Can customers message your business from Google? What changed in 2024

What changed

For a few years, Google let businesses chat with customers inside Google Search and Maps, through a feature called Business Messages. Google retired that chat in July 2024.

In its place, a verified Business Profile can add a Chat contact option that opens a text message, or a WhatsApp message, to your business instead. (Google Business Profile Help)

For customers, little changes: they tap Chat and their phone's own messaging app opens, already addressed to you. For you, it means the conversation arrives as an ordinary text, not in a separate Google dashboard you have to remember to check.

Why it matters

Plenty of people find local businesses on Google in the middle of their own working day. They can't make a call from a meeting or a job site, but they can send a text. If your listing only offers Call, some of them will move on to one that offers more.

Before you turn it on

• Check it's available. Google offers the Chat option in select regions and may not show it on every profile.
• Use a number that can receive texts. Point Chat at a number that can send and receive texts and that your team watches. A business landline can be text-enabled for this; see our guide to texting from your business landline.
• Don't use a personal cell. Messages to one person's phone get missed when they're busy or away.

Answer like it's a phone call

A Chat message is a customer with their phone in their hand. Treat it like a call that needs returning.

• Reply fast. Within minutes during business hours if you can, and with an honest "we'll reply first thing tomorrow" after hours.
• Say who you are. Start with your business name; they may have messaged several businesses.
• Ask for what you need. A photo, the address or a good time to call.
• Keep it in a shared inbox. So whoever's free can pick it up, and the history stays with the business.

What about WhatsApp?

If your customers prefer WhatsApp, the Chat option can point there instead. WhatsApp has its own rules for businesses, including opt-in and a 24-hour reply window; our guide to WhatsApp for local trades explains them.

The bigger picture

The Chat option is one more way in, alongside calls, website forms and texts. The businesses that win are the ones where every one of those ends up in the same place, and someone answers quickly. Our guide to a shared inbox for trades teams covers how.

This article is general information for business owners, not legal advice. Survey figures are US consumer research where noted; we are not aware of equivalent published Canadian surveys and do not present them as Canadian data.