Yext, Inc. (NYSE: YEXT), the Answers Company, today announced results from a new, original survey that illustrate the importance of maintaining accurate information on location listings, particularly around holidays.
The company surveyed 1,000+ consumers in the U.S. and found that 44% of respondents have visited closed locations as a result of inaccurate business hours within the past year. 73% of respondents indicated that they are unlikely to return to a business if it's listed as open online but turns out to be closed upon arrival.
In a separate analysis, Yext reviewed a sample of 2.4 million locations from current customers and found that over 80% have business hours populated within the Yext Knowledge Graph. Of these locations, only 8.6% updated their hours for Memorial Day in 2021. Locations that don't confirm business hours for holidays will display a warning on their Google Business Profile, and 52% of respondents in the recent Yext survey indicated that they aren't confident visiting a business location if they see this message.
The upside? More than two-thirds of respondents indicated that they are more likely to return to a business if its online information is consistent and reliable.
"Our research validates what we've known all along: users want to trust the information they find online, but too often businesses disappoint their customers by providing business hours that are either outdated or inaccurate," said Marc Ferrentino, President and Chief Operating Officer at Yext. "It's absolutely critical that businesses maintain complete, accurate information across all of their location listings. That's where Yext comes in."
Yext syncs critical information like business hours to more than 100 million listings and pushes over a billion updates annually across the industry's largest network of direct integration partners, which includes platforms like Google, Amazon Alexa, Apple Maps, Facebook, and many others. The company regularly advises its customers on best practices and this Memorial Day is no different — email reminders, notifications, and a helpful blog post offer guidance on how businesses can update their hours before the long weekend.
Learn more about Yext's best-in-class Location Listings solution here.