Skip to content
  • Texas | Arizona | Virginia | Idaho | Illinois
  • (888) 705-0930
  • info@therawragency.com
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Linkedin-in
rawr logo short
  • Home
  • About
  • Solutions
  • Industries
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Contact
colorized icons 04
B2B Marketing
colorized icons 05
B2C Marketing
colorized icons
Online Visibility Management
colorized icons 07
Healthcare
colorized icons 08
Manufacturing
colorized icons 01
Brand Strategy
  • Graphic Design
  • Corporate Brand Identity
  • Sales Enablement
  • Editorial Calendar Management
colorized icons 02
Website Design
  • WordPress Website Development
  • Conversion Rate Optimization
  • eCommerce Development
  • Content Strategy & Copywriting
colorized icons 03
Digital Marketing
  • Digital Marketing Strategy
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Management
  • Content Marketing & Digital PR
  • Account Based Marketing (B2B)
  • Marketing Automation
Let's Talk

In feature battle with Google, Yelp improves restaurant waitlist functionality

  • February 28, 2020
  • General
  • Agency
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

Over time, Google Maps and Google My Business have increasingly encroached on Yelp’s core value proposition: local business search and reviews. And Yelp has tried to fight back with new features and capabilities to stay one step ahead of Google.

Waitlist upgrades. This week is a case-in-point: the company added new capabilities to Yelp Waitlist, which allows diners to join a restaurant waitlist before physically arriving at the property. Yelp originally launched Waitlist in 2017. Google introduced similar functionality, albeit more limited, in 2019.

Yelp is now rolling out its Notify Me feature to Android and the web — it launched for iPhone last September — which supports Waitlist. Notify me uses restaurant wait-time data to alert users to join Yelp Waitlist. Users provide their party size and desired dining time and then receive a notification to join the online waitlist. This helps differentiate Yelp’s Waitlist from Google’s.

Better data than Google has. Note how Yelp discusses the feature in its 2019 blog post announcing Notify Me: “Yelp’s in a unique position to deliver accurate wait times for diners because restaurants across the U.S. are using Yelp Waitlist to manage their front-of-house. By using actual wait time data from the restaurant, not your location data, Yelp Waitlist will show you the best times to dine at a restaurant.” The not-so-subtext is: our data is better than Google’s.

Two additional features were also just added to Waitlist:

  • The ability to input a large party (7 or more)
  • Select a seating preference at the restaurant (i.e., first available, indoor, outdoor, bar)

The pitch to business owners. Waitlist is a SaaS product that allows restaurants to manage “the front of the house.” This is where the data to enable Notify Me and predictive wait times originates — directly from the restaurant.

Yelp says that “guests will wait 15% longer with Yelp Waitlist” and that it creates more customer loyalty and diner frequency. Waitlist costs $249 per month for restaurants.

Waitlist is a microcosm of Yelp’s larger product strategy:

  • It benefits both consumers and businesses simultaneously
  • It provides subscription revenue (part of Yelp’s effort to generate new and more diverse revenues)
  • It helps differentiate from Google Maps

Why we care. Although Google has numerous competitors, Yelp is really it in the U.S. from a broad local search perspective (Apple Maps is powered substantially by Yelp). Google Maps and GMB are increasingly transactional, matching Yelp feature for feature. Google also now has more review volume and velocity than Yelp. However, Yelp would respond that its reviews are more reliable and that it doesn’t have the fake reviews problem that Google does.

Yelp has been diversifying away from advertising as a lone revenue model and introducing subscription-based products. This is good for Yelp and for business owners, provided the products are effective (e.g., Waitlist). But Yelp will need to continue to innovate, and innovate in creative and unexpected ways, to maintain user and business owner engagement.

The post In feature battle with Google, Yelp improves restaurant waitlist functionality appeared first on Search Engine Land.


Source: IAB

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

Recent Blog Posts

The Future of Healthcare: Unveiling the Potential of Personalized Care

September 18, 2023

Roaring Customer Experiences in Manufacturing: The Rawr Agency to the Rescue!

September 6, 2023

Empowering Healthcare: Patient Engagement Tools at Play

August 29, 2023

Driving Towards a Sustainable Future: Embracing Decentralized Manufacturing

August 23, 2023

Embracing Patient-Centered Care in 2023: A Game-Changer for Healthcare Executives

August 15, 2023
View More
rawr logo short
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Linkedin-in
Get In Touch
  • Texas | Arizona | Virginia | Idaho | Illinois
  • (888) 705-0930
  • info@therawragency.com
Send An Email

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Copyright 2023 | The RAWR Agency, LLC. |

Sitemap | Privacy Policy