Tech giants and all the major corporations are doing their best within their scope to support businesses in these times of Crisis. Google started off with the Ad credits for SMEs and Yelp has now introduced some upgraded tools for local businesses for reopening. It also helps by modifying the waitlist to help restaurants better manage the mandatory social distancing norms of the pandemic.

Now that businesses and restaurants are re-opening, and trying to adjust their businesses around the social norms of being contactless, Yelp recognizes the need for new means of communicating with customers.

Banner is all about COVID updates

Yelp is now introducing a new COVID-19 section on business profiles. This banner was rolled out in March.

It offers a larger canvas to communicate changes, updates and important messages that you wish to communicate to customers.

For example, restaurants can communicate to their customers whether they have resumed their dine-in facilities after the lockdown. They can update their seating arrangements and assure customers about their adherence to the distancing policies.

Other small businesses can update whether they have any online facilities available for the same tasks that customers might otherwise have to do when they visit the office.

Yelp also said that since March, nearly 400000 businesses have utilized the COVID banner. The COVID update also offers a range of new attributes such as availability of contactless payments, social distancing, mask requirements, whether hand sanitizer, temperature check requirements and whether the facility will restrict or limit attendance and capacity.



Yelp will help indicate the date of the most recent update to let users understand which the latest information is.

Consumer fact check

Yelp says that the reviews in the reopening phase of the will also report how businesses are protecting the health and safety of the customers. Yelp will collect responses from the customers directly and they will be able to share this information with the help of Yelp’s business page.

These reviews will further validate the information provided by the business itself and fact check in terms of whether they fulfill the promise they offer to customers.

Yelp’s waitlist

Yelp’s waitlist is yet another feature that helps them manage crowds and capacity. The company said, it has seen significant interest in Waitlist as restaurants prepare to reopen after a long lockdown.

IT helps manage and avoid crowded waiting areas or lines outside the door. The restaurants will be able to adjust the wait times for customers based on the seating capacity restrictions or the reduced staff levels.

Restaurants can also set a maximum seating capacity and the business will be alerted if they have reached a 90% of their adjusted capacity.

These are pretty helpful tools when it comes to bouncing back with grace and taking one step at a time to establish a new normal for every business.

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