If you are a search engine marketer and/or a home service business owner, you will have noticed an increased focus on home services from major players in search. Amazon launched a whole platform for home service companies back in March of 2015 with Google launching its home service ads shortly after. Facebook even prompted users to find local businesses based on their reviews and message response times. Not one to be left out, Yelp is throwing their hat in the ring with a new feature for home service providers. Both search results and business profiles are starting to feature a “Request a Quote” callout. This feature has yet to be translated to their mobile app.
Additionally, the quote request button on the profile page is placed below the address and pops up a message-like modal for the visitor to fill out.
A Yelp representative mentioned that they haven’t released this on a “grand scale” just yet due to kinks being worked out on the management side. Right now, the quote requests are grouped together within the Messaging tab of the biz.yelp.com dashboard with other messages as well as the Messages metric on the Customer Leads breakdown.
With as much visibility as they have given this feature, expect a more prominent way to manage and respond to quote requests in the future.
Based on Nielsen research, 57% of users will use Yelp for home services. How do you think this feature will impact their efforts within this space?