Restaurant partners see increased foot traffic, return customers, and
more accurate wait times
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 2019--
Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP), the company that connects people with great local
businesses, today announced strong growth and momentum in its restaurant
services offerings, with a record-setting Valentine's Day week in which
Yelp’s reservation and waitlist software handled 5.6 million diners.
This comes on the heels of the company closing out 2018 by managing 22
million diners in December, driven in part by rapid growth in diners
booking directly through the Yelp app, which tripled year over year in
the fourth quarter compared to Q4 2017.
With the availability of Yelp Reservations and Waitlist, Yelp has become
an integral partner to restaurant owners as it evolves from a
highly-influential discovery platform to a place where consumers also
communicate and transact directly with businesses. The company is
providing restaurants with the tools and technology to meet the evolving
demands of diners who expect convenience and options when eating out --
be that reservation capabilities, walk-in seating, or food delivery.
“Product innovation in 2018 has paved the way for us to build even
stronger relationships with current restaurant partners and to attract
thousands of new ones,” said Devon Wright, General Manager of Yelp
Restaurants Marketplaces. “This momentum is the early result of Yelp’s
long-term strategy to acquire and integrate leading restaurant
technologies into Yelp and offer a seamless dining experience for both
restaurants and consumers.”
As an industry with narrow margins, restaurants must optimize every
aspect of operations and Yelp is giving them the technology to do so.
According to restaurant client surveys and feedback, Yelp is increasing
foot traffic to restaurants, providing more accurate wait times, and
driving return customers.
"Yelp Waitlist has been a helpful tool to optimize our overall dining
experience. It improves our Front of House operation by helping our
hosts quote more accurately and understand table optimization. The
software allows guests to get in line from their mobile phone and gives
the customers the option of getting in line while they're still en route
to the restaurant," said Becky Maree, Digital Marketing Manager of First
Watch. "The analytics tool gives us insights into our restaurants that
we wouldn't otherwise have. Using the Analytics Portal we can identify
top performers and easily address areas of opportunity in our
restaurants.”
In 2018, Yelp not only added restaurant inventory to Yelp Reservations
and Yelp Waitlist but introduced new products, like Yelp
Kiosks, to streamline both digital and physical restaurant
management processes. According to Yelp data, diners seated through the
Yelp app return to the same restaurant twice as often as other diners,
Yelp’s wait time algorithm is approximately twice as accurate as host
estimates, and its new On My Way feature helps restaurants seat 10% more
diners during non-busy hours. Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco,
a wildly popular restaurant known for its long wait times, for example,
increased sales by 25-30 percent with the help of Yelp’s more accurate
wait time estimates.
“We used to be reliant on an emotional analysis of our hostess or
managers to provide wait times but, with the help of Yelp, our wait time
has reduced by almost an hour and a half. Maximizing seating was the key
to maximizing revenue,” said Diego Perez, former General Manager of
Tony's Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco'sNorth Beach. “After working
with Yelp, I now understand that the company is trying to be transparent
and do the right thing and we have created a true partnership.”
Yelp’s restaurant partners have also reported that other product
innovation is having an impact. Beyond dine-in experiences, restaurants
are also seeing continued growth in delivery through Yelp. Through the
company’s partnership with Grubhub, food orders and takeout on Yelp hit
a new record high and grew by 27% in Q4 2018 from the previous year.
About Yelp
Yelp Inc. (www.yelp.com)
connects people with great local businesses. With unmatched local
business information, photos and review content, Yelp provides a
platform for consumers to discover, interact and transact with local
businesses of all sizes. Yelp was founded in San Francisco in July 2004.
Since then, Yelp has taken root in major metros in more than 30
countries.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190226005271/en/
Source: Yelp Inc.
Liina Potter
(925) 895-3786
press@yelp.com