How do I respond to a quote request for my business?

Depending on the category of a business, Yelp users can send either messages or quote requests to businesses. The best way to respond to incoming requests is from the Yelp for Business app, but you can also choose to reply from the Yelp for Business website or your email. You’ll also need to enable email and push notifications. This should help you keep a favorable response rate and response time. Businesses with a response time of less than a day see 4x more requests than businesses who wait longer to reply.*

If you do not reply within 7 days of receiving a new message and have not replied to any message in 30 days, messaging will be automatically disabled. To re-enable it, you need to locate the unread messages and mark them as replied.

For your convenience, underneath each quote request, you’ll see three buttons to choose from that’ll enable you to reply quickly and easily to an incoming request. You can choose to:

• Send an Estimate and Availability which allows you to send a price estimate to the user, either as a flat rate, range, or hourly rate, along with your available times and a personalized message  
• Need More Information which allows you to request a phone call, request a visit, or ask a question via message
• Unable to Service which allows you to choose from a list of reasons and add a message to let the user know why you are unable to help them with this specific request.

Instructions for responding from:

• Yelp for Business website (biz.yelp.com)
• Yelp for Business app
• Your email address
• Multiple Yelp for business accounts

From the Yelp for Business website

1. Go to the Inbox section of Yelp for Business
2. Click the quote request you'd like to respond to
3. Choose to Send an Estimate and Availability, Need More Information or click Unable to Service
4. Put in your availabilities if prompted, and write a message to the user
5. Click Send

From the Yelp for Business app

1. Tap Inbox in the bottom navigation bar
2. Tap the quote request you'd like to respond to
3. Choose to Send an Estimate, Need More Information or tap Unable to Service
4. Put in your availabilities if prompted, and write a message to the user
5. Tap Send​

From your email address

When you receive an email notification that a Yelp user has sent you a quote request, just click or tap on the link provided in the email. From there you can easily respond from the Yelp for Business website or in the Yelp for Business app. You can also reply directly to the email, but please note that you can only reply via email to the initial quote request from a Yelper. You’ll get an email if they reply to your response, but to continue the conversation you’ll need to go to your Inbox on Yelp for Business or use the Yelp for Business app.

 

Notifications for businesses with multiple Yelp for Business accounts

The initial notification for a quote request is sent to all Yelp for Business accounts registered under the business page but subsequent notifications are only sent to the accounts that have replied to that quote request.

*Yelp Internal Data, 2017