While most businesses will probably have websites or more likely Facebook pages, there is still a lot of people who would use Google Search or Google Maps to look for the nearest places to them whenever they need to buy something or to find a restaurant to have dinner at. Google has slowly been building up a platform for businesses for discoverability and customer service as well, and now they have updated the mobile app to make it easier to manage everything.
With the updated app, you can easily add photos, create an offer, or promote an event and it will be added to your Business Profile. Whatever you add and even all the changes that you make will be seen on your Profile tab and will automatically update information across Search and Maps as well. So it’s basically having a sort of mini website just on your Google My Business page.
You will also be able to manage more seamlessly the customers that are getting in touch with you with the new Customers tab. You can soon respond to their messages (if you’ve enabled messaging which we’ll discuss later) from the app but for now, you can respond to your customer reviews, and post offers to those who are following you. You can also enable all the notifications that you want to be updated on.
On the user end, you’ll now be able to see your messages to the various businesses that you’ve connected with through their Business Profiles. You’ll find the messages on your Google Maps app on the side menu. Google will also be rolling out to additional countries worldwide the ability for businesses to receive and respond to messages. Those who maintain the business profiles will simply have to enable messages in their settings.
If you haven’t yet downloaded the Google My Business app, you can do so for free from the Google Play Store. If you already have it, update it to the newest version to enjoy these new features and watch out for more over the next few months.
