Google My Business is a great tool provided by Google for business owners everywhere. Providing customers with accurate and up-to-date information about the opening and closing times of your business, it’s location, phone number, services and holiday hours. Having control over your Google My Business page means that you can keep customers in the loop with what’s going on with your business quickly and easily, but did you know that it has lots of other features that are helpful for business owners on a day to day basis. Here, we look at 5 features that you may not have heard about before.
Make Appointments
Google’s new Booking button feature allows customers to make appointments directly through your Google My Business listing. As long as you’re using integrated scheduling software, this can be a great way for you to gain new customers who may simply be searching through Google.
Receive Messages
Google My Business has a feature that allows customers or potential customers to message your mobile phone directly with any questions or queries they may have. A great way to connect directly with customers, you can even download Google’s Allo app which allows text messages to be sent to you, but not through your personal phone number.
Answer Questions
Another new feature is the Questions & Answers feature which allows people to ask questions about your business within your Google My Business listing, and lets you answer them directly. However, the feature isn’t visible on the mobile Google My Business app yet, and you do need to log in to the Google My Business dashboard to see and answer questions, but you can use the Google Maps App on Android devices to manage your Q&As.
Get Reviews
Any reviews that you get through Google will appear next to your listing in Google Maps as well as on your business’s Knowledge Panel in any searches. You can ask your customers for ethical reviews, as long as you stick to Google’s review policy and you can even respond to the comments directly using this service.
Responding to reviews whether they are good or bad shows that you care, and it also gives you a chance to address any concerns or criticisms that customers may have. As long as you are operating your business well, then you shouldn’t be concerned about bad reviews, and if you do happen to get a nasty comment or an unwarranted one-star review, common sense (and all of the other good reviews you have gotten) will tell any potential customers that this is a one off!