Question

Explain Ikea's co-creation concept and answer the following questions:

1. Explain how it fits this specific concept
2. Based on what you know about this concept, how could you make this idea or object or service even better.

Answer 1

1. Explain how it fits this specific concept

Yelp is a local search service backed by customer feedback. It is transparent in nature since the feedback is coming back from a neutral customer. It publishes reviews for businesses and helps local pick up a better service based on past customer experiences.

Yelp perfectly fit’s idea of customer co-creation as based on customer feedback, yelp listings are updated automatically. For instances, you want to see best dentist in your area, you can get the latest monthly top rated dentist list, and that is solely based on customer ratings and feedback. You’re new in town, check for yelp for food and you will have past customer experience for any place you want to try.

For any new business, it has become so much important to earn a good profile in Yelp as it directly impacts their customer base. Some customers even put a discount on their product / service for a positive yelp review. This is good in some context, since customer will treat from the discount but can be misleading for others since it will be a biased review.

2. Based on what you know about this concept, how could you make this idea or object or service even better.

Yelp is earning from business advertisements mainly, but I think they can expand their businesses further. They can integrate with third party services and get commission out of each service ordered through yelp. For instance, a dedicated food delivery, that can be integrated with doordash or ubereats, that can be accessed directly from yelp. Similarly for different business, different third party integration. The reason I think of that is because people trust yelp feedback and use it regularly before trying any new service. Yelp can leverage this trust earned by loyal customers to expand their business portfolio.

Also, I think now yelp reviews and feedback is becoming manipulative, since business owners know how to get around it, like giving a discount on their service for a positive feedback. The review or feedback wouldn’t be neutral in that case and that’s where business can take advantage of. Authenticity and content control based on customer feedback is one area, Yelp needs to improve, if they want to sustain their business model.