hiring service
professionals, including the ability to upload videos and provide
documentation for projects, archive old projects, send quick
replies with one-click responses and more. Consumers can also
opt-in to receive SMS messages directly from businesses to help
coordinate and complete their projects without having to open the
Yelp app or log into their account.
- Streamlined Request a Quote experience: An improved
Request a Quote experience for consumers helps facilitate more
efficient communication with service pros and drive more
high-quality leads to business owners. Consumers can find updated
questions based on a business’s unique services, as well as
pre-filled and skippable questions based on their search.
- Yelp Guaranteed expands nationwide: The company’s
satisfaction guarantee program, Yelp Guaranteed, is available
nationwide, allowing people to get up to $2,500 back in the event
something goes wrong with their project.
- Phone leads for service pros: To make it easier to book
a job or schedule an appointment, businesses with Request a Quote
enabled can directly call or text potential customers that opt into
being contacted directly by the business. To protect user privacy,
businesses will receive a masked temporary phone number and users
can opt out at any time.
Revamping the Yelp for Business experience
Yelp is rolling out new product enhancements that provide
valuable insights to businesses, helping them make strategic and
informed decisions to better reach relevant consumers and grow
their business.
- New data-driven insights for business owners: The Yelp
for Business homepage now features enhanced business page
performance metrics, as well as unique customer and competitor
insights. This includes data on the neighborhoods where the most
consumers are searching for the services they offer, trending
search terms in their area, performance comparisons to similar
businesses and more.
- Enhanced onboarding experience with AI-driven insights:
Yelp is revamping the experience for new advertisers with a new
“Getting Started” section, a redesigned business Q&A section
and enhanced smart budget recommendations. AI-powered smart budgets
leverage neural networks to provide helpful advertising budget
recommendations that help business owners select the advertising
option with the highest potential ROI.
- Scheduling consultations: Yelp advertisers can more
seamlessly get in touch with and schedule consultations with the
company’s customer service team, when it’s most convenient for
them, without needing to hold for a representative.
Additional Information and Assets
Learn more about all of the latest updates Yelp is announcing in
a blog post and a video overview from Saldanha. Assets and images
can be found here. For more information about Yelp, visit the
company’s Fast Facts page.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating
to, among other things, Yelp’s future product plans, including the
ability of its investments and initiatives to drive profitable
long-term growth and shareholder value, that are based on its
current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks
and uncertainties.
Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences also
include, but are not limited to, those factors that could affect
Yelp’s business, operating results and stock price included under
the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and
Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in
Yelp’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K or Quarterly Report
on Form 10-Q at yelp-ir.com or the SEC’s website at sec.gov.
About Yelp Inc.
Yelp Inc. (yelp.com) is a community-driven platform that
connects people with great local businesses. Millions of people
rely on Yelp for useful and trusted local business information,
reviews and photos to help inform their spending decisions. As a
one-stop local platform, Yelp helps consumers easily discover,
connect and transact with businesses across a broad range of
categories by making it easy to request a quote for a service, book
a table at a restaurant and more. Yelp was founded in San Francisco
in 2004.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240130148539/en/
Press Contact Yelp Inc. Julianne Rowe press@yelp.com
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