Engaging with customers on Yelp could save your business.

Direct engagement is key to online marketing. The best way for a small business to start directly communicating with their online audience right now is by owning and claiming a Yelp page.

Serving as the Yelp Senior Field Marketing Manager and Small Business Expert, Emily Washcovick knows the future of business success is winning attention and admiration online.

She and other biz experts at Yelp help businesses achieve that goal every day.

There are many tools and tips for engaging with a business audience on Yelp as well as other websites and apps that host online profiles and customer reviews.

It all comes down to a basic fact: it’s important to respond when someone takes the time to message you online.

“Simply responding does so many things for so many businesses,” shares Emily Washcovick on her episode of the Digital Hospitality podcast.

“But most importantly it releases the expectation and the tone for the consumer about what they can expect when they engage with your business,” Emily continued about responding to customers on Yelp.

Digital Hospitality is a business and marketing podcast hosted by Shawn Walchef, owner/operator of Cali BBQ in San Diego. Learn more online at Cali BBQ in San Diego www.calibbq.media.

Cali BBQ is a huge proponent of using Yelp. The San Diego restaurant has teamed up with the business before on charity. Shawn Walchef's prior podcast series Behind the Smoke featured Brad Bohensky of Yelp San Diego on the show.

 
Tips for Using Yelp for Small Businesses
A businesses’ tone on Yelp, and their overall hospitality and service online, creates the expectation for a customer looking to engage with the business in any fashion. With more commerce being done online in 2020 and beyond, it’s increasingly important and essential to be there for your customers online — not just offline.

“To pretend like a conversation isn't happening online is just as good as looking at a customer who brings a concern to a manager having just bold face staring them down,” said Emily Washcovick from Yelp. “No signs, no answer yet. No one in the hospitality business would do that.”

Simply put, your customer is in new places now looking for service. To survive and thrive, you must be there, too.

“That's where your customers are now,” Emily says of digital media and app platforms like Yelp. “That's the sandbox they're playing in.”

By meeting them where they’re at, the likelihood of an exchange is that much greater.
“The best way to convert a potential customer into a real customer is to give them the information they're looking for,” the Yelp employee said.
For business owners,