Jackson Heights Life

Yelp is Screwing Over Restaurants By Quietly Replacing Their Phone Numbers
The phone numbers add tracking before connecting to a restaurant so that Grubhub can bill for a marketing fee.

https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily-replacing-restaurants-phone-numbers-so-grubhub-can-take-a-cut?fbclid=IwAR3bCmruyihXxKxbRynekjgttdENMxoIUVUoWXX3uMkQD-TxViKF3QkYny0

people need to PICK UP A PHONE and CALL FOR DELIVERY.

it worked for decades. i know it's really difficult and physically draining, but try it -- we all need a little more exercise these days.

Did you read the article? The author DID pick up his phone and call for delivery. He used his Yelp app to search for the restaurant and clicked on "call to order delivery."

This is why it's sneaky.

"A few months ago, I opened the Yelp app, typed in the name of my favorite sushi restaurant, and clicked on the phone number. Two options popped up: “Delivery or Takeout” and “General Questions."

That’s new, I thought. I dialed the number for “Delivery or Takeout,” which played a perky greeting—“This call may be recorded to ensure awesomeness”—before a woman at the restaurant picked up. I asked why they were recording the call for awesomeness; she had no idea what I was referring to. I asked about the number I had just dialed; she didn’t recognize it."

Quote from: dssjh on May 04, 2020, 10:10:26 AM

people need to PICK UP A PHONE and CALL FOR DELIVERY.

it worked for decades. i know it's really difficult and physically draining, but try it -- we all need a little more exercise these days.

Did you read the article? The author DID pick up his phone and call for delivery. He used his Yelp app to search for the restaurant and clicked on "call to order delivery."

This is why it's sneaky.

"A few months ago, I opened the Yelp app, typed in the name of my favorite sushi restaurant, and clicked on the phone number. Two options popped up: “Delivery or Takeout” and “General Questions."

That’s new, I thought. I dialed the number for “Delivery or Takeout,” which played a perky greeting—“This call may be recorded to ensure awesomeness”—before a woman at the restaurant picked up. I asked why they were recording the call for awesomeness; she had no idea what I was referring to. I asked about the number I had just dialed; she didn’t recognize it."

i DID read the article. and i've seen multiple articles on the same topic. maybe i'm old fashioned, but i don't use Yelp to get phone numbers for restaurants, i use the technology of the aughts -- Google. not meaning to be snarky, but i can sense a scam from signals like the 'call may be recorded' thing, or a phone number that's clearly not local to the area.

i've always thought that Yelp is kind of suspect in general -- restaurants getting five star reviews before they open their doors or (in the case of a short-lived recently closed local place), a slew of five star reviews from Yelp users with no previous reviews who registered just to review that place.

i use the technology of the aughts -- Google

Here's the thing, a lot of people aren't savvy about advertising on Google. Doing a search for "Pizza Sam" brings up results with #1 and #2 being GrubHub and Seamless (the same thing now, isn't it?). A lot of folks won't realize those are ads. #3 is the actual Pizza Sam website, and #4 is Yelp. If I want to look at reviews, I'm not looking at the Pizza Sam website. I'm looking at Yelp or Seamless (which conveniently notes on the search results page that it has 364 reviews for Pizza Sam). And once I'm there and see a phone number on the Yelp site, it wouldn't occur to me clicking on the phone number from my phone would result in a trackable marketing referral. At least until it was pointed out to me.

I think I'm pretty savvy about search engine marketing and online advertising/marketing, and it never even occurred to me that Yelp could be offering phone referrals in its marketing program.

Hey restaurant owners, why not just do away with GrubHub and Delivery.com?

They should just post their menu online and do phone delivery in the absence of building their own website imo.

From an article in the Post yesterday:

Council members will likewise introduce a second bill that’s aimed squarely at Grubhub, which has come under fire for charging restaurants up to $9 for telephone calls that never resulted in take-out orders.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/12/nyc-set-to-impose-20-percent-cap-on-restaurants-delivery-app-fees-to-help-struggling-eateries/?fbclid=IwAR3bmZxMs7i9yDr8TT-0Mb9NZfL0dFArDxl6Rsoaj4iEHh4Ro-e1A9U6eDQ