Yelp Update Helps Service Businesses Manage and Generate Leads

Yelp recently announced some new features aimed at helping service businesses manage and generate leads. Consumers will see a new "Projects" experience in the Yelp app. From there, they can view and manage service projects and reply to messages through an email authentication link. On the business side, there is a newly redesigned message inbox in Yelp for Business.

"People come to Yelp every day to discover, connect, and hire service professionals across a broad range of categories – from landscapers and auto repair services, to tailors, plumbers, lawyers, movers and more," says Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, VP of Consumer Product at Yelp. "In fact, millions of Yelp users have utilized Request a Quote and Request a Call to hire pros that can best service their projects. To meet this growing need, Yelp has doubled down on building new features and updates that help consumers seamlessly connect with local services professionals, as well as deliver an increasing number of quality leads to business owners."

With the Projects feature, consumers can better create, manage, and organize those Request a Quote and Request a Call details from a single place in the app. Yelp says this helps people save time when comparing multiple quotes, and allows them to hire service pros with confidence. New projects can be created by requesting quotes from Yelp. Users can also schedule consultations, compare prices, and track their projects’ status using the app.

Image via Yelp

The new Projects tab organizes projects by the most recent quote requests, and includes category-specific icons. Users can select a specific project and respond to messages from businesses. If they have multiple projects in progress, they can easily view the status of each project at a glance.

New projects also translate into new leads for the service businesses ready to send quotes. With the message inbox redesign, businesses can manage their leads through a centralized message center. The center now shows the most important information upfront, like project titles, location, timing, and message previews. As Yelp explains, this helps business owners easily view and interact with customer leads from the Request a Quote and Request a Call features, as well as from the Nearby Jobs on Yelp feature. With these updates, there are richer project details so businesses can better evaluate the value and difference among varying jobs. This is a big improvement from the previous version, which simply featured an auto-generated message from a potential customer.

Image via Yelp

Yelp says it will continue to find new ways to provide service businesses with more relevant leads. These new changes are good for both businesses and consumers because consumers can better organize their projects, and businesses can increase their chances of being hired.

If you are a business owner hoping to utilize the new inbox feature, make sure you’re using the latest version of the Yelp app or using Yelp for Business on the web. Consumers must also be using the latest version of the app to utilize the new Projects tab.