The messaging feature for Google Business Profile (GBP) can help enhance your business’s online presence by adding another method for customers to contact you. Before you make the decision to turn on the messaging feature, consider the following benefits and potential negative aspects to being able to chat with customers over GBP.
Benefits for Using the GBP Chat Feature:
- It provides a quick and convenient communication option, reaching potential customers who may hesitate to fill out a contact form or call.
- Encourages engagement by allowing customers who may not be ready to purchase to ask questions, fostering a relationship that could lead to future business.
- Automated responses to common questions can be set up to quickly get people the information they are looking for.
- Messages can be replied to via logging into your GBP on desktop, the Google Maps App on Mobile Devices & SMS forwarding.
Why It May Not Be a Good Fit For Your Business
- Google requires prompt replies to messages in order to keep messaging turned on. If you are unable to commit to replying quickly, it may not be worth using and you can instead rely on other contact methods.
- It opens a potential avenue for spam to come through. You have the ability to block users and report spam but for popular profiles it can lead to an influx of messages that need to be filtered out from the legitimate ones.
- It can be tough to integrate the chat feature with your existing customer communication systems or managing notifications across multiple devices.
