The Core Features of Google’s Business Messages

It may come as a surprise to some, but Google was a latecomer to the search engine game. By the time Stanford grad students Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in the mid-1990s, there were actually numerous platforms for indexing and searching web pages. What made Google unique was its ability to rank pages by relevance, using the number (and quality) of backlinks a page received.

Since those early days, Google has continued to innovate, finding better and better ways to connect people with the information they’re looking for. The features of Google’s Business Messages are an instance of that innovation—and perhaps just as important as search itself.

Google’s Business Messages—a tool available through the already well-established Google My Business app—is a messaging service that enables customers to connect with businesses straight from the tools they already use to find products and services. For example, Google Search and Google Maps. But to get the most from Google My Business features, you need a customer experience tool. A platform that will help you leverage the efficiency of automation while maintaining human connections with your customers on Google’s Business Messages. That’s where Verint Messaging comes in.

Google’s Business Messages Features Enhanced by Verint Messaging

Easy for Customer to Discover

This is perhaps the most exciting of Google’s Business Messages features—it seamlessly integrates into your customers’ existing routines. Google processes billions of search queries a day, both through organic search and local search (via Google Maps). Your customers already turn to these services to look for products, find businesses in their area, and hunt for the best deals. Google’s Business Messages provides comprehensive messaging across Android devices and through the Google Maps app on iOS, making it easy for your customers to find you through the tools they already use.

Powered by Conversational Customer Experiences

Google’s Business Messages makes contacting a business as easy as messaging a friend. And just like texting a friend, Google’s Business Messages is asynchronous, meaning customers can go about their day while they wait for a support agent to get back to them (no long hold times!) or return to the conversation if they have follow-up questions. Additionally, Business Messages includes opportunities for personalization—users can opt-in to share their names and locations—so reps and bots can make informed, individually-tailored recommendations.

Built for Automation to Engage with Customers at Scale

With native Google My Business features like wait times and automated responses to frequently asked questions, Google’s Business Messages empowers brands to provide faster, more efficient support. Brands can even create a digital assistant capable of understanding natural language using Google’s Dialogflow. While small businesses can access these tools through the Google My Business App, medium and large companies can use all these features and more—such as purpose-built bots—at scale, by using the Google Business messaging API (currently in closed beta) through Verint Messaging.

Helps to Reduce Customer Volume on More Costly Channels

Business Messages features are not only convenient for your customers, but also affordable for your business. Serving customers over messaging allows you to deflect from more costly channels (like phone), freeing up your agents to offer the same high-quality service to more customers using asynchronous messaging.

A New Channel for Driving Revenue

Not only will Google’s Business Messages save you money—it’s packed with features to help increase your profits. Business Messages features marketing and sales capabilities in the form of rich features like carousels, chips, and photos, which can all support your buyer’s journey and help drive purchases. 

Why Should Your Brand Use Google’s Business Messages?

1. Give your customers an easy, digital way to contact you

Google is the world’s most visited website, with an 85% global search engine market share. Since so many people’s buying journeys already begin with Google Search or Google Maps, adopting Google’s Business Messages is an easy way to connect with your customers, right where they are.

While Business Messages features are accessible on iOS through the Google Maps app, on Android, they’re native to the platform. Google already offers comprehensive messaging across Android devices via Google Search, Google Maps.

2. Improve customer satisfaction while increasing profits

Google’s Business Messages provides a simple, frictionless way for customers to contact your brand. This is great for customers, who can chat asynchronously and can pause and resume chats without having to dial back in every time. 

It’s also great for brands, who can leverage the power of automation without sacrificing human connections with their customers. By using Google’s Business Messages through Verint Messaging, brands can set up automated messages—such as a welcome message or responses to frequently asked questions. Even better, support reps are able to activate bots to handle routine tasks within a conversation, like capturing an address or processing a payment, freeing them up to focus on the work only they can do.

3. Messaging is the new frontier for marketing

Google’s Business Messages changes the game not just for customer engagement, but also for marketing. Communicating with customers over GBM creates an end-to-end funnel that allows marketers to drive traffic, increase sales, and nurture ongoing relationships on a 1:1 basis. We can’t overstate how significant this is: Google’s Business Messages enables marketers to build, own, and control the entire customer experience—all in the same channel. The marketers who take advantage now will reap big rewards in the long run.