Your customers can get in touch with you in real-time from your Business Profile on Google. You can answer questions, tell your story, and attract more customers to your business. Chat works best as a conversation between your business and your customers. To ensure the best experience for your customers, follow the chat guidelines.
How it works
Once you turn on chat, customers will find a "Chat" button on your Business Profile and will be able to message you at any time.
- Messages will appear in your Business Profile on Google. You’ll receive notifications for incoming messages.
- You can customize the automated welcome message that customers will get when they message you.
- You can share photos with your customers in the chat.
- If multiple people own or manage your Business Profile, each one can chat with customers.
- Customers may find your name and profile photo from your About me page.
If you're interested in the chat API, please visit the Business Messages developer site.
Stored messages
Businesses who turn on chat have their messages saved to the account they use to manage their Business Profile:
- If you delete a message from one device, it’s permanently removed from all linked devices. You can no longer access them.
- Important: The message is deleted from only your devices. The recipient can still find the conversation on their devices.
- You can export and download messages to keep for your records or use in other Google products.
Manage chat on Google Maps
Turn on or off chat in Google MapsTo turn on or off chat:
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Maps app
.
- Tap Updates
Chat
- Tap Settings
. Then, turn on or off Chat.
Chat 
. Then, turn on or off Chat.- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Maps app
- Tap Updates
- Merchants can manage individual inboxes for each business they own.
After a recipient opens a new message, the sender gets a “Read” status under the message. This status appears for whoever sent the message in a conversation, either you or your customer. If read receipts are turned off for your business, your customers will not get the “Read” status.
If you have messaging turned on, read receipts will automatically turn on. You can turn read receipts on or off with the Google Maps app.
To turn “Read” status off with the Google Maps app:
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Maps app
- From the "Updates" tab, tap More
Manage messages
- If you have multiple profiles, open the one you want to manage.
- Turn off Read receipts.
Manage messages -
On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Maps app
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Tap Updates
-
Merchants can manage individual inboxes for each business they own.
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Open the conversation you want to delete.
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Tap More
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Maps app
- Tap Account Circle
- Select "Your business."
- Turn on a notification: Next to the notification, turn on the switch.
- Turn off a notification: Next to the notification, turn off the switch.
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Maps app
- Tap Updates
- You can manage individual inboxes for each business you own.
- Open the conversation you want to block.
- Tap More
You can share photos of any size or format. There’s no limit to how many photos you can share at once.
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Maps app
- Tap Updates
- You can manage individual inboxes for each business you own.
- Open the conversation you want to share photos in.
- Tap Photo
.
- Choose a photo or take a new one.
- Tap Share
.
.
.Respond promptly (time requirement)
The following requirement is for any business that uses chat on their Business Profile.
When you receive a new message, you should reply within 24 hours. This may promote trust and encourage engagement with your business. To support timely responses, we may deactivate chat for your business if you don’t respond within the time frame.
Find average response timeBusinesses can find and track their average response time in the app. You can get insights if you have chat turned on in your Google Maps app.
These insights will display the average wait time for a chat response using the last 28 days of data. You can choose a longer time period as well. You may be able to compare average response times for similar businesses nearby.
When customers search for your business on Google Search and Maps, they can get a status update for a chat response time:
- Usually responds in a few minutes
- Usually responds in a few hours
- Usually responds in a day
- Usually responds in a few days
Get your chat insights
- On your mobile device, open the Google My Business app
.
- Tap Customers
- At the top, you'll get your response time.
.FAQ
What happens when chat is enabled?- You’ll get notifications for incoming messages in Google Business Profile.
- You can customize the automated welcome message that customers get when they message you.
- If multiple people own or manage your Business Profile, each one can message with customers.
- Customers may find your name and profile photo from your About me page.
- If you’ve received fewer than 10 messages in the 28-day period, the response time will use your last 10 messages.
- If you’ve received fewer than 10 messages since signing up for chat, the response time will use all the messages you’ve ever received.
- A response only counts when it's in reply to the first message of a conversation (that is, the first message you get after at least 7 days of no communication with a given customer).
- A response only counts if you send it within 24 hours.
- If you've received fewer than 10 messages in the 28-day period, the response rate will use your last 10 messages.
- If you've received fewer than 10 messages since signing up for chat, the response rate will use all the messages you’ve ever received.
