Everything you need to know about Google’s Business Messages

With consumers expecting instant responses from brands, Google’s Business Messages is becoming increasingly popular, both for businesses and customers looking for rapid information exchange to drive conversion.

What is Google’s Business Messages?

Google’s Business Messages is the conversational channel that forms part of Google My Business offering, which marries business information, detailed mapping via Google Maps, one-click ecommerce and a social media element under one roof.

Business Messages allows instant messaging with potential customers and integrates with Google’s Gmail inbox to make conversations easily searchable from within Gmail’s interface.

How does Google’s Business Messages work?

Business Messages works by allowing people who find your business via Google search to use the ‘chat’ function to send you an instant message. You can set up notifications to allow you to instantly see new messages as they appear and you can chat directly with potential customers via the Google My Business platform, or using a third-party platform via the Business Messaging API.

How to message a business on Google?

Once you’ve discovered a business via Google, provided they’ve opted to turn Business Messaging on, you’ll see a chat button on their Google Business listing within your search results. Click the chat button to interact directly with the brand. Depending on how the business has set up Business Messaging, you may see a list of predefined questions, or you can opt to ask your own specific question.

How do I check Google’s Business Messages?

If you have notifications enabled, any device that’s logged into the corresponding Google device can receive a push notification whenever a message arrives in your inbox. That way you can respond instantly should you wish to. In addition, since Business Messages can be integrated with your Google inbox, you’ll also receive an email showing the message and allowing you to respond directly with a click from your inbox, giving you multiple options to get a response to your customers quickly. That’s just as well, since Google reserves the right to turn off the chat button if you take over 24 hours to respond to messages to preserve the customer’s experience.

How to respond to Google’s Business Messages?

Once you’ve been notified you have a message, you have a few routes to respond. You can respond directly from your mobile device or desktop via Google’s messaging interface, or you can integrate Google’s Business Messages into an omnichannel inbox to make it part of your social media management process.

However you want to manage your Google Business profile, giving customers as much access to your team as possible can only be a good thing.

As an official partner of Google’s Business Messages, we would be happy to discuss how you can integrate Google’s Business Messages into your existing marketing channels, get in touch today and we can tailor a unique solution for your business.