Yelp today announced its big Fall Product Release. Carrying on the tradition of a new feature dump every spring and fall, the latest lot sees an upgraded and more personalized Yelp Assistant, a phone agent for restaurant wait times, and automated lead qualification for service pros… to name a few.
One way to organize the sprawling list is to segment it by function. For example, some updates are user-facing while others are meant for businesses that advertise on its platform. And another cluster is purpose-built for service-based businesses. To simplify, we’ll tackle the list in those clusters.
Starting with user-facing features…
Yelp Assistant updates and integrates with OpenTable: Yelp’s user-facing AI chatbot, Yelp Assistant, now offers more personalized recommendations and direct access to OpenTable. It can also send reminders, factor in real-time weather, and other functions for smart bookings.
Check for Me: This is a new AI phone agent that can call restaurants for users to check live wait times. The answer is then texted to the user.
My Lists: This lets users save, rank, and share their favorite local spots. They can also get personalized weekly recommendations based on their picks.
As for advertiser-facing features…
Intent-based custom creative for Yelp Audiences: This tool boosts Yelp’s existing Audiences feature. It dynamically personalizes brand ads across the web — tailoring creative to a given consumer’s signals and intent. It’s all about the right message at the right time.
Shopify Conversions App: This ties Yelp user activity to any Shopify conversions that may result. For advertisers selling things on Shopify, this can help close the attribution loop.
Finally, local services-facing features…
Smart Lead Reply: This tool responds to and qualifies incoming leads for service pros. The goal is to help them win more jobs while requiring less of their manual time with inbound leads. Businesses with Request a Quote enabled will automatically get this feature when it rolls out next month.
Scheduling integrations with Service Titan and Housecall Pro: This brings Yelp leads and appointments into existing workflows that SMBs already use (Housecall Pro is a company Yelp has partnered with). It also includes lead management integrations with Jobber and Workiz
Aggregated Leads Center for multi-location businesses: As its name implies, this is built for MULO brands – bringing their incoming leads across locations together in one place. The goal is to make it easier for franchisees to view, manage, and respond to leads.
“Businesses already run their operations across many tools,” Yelp Chief Product Officer Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh told Localogy Insider. “By connecting directly with ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber, and Workiz, and with Smart Lead Reply engaging and qualifying their Yelp leads the moment they come in, we’re meeting businesses where their work already happens.”
Speed & Superpowers
If you boil down these updates, one predominant theme emerges: automation. Yelp is leaning into all of the aspects of AI that it knows will resonate with SMBs. After all, Yelp has a better grasp on SMB needs than anyone. So it’s stripped away all of the AI buzz and focused on where it eases SMB pain points.
So where does AI ideally intersect with SMBs? It’s all the things above, which we’d put into two broader categories. The first is saving SMBs time, and the second is giving them superpowers. In both cases, it’s about doing more with less and elevating SMB capabilities to that of larger-resourced businesses.
Taking those one at a time, the first benefit – time savings – is highly valued by SMBs because it frees them up to do the things they want to spend time on – fixing roofs, painting nails, and cooking food. They didn’t go into business to be marketers, so the more AI can automate, the better it resonates with them.
As for superpowers, this goes beyond saving time in letting SMBs do things they never could before. For example, Yelp’s lead qualification engine lets them rank incoming leads in ways that helps them prioritize responses and maximize revenues. This is basically magic to most SMBs, and they like what they see.
In that light, Yelp clearly gets it. All of its AI integrations address SMB pain points the company has observed for 20+ years. Bottom line: There are aspects of AI that appeal to knowledge workers and those that appeal to SMBs. Those who find the right sweet spot with the latter will win SMB business.
“These new tools and integrations make us a more valuable partner for more businesses and help us better serve those already on our platform,” said Kuduvalli Ramesh. “We want every dollar and hour a business invests with Yelp to mean fewer missed leads, faster responses, and more booked jobs.”
