Google My Business Messaging
By November 15th, Google My Business Messaging will only allow communication trough the GMB app. In this post I will show you how to set this up.
So a couple of weeks ago I followed my own advice and did a brand search to see what the results look like. I was pretty surprised by something I hadn’t seen before.
The “Request A Quote” button is enabled if you have GMB messaging setup. I recalled setting up messaging in the GMB app sometime ago but totally forgot about it. Good thing I was reminded so I can write this post and notify all of you about Google My Business messaging!
With that said, here is how the process works and how you can setup GMB messaging.
The GMB Messaging Process
Being rather intrigued I went ahead and sent a request to see how I would get notified. A few years Google started allowing people to post and questions on your GMB page. Great idea but when it first rolled out, you weren’t notified. You had to monitor this instead of being sent an email tied to the GMB page. Stupid right? Well they’ve rectified this thankfully.
Part of me was concerned I wouldn’t get this quote request. That was all put to rest when I get a SMS message with the details. The number wasn’t local so I responded to the text and asked for more information.
Here’s how the process works.
After sending a text back to myself, I was notified in my Google maps app with the conversation.
To me this works fine since I have the Google maps app. But I have no idea how I would have gotten notified of a response if I didn’t have the app my phone. You’d think a Gmail notification would have been sent but there wasn’t.
Overall, there are a lot of issues with this. The first one being what if the business phone number on your GMB page isn’t a cell phone? I guess you would get a phone call with text transcribed. But how would you respond to the SMS to start the process of contacting the person back.
But Google has picked up on this!!
Download The GMB App & Setup Messaging
To my delight yesterday Google sent me an email notifying me of a change to the Google My Business messaging process and it makes way more sense! On November 15, messaging will move from SMS to the GMB app. Here are the steps in that email to enable receiving messages to your GMB app:
1. Open the Google My Business app
2. Tap the ‘Customers’ tab
3. Select ‘Messages’
4. Tap ‘Turn on messaging’
After this step is completed you’ll want to setup an auto respond message. You can do this by clicking on the three dots on the right of this screen and selecting “Messaging settings” on the bottom of the screen.
The next step is to select “Edit your welcome message” and then enter your message of up to 120 characters.
From there you will need to turn on notifications from the GMB app so you can be notified when someone messages you. How likely is someone to send you a message? I think the odds might be pretty low as I believe new websites still have tons on value. If you have a website you are proud of and conveys your brand messaging, then you want people to visit it and learn more about your business and what sets you apart.
I also still believe people want to see your website too. They want to know why they should choose you, what kind of reviews you have and how they can trust you before reaching out.
There is the odd chance someone visits your website then a day or two later Googles your name and messages you direct from your GMB page. But I doubt anyone will Google your business without visiting your website and bit the “Request A Quote” button without visiting your website to learn more. After all, that would be like going back to the YellowPages phone book days where people started at the letter “A” and call around for quotes.
Regardless of what I think, you should set this up and see what happens.