What’s the Updated Google My Business Chat Feature, and How Should You Use It?

Fol­low­ing a long over­due update, Google My Busi­ness has made their chat fea­ture user-friend­ly and prac­ti­cal. Make sure you aren’t miss­ing out!

Google is known for hav­ing a lot of beta prod­ucts! As one of the kings of the inter­webs, they can get away with this more than most soft­ware com­pa­nies. A cou­ple of years ago, Google began beta test­ing their own chat sys­tem with­in Google Maps (Google My Busi­ness). They real­ly didn’t pub­li­cize the new fea­ture — I think they just want­ed to see how con­sumers would use it.

How It Was Sup­posed To Work, and Why It Just Didn’t

At first, Google’s chat icon was ONLY avail­able on mobile, right next to the Direc­tions, Call, and Save area. 

When you tapped the Mes­sage icon, you’d be able to send a mes­sage to the com­pa­ny and ini­ti­ate a ​“live chat” conversation. 

Sounds good, right? In the­o­ry, but this is where it all broke down. The way com­pa­nies had to man­age and respond to the mes­sages was painful. Since it was mobile-only, you had to use a third-par­ty plat­form, or use the Google My Busi­ness app, and some­times you’d get noti­fied by email too. Super clunky.

The Good News: A Major Update to GMB Chat Has Changed the Game

Google recent­ly made a major update, adding a way to read and respond to your GMB mes­sages direct­ly, and on a desk­top too (not just mobile)! 

This makes a world of dif­fer­ence for home improve­ment com­pa­nies. Watch­ing for chats using mobile devices only, while jug­gling third-par­ty apps, just wasn’t fea­si­ble for my clients, espe­cial­ly when many of the mes­sages came in after work hours. 

With the new desk­top capa­bil­i­ties, your office staff can leave a brows­er open with Google’s busi­ness mes­sen­ger — just like one could do with sim­i­lar mes­sage pro­grams like Yelp or Facebook.

What’s the Take­away for You and Your Team?

Peo­ple LOVE chat fea­tures, mak­ing it an easy, low-fric­tion way to engage with prospects. At the same time, peo­ple expect quick respons­es, and some­times at odd hours. 

Here’s my best advice:

1. Decide just how will­ing you are to uti­lize this tool. You can’t be luke­warm; either you embrace it, or you don’t. Con­sis­ten­cy is key.
2. Make a plan for who is respon­si­ble for mon­i­tor­ing and respond­ing, and when. 
3. Some clients I work with offer a bonus for staff mem­bers who are will­ing to mon­i­tor the chat dur­ing off-hours. A lit­tle extra incen­tive nev­er hurts!
4. You can out­source the chat man­age­ment to a team who will respond for you, much like a call center.

So, How Do You Jug­gle All of Your Chat Platforms?

Yelp, Face­book, email, text, Google My Busi­ness… They’re all beg­ging for atten­tion, and they each offer unique, spe­cif­ic benefits. 

One way to man­age them is to keep the apps open and the noti­fi­ca­tions turned on. Know who is respon­si­ble for respond­ing, and work the plan.

If you are look­ing for ways to stream­line the process, I have cus­tomers using a few dif­fer­ent prod­ucts that all come with dif­fer­ent price tags and fea­tures: *Podi­um, Textline, Broad­ly, LiveChat, & WhirLocal, to name a few. If you’d like to talk to me about these prod­ucts and/​or have a ques­tion about mes­sag­ing, please reach out. I’d be more than hap­py to dis­cuss a game plan for your team! 

*I am an affil­i­ate part­ner with Podi­um, Textline, Broad­ly and WhirLocal. I try to rec­om­mend the best prod­uct which is not always the same for each client.