Yelp lands in smartphone-crazed PH

Miriam Warren

The perennial questions of where to go or what to eat have always stumped many Filipinos. Finally, there are better answers other than “kahit saan” (anywhere) or “kahit ano” (anything) via a crowdsourcing app.

Yelp, a popular review app for businesses in the United States, Europe and major cities in Asia, has found its way to the Philippines—the 32nd country to be part of the worldwide community of “real people with real reviews.”

The app acts as a cross between a directory and a search engine that allows users to look for local businesses and write reviews about them based on their experiences.

Although popular with foodies, the app goes beyond providing information on restaurants, the newest bars and the most established joints.

“Most people think of Yelp as a food site, because people love to eat and we eat three times a day, but a lot of the reviews are also about many nonfood-related items,” shared Miriam Warren, Yelp vice president for emerging markets.

“The CEO and co-founder himself, Jeremy Stoppelman, created the app because he was looking for a dentist in San Francisco,” she narrated.

Since its debut in 2004, the app has already generated approximately 77 million reviews and has a monthly average of 142 million visitors as of the first quarter of 2015. Shopping queries and reviews lead Yelp activities at 23 percent, while restaurant-searching accounts for 19 percent. The rest is spread across different types of professional services, ranging from medical to mechanical, and even design or haberdashery.

The launch in the Philippines is particularly special to Warren, who is half-Filipino. She has already seen much of the country during a backpacking trip years ago and has long wanted to share her personal reviews through a platform like Yelp. She is excited to be able to share Yelp with her friends and family in the Philippines.

Yelp is still building its community here, but a little over a thousand of reviews are now available for establishments in Metro Manila. The app itself is already available across the entire country, so anyone can share their opinions on what is great (and not-so-great) about local businesses in the Philippines.

Searches are based on one’s location, budget, time, and friends’ recommendations. The suggestions also include contact and reservation details, maps, operation hours, as well as applicable discounts and promos.

Integrity of reviews

With the volume of opinions and the integrity of reviews at stake, Warren explained that Yelp uses its own recommendation software that has a special algorithm that determines which reviews should be considered for the “star-ratings” and which should be weeded out as trolls, posers, and self-promoters.

“Since the inception of Yelp, what we realized is that there will be people who will write reviews that are not useful, there will be people who will try to write reviews about their own businesses—which is not allowed on Yelp—and there will be people who will write reviews against their competitors,” she said.

Warren said all reviews that appear on the app are evaluated as “recommended” or “not recommended.” It looks at a dozen of signals to determine the review’s usefulness and trustworthiness.

“Would you rather take the word from someone with a picture and name like Miriam Warren or from sparkle_55?” she noted. “Without the recommendation software, you get a lot of spam. It would be really difficult to find what to trust. So we work on that constantly.”

Word-of-mouth

But Yelp acknowledges that nothing beats word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and had included a feature on the app to highlight these.

“We know you want to read reviews of your friends first. We always push up content that helps you see it in the eyes of those you already know,” she said.

Warren herself knows the value of a good testimonial.

“I was always the person in the friend group wherein someone would say ’‘Miriam, my mom’s coming to town, where should we go?’ and I was like ‘you need to go to this, you need to try that,” she said.

She used to be an active Yelper in San Francisco who wrote numerous reviews before being elevated to what is called the “Yelp elite squad” member in 2005. The Yelp elite squad is a group of people who write the most prolific reviews and they set great example for the community. They always use their real names and their real photos.

In 2007, she joined the start-up company and has seen it grow into the worldwide network that it is today. As vice president of new markets, she oversees the company’s expansion efforts internationally including recent launches of Yelp in France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and now, the Philippines.

For tourists, expats

When tourists and expatriates don’t have anyone to rely on for recommendations, Yelp helps them learn about the city in the eyes—and taste—of locals.

“These are the people who know the city really well. They are the go-to persons to their friends for anything. They make people feel good about a place. So we have these Yelper squads all over the world,” she said.

Users can post reviews on www.yelp.com.ph or on smart phones through an app on iOS and Google Play for free. The app is available in both English and Filipino.

For establishments, business owners can “claim” their pages on https://biz.yelp.com.ph to manage an account, where they can directly interact with customers and respond to reviews.

“What’s unfortunate with the Yellow Pages is that whoever gets the full page ad gets the one to be seen. What’s great about Yelp is that consumers vote with their stars, from 1 to 5 (with 5 being the best). And you could get very small businesses with no advertising budget to become the best businesses because they truly are. It levels the playing field,” she said.

“Filipinos are so well-connected online and offline that we know they will love using Yelp to find and connect with great local businesses,” said Warren. “We will be working hard to make sure Yelp is the most useful and relevant local resource for every Pinoy.”