Yelp’s new mobile app lets merchants reply to ranting customers on the go

Just in time for the holidays, Yelp today launched Yelp for Business Owners, an app that enables merchants to monitor their Yelp pages and reply to customer concerns.

Yes, it’s difficult to believe such an app didn’t already exist, but this launch is apparently a first for Yelp. The company announced the new app — available for both iOS and Android — on its blog. This release follows Yelp’s move to allow anyone to message business owners directly via its platform.

“Since launching in June of 2014, consumers are now sending an average of 55,000 messages each month to businesses through our free Message the Business tool,” said Yelp. “With more than 64 percent of Yelp searches done on mobile and 73 million monthly unique visitors using Yelp via their mobile device as of Q3 2014, it’s clear there’s a demand to conduct these conversations on the go.”