Yelp Releases Several Updates to Continue Helping Restaurants Navigate the Pandemic

Business directory and crowdsourced review forum Yelp continues to tweak its offerings with the aim of helping restaurants survive during the pandemic. Prior to lockdown, the Yelp Waitlist feature was primarily used to manage dine-in service at restaurants and, while some restaurant owners managed to figure out ways to use Waitlist to deal with the new realities of curbside pickup and deliveries, the technology behind the feature had not been altered to accommodate this. Yelp rejiggered Waitlist to enable its use for both dine-in and to-go parties, enabling hosts to enter and keep track of all takeout orders, whether they were placed via phone or online, and to input relevant information such as the type of car in curbside pickups. Waitlist can also store information such as diners’ phone numbers and dietary preferences, enabling hosts to text customers when their orders are ready. One of the pilot testers of the revamped Waitlist feature was Nathan Hughes, director of operations for Mr. Stax, a management company that operates several IHOP franchise locations. Hughes said in a blog post that between Jan. 11 and Feb. 11, Waitlist was used on 36% of takeout orders, or nearly 3,500 total to-go orders across its top 30 locations. He added, “Any off-premise sales are certainly fundamental to our business at IHOP, whether it be a to-go order placed over the phone, in-person at the restaurant, online or through our application. For us, the greatest benefit of the new takeout feature is that we’re able to communicate directly with our guests—for instance, letting them know if their order isn’t quite ready when they arrive and then texting them once it becomes available. Additionally, it reminds our guests that for future visits, they can get on the Waitlist in advance by simply using Yelp.” Yelp also added two new hospitality features for restaurants on its platform: guest profiles and a point-of-sale integration. Guest profiles enable hosts to enter information about their guests that will help restaurant staff provide a more personalized experience, such as dietary restrictions and seating preferences, and this information will be auto-filled for returning diners. And the new POS integration gives business owners and hosts access to information such as letting them know when checks are paid, helping them better manage the status of their tables. Yelp vice president of product Rahul Hampole said in a blog post Tuesday that combining information from guest profiles and the POS integration will “give restaurants a detailed holistic digital picture of their customers enabling more effective marketing strategies. This will include things like amount spent, who their server was and what items they ordered.” The POS integration is available to Waitlist customers for an added charge. Restaurants on Yelp for Business will now have access to enhanced analytics. Multilocation, franchise and chain restaurants will see performance metrics at a brand level, as well as detailed views for each location, with outliers highlighted for quicker visibility. And restaurants of any size can see metrics over a specific date range including number of diners seated, diners seated via Yelp, seating conversion rates (percentage of Waitlist parties who were eventually seated) and wait time accuracy. Restaurant owners can see trends over time, along with information on average wait times by days of the week, average table turn times and diners seated by source. This data is available for the past two years for existing Waitlist customers. Yelp also introduced enhancements on the customer side. A new “On the Menu” section on business pages on the web makes it easier for consumers to see a restaurant’s popular dishes, links directly to its menu and includes time-stamped menu photos. Yelp said it has seen consumer interaction with menus on its platform rise more than 60% since January 2020. When an iOS user searches for a specific dish, Yelp will surface more images of that dish under each listing, where available, and the platform will roll this update out for Android and the web later this year. Android and iOS users can also search for photos on Yelp business pages via its app. Yelp also released a widget for iOS 14 that brings restaurant recommendations directly to users’ home screens, with those recommendations rotating throughout the day. Finally, the platform-wide redesign Yelp initially mentioned last August is now complete across Android, iOS and the web, bringing with it updated business pages on mobile apps, home screens and search pages. Hampole wrote, “As one of the hardest-hit industries during the pandemic, restaurants have faced constantly changing government guidelines and adapted to new ways to serve diners, all while prioritizing staff and diner safety. One constant since the beginning of the pandemic has been the shift to takeout, delivery and curbside pickup, for restaurants and consumers alike. Although this transition wasn’t something restaurants had planned on, we’ve seen customers adapt quickly—share of consumer restaurant searches for takeout on Yelp have increased by 3,200% since March 1, 2020, and even recently, as of Feb. 1, 2021, have remained 2,265% above prior levels (year over year). Throughout the summer, when dining outdoors became largely popular, searches for takeout still remained high with a 2,800% increase year over year. We believe the consumer interest in takeout will be here to stay long after the pandemic eases.”

Life in Quarantine

Yelp Releases Several Updates to Continue Helping Restaurants Navigate the Pandemic

Its Waitlist feature was rejiggered to support to-go orders and curbside pickups

David Cohen

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

David Cohen