Business Owners beware. Not long after Grubhub’s web domain scandal, featured on the New Food Economy report, they again find themselves on another hot topic. This time, however, they are not alone.
Yelp and Grubhub announced a long-term partnership back in mid-2017. In March of 2018, they completed their online ordering integration. This integration should have allowed for an easy-to-use, streamline process allowing consumers to make orders. In a sense, it has but has also implemented a method to siphon further funds from its clients (the business owners).
Underunderstood, a podcast channel that focuses around investigating news that the cyber world or standard press may have missed, first discovered this Yelp to Grubhub profit-sneaking tactic. The discovery was made when Adrianne Jeffries, Co-host of the independent podcast Underunderstood, called her favorite restaurant using the Yelp app and received the following message “This call may be recorded to ensure awesomeness.” Adrianne then confirmed with the business owner that that number, and message, were not implemented by the business.
Here is why this small but important finding is vital to know about if you’re a business owner:
Potential customers browsing on their Yelp app will be introduced with two options when viewing a restaurant listing, “General Questions” or “Takeout and Delivery.” If the individual clicks on “General Question” it will connect them directly to the business number, but if they select “Takeout and Delivery” they are routed through a ‘Call Tracking’ number that provides them the ‘awesomeness’ message.
*Image credit Vice
This change in phone number may not have a significant impact on the consumer, but the business owner feels it in their wallets. Luckily it does not affect all business owners, just those who opt into the Grubhub’s marketing services. This marketing service allows Grubhub to count the calls as part of their marketing services, then charge a 15-20% service fee to the business owner. A number of these calls may be direct searches for the businesses’ names. In most cases, shouldn’t qualify as a ‘lead,’ it is this idea that has many business owners up in arms.
At this time, Grubhub has not disclosed any information regarding the removal of this strategy or modification to this activity. Vice has received the following statement when questioning Yelp on Grubhub’s actions in the past “It is our understanding that Grubhub has marketing agreements with some restaurants that allow Grubhub to utilize referral numbers on third party partner sites like Yelp.” An official statement from Grubhub has not yet been made to address this issue. While Yelp has already taken action to label their platform by putting what phone numbers are ‘Powered by Grubhub.’
Overall this is another strategy used by a large online company that is causing stress and frustrations to business owners. Munish Narula, the owner of Tiffin Indian Cuisine, has even gone as far as filling a Class-Action lawsuit. Nowadays, we see more and larger online companies getting into trouble due to their business practices, which gives more importance to selecting the right company to work with. Proper online marketing is the keystone to building your online presence and foundation in the 21st century. So make sure you do your homework and pick a company, such as us, that can help you grow your business to new heights without any smoke and mirrors.
Feel free to contact us for a free consultation and audit of your online presence.
Sources:
grub hub, Local SEO, yelp