Yelp has entered a data partnership with social media monitoring platform Sprinklr to enable businesses to monitor Yelp reviews and analyze sentiment. This is the first such partnership Yelp has made and could prove quite beneficial for local businesses using the Sprinklr platform.

“Yelp data is the ultimate resource for local business intelligence and up-to-the-moment intel on consumer feedback, and this partnership gives a never-before-seen look at this data that is enormously helpful to brands trying to improve their customer service and product,” says Yelp SVP, Business and Corporate Development Chad Richard in a blog post. “Yelp data is already used to power local info in the auto industry, search engines, and hundreds of apps and services because we have better quality, more in depth intel than anybody in the business.”

“Sprinklr will use Yelp data, in addition to 20+ other social media channels like Facebook and Twitter to help large brands, like David’s Bridal and Outback Steakhouse, better understand what their customers are saying online,” he adds. “In addition, Sprinklr allows large brands to understand how conversations are trending over time, either positively or negatively, and exactly how customers feel about specific aspects of a businesses’ locations, such as service, decor, facilities, value, and more. They mine Yelp review text to create word clouds and sentiment scores, among other tools. Businesses around the world, both large brands and local, can now take advantage of this holistic monitoring ability through Sprinklr.”

AdAge shares some comments from Sprinkler:

“Yelp provides very deep content at a location specific level,” said Kristin Muhlner, exec VP, Sprinklr. “Yelp is an obviously interesting — and very unusual — source of both insight and engagement because it provides very deep content at a location specific level.”

“Brands want to directly engage with the customers and Yelp’s data is something most retailers do not have,” Ms. Muhlner added. “This data is a great way for brands to directly respond to them. So, the engagement aspect of this can be quite powerful; if you engage a disgruntled customer and turn them around they’ll then become your advocates. With that kind of engagement strategy it drives other people to talk about them.”

Yelp suggests that businesses who want to engage with customers directly claim their Yelp page and respond to reviews, and add photos and business info.

Another thing businesses might find useful is a recently improved revenue estimation tool from Yelp, which now includes personalized results and gives users more control over some aspects.

Image via Yelp (Flickr)