TECHNOLOGY
Businesswire | June 01, 2023
Weave , the all-in-one customer communication and engagement platform for small- and medium-sized businesses, today announces a slate of new features designed to enable more offices to leverage remote or hybrid staff including Softphones and several significant improvements to Weave’s mobile application. The new capabilities will enable teams to answer calls and communicate with patients from anywhere within the US and Canada, no matter if they’re in the office or outside of it.
Remote work has transformed nearly every industry and small business owners now require the freedom to answer calls from anywhere while working from multi-office locations, at home or on the go, to ultimately provide customers with the seamless experiences they expect. Flexibility is a priority for small business owners and Weave’s new capabilities enable businesses to provide employees with the ability to work remotely, gain access to larger employee candidate bases amid ongoing labor shortages, and deliver enhanced experiences to customers.
“The ability to take your work with you wherever you go is a powerful, necessary advantage in today’s work environments,” said Brett White, CEO of Weave. “Nearly 4 in 5 of our customers offer remote work in some capacity. Weave Softphones will not only provide business owners with increased flexibility, but will also open revenue opportunities for businesses to take advantage of new customer segments, expand employee talent, and facilitate remote office management.”
“Weave Softphones are a wonderful addition,” said Dr. Jeffrey Ellis, MD, Board Certified Dermatologist. “We are using them for our staff who work offsite, full-time or part time as it keeps them connected to the office in a much better way. My staff in the office also like it because it makes it much easier to call someone directly from the desktop app, and a headset is comfortable for anyone with neck pain.”
The release of Weave Softphones follows various new product and integration launches in recent months, including Online Bill Pay, Response Assistant, Bulk Texting, Online Scheduling & Text Connect, Insurance Verification, Phone Analytics, and more.
About Weave
Weave is the all-in-one customer communication and engagement platform for small- and medium-sized businesses. From the first phone call to the final invoice and every touchpoint in between, Weave connects the entire customer journey. Weave’s software solutions transform how local businesses attract, communicate with and engage customers to grow their business. Weave has set the bar for Utah startup achievement & work culture. In the past year, Weave has been named a G2 leader in Patient Engagement, Optometry, Dental Practice Management and Patient Relationship Management software.
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FINANCE
Businesswire | April 26, 2023
Yelp Inc. the company that connects people with great local businesses, today announced a series of new features that make it even easier for consumers to discover businesses that fit their needs and contribute helpful content on Yelp. The company is introducing Yelp Guaranteed, a new satisfaction guarantee program that gives people peace of mind when hiring eligible home service businesses; an enhanced search experience powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) to surface helpful insights on local businesses; new features that encourage richer and more detailed reviews; as well as an improved user experience across the platform that allows consumers to seamlessly find the right business for their needs.
At Yelp, we’re always innovating on ways for consumers and businesses to connect in more seamless and meaningful ways,” said Craig Saldanha, chief product officer at Yelp. “Millions of people rely on Yelp to make important spending decisions with local businesses, and their trust is at the center of everything we do. With the new updates we're announcing today, we want to help consumers more easily discover businesses that meet their needs in a way that is both precise and personal, as well as give our users more engaging ways to share their experiences with the community.”
Yelp Guaranteed Provides Peace of Mind When Hiring Home Service Professionals
Over the last several years since the introduction of Request a Quote, Yelp focused on differentiating the product experience in services categories for both sides of the marketplace — to help consumers easily hire service pros, and better match services businesses with relevant customer leads. As part of this evolution, Yelp is rolling out Yelp Guaranteed, a new satisfaction guarantee program that allows Request a Quote users to receive up to $2,500 back in the event something goes wrong with a project from an eligible business. Building on the growth of Request a Quote and Request a Call, as well as the recently launched ‘Projects’ tab, Yelp Guaranteed provides consumers with added confidence and peace of mind when hiring home service professionals.
At launch, Yelp Guaranteed will be available on iOS to consumers in San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Seattle and Washington D.C., among some of Yelp’s most popular home services — such as movers, plumbers, contractors, home cleaners, landscapers and more. This summer, the company plans to expand the availability of Yelp Guaranteed nationwide, and roll it out on Android and desktop.
Enhancing the Search Experience on Yelp Leveraging LLMs and AI
Yelp has rolled out new search features across all platforms that use AI and large language models (LLMs) to surface smarter suggestions and insights based on the user’s search intent.
• Review highlights in search results: Leveraging LLMs for specific keyword searches, Yelp will now better understand the nuance of what consumers are looking for, and highlight relevant snippets from reviews under each business listing in search results.
• AI-powered search suggestions: To streamline the discovery experience for consumers who already have a specific business in mind, Yelp is now using AI to suggest businesses consumers may be interested in across the U.S. — not bound by the user's current location.
“People often come to Yelp with high intent — LLMs provide Yelp with the speed and scale to quickly parse vast amounts of review data, so we can succinctly summarize insights in a meaningful way. We envision this technology will further help both consumers with complex and nuanced needs, as well as those with broad, open-ended searches by leveraging the more than 265 million high-quality consumer reviews on Yelp’s platform,” said Saldanha.
To support users without a specific search in mind, Yelp is also introducing new search features that will help them narrow down their search and discover new restaurants to try.
• Surprise Me: For consumers who have a tough time deciding where to eat, Yelp’s new Surprise Me feature generates restaurant recommendations, which users can find from the Yelp home feed and search results page. Surprise Me is currently featured on iOS, and will be available on Android in the coming months.
• Clickable Category Tags: Users can find this feature on business listings for restaurants, food and nightlife searches, helping undecided consumers better refine their general searches (such as for “restaurants” or “dinner”) with category-specific searches. New clickable category tags can be found on iOS, with Android coming soon.
Revamping the Review Experience with New Ways to Contribute
In 2022, Yelp saw an increase in review contributions by reducing review writing friction, with approximately 21 million new reviews contributed throughout the year. To better inform consumers’ spending decisions and expand upon the platform’s trusted content on local businesses, Yelp is releasing more visual and interactive ways for consumers to contribute.
• Videos in reviews: To share their experiences in more visual and engaging ways, reviewers will be able to upload high resolution, short-form videos on iOS alongside their text review and photos. For example, a tableside preparation or the unique vibe of the restaurant. Yelp plans to roll out video in reviews to Android soon.
• Review topics: Users will find new interactive topics — “food,” “service” and “ambiance” — at the top of their review drafts that turn green with a checkmark when each topic is addressed in their review. These topics not only help alleviate writer's block, but also help contributors write more helpful reviews. Review topics are live on iOS and Android, and the company plans to roll it out on desktop this summer.
• New expressive review reactions: To enhance the way people engage with and show appreciation for one another’s reviews, Yelp is introducing new review reactions: “Helpful,” “Thanks,” “Love this” and “Oh no.” New reactions are live on iOS and desktop, and coming to Android devices this summer.
Creating a More Visual and Seamless Yelp Experience
Yelp has rolled out new features that better surface the company’s rich, visual content and make it easier to access reliable and useful information on local businesses. This includes the ability for business owners using Yelp Connect to upload videos to their posts, a refreshed home feed with more helpful information about local businesses, a new navigation and photo experience on business pages, passwordless login and more. All of these new user experience features are now available on iOS, with many available on Android and desktop.
About Yelp Inc.
Yelp Inc. is a community-driven platform that connects people with great local businesses. Millions of people rely on Yelp for useful and trusted local business information, reviews and photos to help inform their spending decisions. As a one-stop local platform, Yelp helps consumers easily discover, connect and transact with businesses across a broad range of categories by making it easy to request a quote for a service, book a table at a restaurant, and more. Yelp was founded in San Francisco in 2004.
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FINANCE
PRnewsiwre | March 27, 2023
Melio, a leading B2B payments platform for small businesses, has been selected as the winner of the "Best B2B Payments Platform" award in the 7th annual FinTech Breakthrough Awards program conducted by FinTech Breakthrough, an independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies, and products in the global fintech market.
"Melio is honored to be recognized by the FinTech Breakthrough Awards as a leading B2B payments platform," said Melio Chief Business Officer Prashant Gandhi. "Small businesses have three pain points – manual back-office work, cash flow crunch, and limited time to learn any technologies. I am very proud of our team for building a solution that addresses these issues. We are also thankful to the financial institutions, software providers, and merchant acquirers who are embedding Melio within their digital interface, enabling their small business customers to enjoy a fully native B2B payments experience in their platform of choice."
Melio provides an integrated payments solution that allows small businesses to quickly and seamlessly pay vendors and get paid – helping with cash flow needs, eliminating late payment costs, and giving businesses back valuable time. Melio's payments infrastructure is designed to be embedded into other platforms, allowing customers to reap the benefits of its cutting-edge technology without leaving their preferred platform.
"While small business owners enjoy the perks of being their own boss, setting their own hours and doing what they love, they typically also face limited resources, lack of capital, and competition with more established companies. Add keeping track of bills and payments to the mix and the result is usually a big hassle," said James Johnson, Managing Director, FinTech Breakthrough. "The flexibility and simplicity offered by Melio's breakthrough payments platform is extremely valuable for small businesses, which do not employ large finance teams or CFOs to handle their bill pay. We are thrilled to congratulate the Melio team on being our 2023 'Best B2B Payments Platform' award winner!"
The FinTech Breakthrough Awards is the premier awards program founded to recognize the fintech innovators, leaders, and visionaries from around the world in a range of categories, including Digital Banking, Personal Finance, Lending, Payments, Investments, RegTech, InsurTech, and many more. The 2023 FinTech Breakthrough Award program attracted more than 4,000 nominations from across the globe.
In addition to the FinTech Breakthrough Award, Melio has recently been recognized by CB Insights' Fintech 250, the Financial Technology Report' Top 100 Financial Technology Companies, and by Forbes' Fintech 50 as a leading B2B payments company.
About Melio:
Melio is a leading B2B payments technology company that enables small and medium-sized businesses to quickly and seamlessly transfer and receive payments, helping them improve cash flow and workflow. As one of the fastest-growing B2B payment solutions in the United States, Melio is transforming how money is moved between businesses. It serves financial institutions and software companies that want to provide Accounts Payable and Receivable products for their small business customers. Melio was founded in 2018, with headquarters in New York, an R&D center in Tel Aviv, and western U.S. headquarters in Colorado.
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