Yelp Is Taking Personalized Shopping Experiences to the Next Level: AI & ML Tips for Marketers

1. Give Customers Transparency and Control Over Their Data
 

Any algorithm is as good as the data it works on; AI- and ML-based algorithms learn from data and heuristics to predict the right context. So the quality of the data matters more than everOpens a new window when delivering personalized experiences. Moreover, it is critical to inform customers when collecting and using their data.

Yelp has got it right, by giving users complete control of their data. To make Yelp their own, users can indicate their preferences, like the cuisine they prefer, favorite activities, special needs, etc. They can also change their preferences, whenever they like.

This gives users complete control over their data, how they share it, and if they want to change it. And, they know that Yelp will use this data to curate personalized search results for them.

Pro Tip: Request users to share their data, give them complete control, and be transparent about how you intend to use that data. This quality data will fuel your AI/ML algorithms to help deliver personalized shopping experiences.

2. Create Unique Experiences
 

Yelp understands every customer is unique and is now using their preferences to create unique experiences. For example, a pet-owner, who is on a keto diet and enjoys hiking will have a different search experience than a vegetarian parent who is looking for activities for kids.

Armed with user data, Yelp captures their unique personal aspects to serve responses that will best fit their requirements. The algorithm tries to ‘listen’ to user preferences and ‘hearting’ (use of the heart icon) or recommending matched businesses in the ‘Picks for You’ section. This helps create well organized and personalized experiences.

Pro Tip: Feeding your algorithms with user preferences, interests, behavior, purchase history, location, and other information that can help create a holistic customer profile will enable AI and ML systems to understand customers better and customize experiences to match their needs.

Learn More: How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are Shaping the Evolution of Digital Customer ExperiencesOpens a new window

3. Be Contextual, Stay Relevant
 

To make effective recommendations, Yelp doesn’t necessarily use customer data. For instance, factors such as a closed restaurant or longer waiting hours will also play a role in Yelp’s recommendations.

Yelp is thus trying to stay contextual and relevant by assigning appropriate weights to user preference data. These experiences are a win-win for both customers and businesses because when customers are matched with a business at an appropriate moment, they are more likely to connect with the business.

Pro Tip: To deliver contextual experiences, design your algorithms to factor in relevance to deliver the right message at the right time.

4. Improve Ad Experiences
 

Yelp is simply matching stated preferences with available advertisers. However, the personalization platform could also be tweaked to improve ad experiencesOpens a new window .

AI and ML can be used to extract information from user reviews, images, questions and so on by applying labels to categorize businesses. Once this information is structured, it can serve as a base to serve relevant ads to the users.

Pro Tip: AI/ML can help structure user information to help create relevant ad experiences, which in turn will make shopping experiences simpler and fruitful.

5. Go Beyond
 

Yelp started as a platform for restaurant reviews and ratings. And now, it has evolved into a service that lets users discover businesses, interact, and carry out business transactions. For example, Yelp bought SeatMe and NoWait so users can book tables, check wait times, etc. It is also partnering with niche companies like Unpakt for moving and packing services, Delivery.com for laundry, Doctor.com, 1-800-Dentist, and many more to cater to diverse customer needs.

Yelp’s capabilities can help you book a table at your preferred restaurant or receive quotes for automobile services. Yelp recognizes that users do much more than just search for reviews and ratings and by extending its feature set, it is helping businesses thrive and customers discover.

AI and ML can be used to capture customer reviews, expectations, and pain points as insights and feedback for the product (or services) development lifecycle. This helps identify opportunities and keep up the pace with dynamic customer needsOpens a new window .

Pro Tip: Going beyond customer expectations to serve users a little extra based on their preferences motivates customers to come back and do more business with you.

Learn More: 5 Examples of AI in Marketing to Inspire You in 2019Opens a new window

Wrapping Up

AI-powered content is still in its infancy, but marketers can get started by using AI to optimize their shopping cart flow in real-time. AI can listen to and understand visitor signals during the flow towards conversion which can be used to decide whether a consumer is actually susceptible to upsell options, or if a more straightforward route to the final conversion has a higher likelihood of success.

~ Rasmus Skjoldan, Chief Marketing Officer, Magnolia, said exclusively to MarTech Advisor

Also Read: 

Top 20 Customer Experience (CX) Quotes By Leading Industry ExpertsOpens a new window

Yelp’s personalized shopping experiences are now available to iOS users while a subset is available to Android users, it remains to be seen if artificial intelligence and machine learning will be able to capture user persona and create customized experiences completely.

However, Yelp’s app update has arrived just in time to simplify search experiences. Powered by rich (and authentic) customer data, AI and ML together can structure user information to create a 360-degree customer view and whip up relevant and personalized shopping experiences.

How are AI and ML helping you deliver personalized shopping experiences? Write to us on TwitterOpens a new window or LinkedInOpens a new window or FacebookOpens a new window ; we’re always listening!