Zapier
Claude
An audiovisual event services company in the US gets three or four Yelp enquiries on a slow day and up to twenty on a busy one. A Zapier and Claude agent answers each one in the business's voice within minutes, follows up after 12 hours and hands the thread to the owner on one click. The takeover is the feature: nobody trusts a bot that cannot be interrupted.
Built by Prem Patel, Make Level 5 Expert and Zapier Certified Professional; Nex Automations is listed in both official partner directories. This is one of the 1,200+ systems we have shipped, and the reference build behind our Yelp lead automation guide.
The situation
Speed to first reply decides who wins an event booking on Yelp, and the person who could reply was on site running events. Each enquiry needs an answer within minutes or it goes to the next vendor, and the owner was answering between setups.
The 3 problems
- Reply speed. Enquiries waited until the owner had a free hand.
- Out-of-scope requests. A share of enquiries were for services the business does not offer and still consumed the owner's time.
- No record. Conversations lived in the Yelp inbox with no CRM view of who was warm.
What was built
- Zapier captures each Yelp consumer message through the Yelp Leads app
- Claude classifies it by event type and intent, then drafts a reply from a tone guide and an event-type playbook
- Requests the business does not serve are declined politely or referred; missing details are asked for
- Zapier Tables holds every conversation as the CRM record
- A 12-hour delay step sends one follow-up if there is no reply
- A manual takeover flag stops the agent on that thread only, so the owner can step in at any point
Yelp's Leads API is partner-gated and Zapier's Yelp Leads app is the only no-code route into it, which is why this build is on Zapier rather than Make.com or n8n. The guide linked above covers the rules, the cost model and what the Leads Program Agreement allows.
Tools used
- Zapier for the Yelp Leads trigger, the delay step and Zapier Tables
- Claude (Anthropic) for classification and drafting from the tone guide and playbook
Results
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| First reply | Within minutes, in the business's voice |
| Follow-up | One, at 12 hours, if no reply |
| Out-of-scope handling | Declined politely or referred |
| Human takeover | One click, per thread |
| Volume (client-reported) | About 600 enquiries a month |
| Booking-rate impact | To be added when measured |
The owner's time now goes only to warm conversations.
Honest limits
- Volume is the client's report and booking-rate impact is not yet measured, so no revenue claim is made.
- The agent replies inside Yelp's rules for the Leads Program; it does not scrape, and it does not message outside the thread.
- A classification step, a written scope guide and a decline path are what keep the agent from saying the wrong thing. They are the reason it can run unattended, and the reason it should not run without them.
Related guides
- Yelp auto responder rules, costs and lead automation guide
- AI Agent vs Automation: Which One Do You Need?
- What an AI Agent Costs to Build and Run
FAQ
Q: Can an AI agent answer Yelp enquiries for a local business? A: Yes. This one, built on Zapier and Claude, classifies each message, replies in the business's tone, declines out-of-scope requests, follows up after 12 hours and hands to the owner on one click.
Q: What stops an AI responder from saying the wrong thing to a customer? A: A classification step before any reply, a written tone and scope guide, a decline path for anything outside scope, and a human takeover the owner can use at any time.
Q: Why is this built on Zapier and not Make.com? A: Yelp's Leads API is partner-gated and Zapier's Yelp Leads app is the only no-code route into it. For Yelp specifically, the platform choice is made by the data source.
Q: Does the agent replace the owner? A: No. It handles the first reply, the follow-up and the out-of-scope declines. Warm conversations go to the owner, and the takeover flag lets them step in on any thread at any point.
Q: Is this a Yelp auto responder? A: It does what buyers mean by that phrase, replies to Request a Quote messages in minutes, but with the human-review step Yelp's Leads Program Agreement expects, a 12-hour follow-up and a one-click owner takeover. The full guide to Yelp auto responders and Yelp's rules covers what subscription tools skip.
Losing Yelp leads to slower replies?
We build the first-reply agent, the follow-up and the takeover, inside Yelp's rules.