How Do Yelp Reviews Shape Our Choices?
Trying something new is hard at the macro level. Yelp reviews reduce that uncertainty that comes with new things. But how do they help businesses achieve organic and meaningful reviews? In this episode, host Kristen Berman is joined by Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, VP of Consumer Product at Yelp. He explains why Yelp prefers quality over quantity when it comes to reviews and how your Yelp review creates community and helps new businesses. They also talk about high-frequency low risk experience while taking a look at some studies and other companies’ strategies, like Spotify’s approximate nearest neighbor search. Stay tuned and learn the many features that are promoting human connection at Yelp!
Research for this episode was compiled and summarized by Irrational Labs. Read and download the Yelp Citations.
Jump straight into:
(01:17) - Engineering behind a review: Reminders, thank you notes and opportune timing to enhance more reviews.
(07:42) - Why do people write reviews? The common denominators the most frequent Yelp contributors share.
(13:19) - Promoting human connection: The best hacks to make first reviews flow organically and be longer.
(16:57) - Understanding search processes’ verticals for different business categories in Yelp (and how they created the reorder button).
(26:15) - The perks of being a responsive business owner (and how Yelp facilitates clever questions to be answered by more than one person).
(32:41) - Looking for something wildly different than ice cream: On Yelp’s target diversification and the appearance of new kinds of experiences.
