Listing messaging, and the safety attributes

In mid-March 2020 we were rewriting hours on every listing we manage, twice, because the rules changed on a Thursday. A year on, in March 2021, the work is calmer and more useful. People are messaging listings and expecting somebody to answer.

In early 2021 Google moved messaging so you can use it from Search and Maps on a desktop, rather than only from the mobile app on somebody’s personal phone. That sounds like a small product note. It is the difference between a feature nobody at the practice ever saw and a channel the front desk can actually run.

At the same time the health and safety attributes have grown up, and as we write this, clinics and pharmacies have vaccine related ones too. Both changes point the same way: the listing is turning into a place where questions get answered, not just a set of opening hours.

Why the desktop change matters

Before this change, turning on messaging meant one person installing the Google My Business app and getting pinged on their own phone at nine at night. We have watched that setup fail at nearly every business that tried it. The phone belonged to the owner, the owner was in a chair with a patient, the message sat for six hours, and the person who sent it booked somewhere else.

Answering from Search or Maps on the computer that is already open at the front desk changes who can own it. A message becomes another thing in the queue, alongside the phone and the email, instead of an interruption in somebody’s evening.

What the searcher sees has not changed much: a Message button on your listing on mobile, next to call and directions. What changes is whether anyone replies.

Decide who answers before you turn it on

Google expects replies within 24 hours. Miss that repeatedly and the feature can be taken away from the listing. Take that as the floor, not the target. In the accounts we run, the businesses that win from messaging reply in minutes during business hours, because the person messaging you is usually comparing two or three places at once and the first useful answer wins.

Before you switch it on, settle five things:

1. Who owns it. One named person per shift, not “the team”. Put the browser tab on the front desk screen next to the schedule.
2. What happens after hours. Write a welcome message that says when you reply and what you need from them. “We answer from 8 to 5. Send your name, the tooth that hurts and your insurance and we will get you a time in the morning” beats “Thanks for your message”.
3. Where the conversation goes. A message is not a conversation, it is a potential appointment. Decide how it becomes one: a booking link, a call back, or a form.
4. Whether it duplicates your website chat. If you already run a chat widget, route both into the same inbox or you will have two places to miss things.
5. Whether to turn it on at all. If nobody can own it this month, leave it off. A Message button nobody answers is worse for you than no button, because the person who sent it now has a reason to tell people about it.

Setting it up, and what to say

The setup takes ten minutes. Sign in, open the listing, find Messages, turn it on, and verify the number if Google asks. Write the welcome message. Then test it from a phone that is not signed into the business account, because that is the only way to see what a stranger actually gets.

A few rules we give front desks for the replies themselves:

• Answer the question first, then ask for the appointment. A price question answered with “please call us” reads as a price you are hiding.
• Give a range when you cannot give a number. “Most new patient exams with x rays run between this and that, depending on insurance” is a real answer.
• Do not collect health details or insurance ID numbers in chat. Move to a call or your intake form for anything personal, and say why.
• Keep it short and human. This is text messaging, not letterhead.
• Close every thread with a next step, even if the next step is no.

The safety attributes, a year in

The attributes started as a scramble in spring 2020 and have settled into something worth maintaining. By March 2021 a listing can indicate whether masks are required, whether staff wear masks, whether temperature checks happen, whether appointments are required, and whether surfaces are disinfected between visits. Health providers and pharmacies are seeing vaccine related attributes too, covering whether an appointment or a referral is needed and whether walk ins are accepted.

Two things we tell clients about these. First, set every one that is true and none that is not, because the attribute shows up next to your name in the map results and a wrong one produces an argument at the front door. Second, they do a job that has nothing to do with ranking: they answer the question before somebody has to message you to ask it. Every attribute you set correctly is a message your front desk does not have to answer, and a reason for somebody to book instead of keep looking.

If you are a practice that has changed protocols since January 2021, the attributes are probably still describing your December 2020 rules. They are worth ten minutes.

What to do this month

• Open your listing from a desktop and check whether messaging is available to you. The desktop version is still rolling out in March 2021, so check again before assuming your listing cannot use it.
• Name the person who answers messages and put the tab on the front desk screen before you enable anything.
• Write a welcome message with a question in it, then test the whole thing from your own phone.
• Review every health and safety attribute against what your office actually does today, and fix the stale ones.
• Add the questions you answer most often to your listing’s Q&A, so the answers are there without a message.
• Put a weekly reminder in the calendar to check messages, attributes and new reviews together. Fifteen minutes.

Messaging will not transform a business on its own. It closes one of the gaps where local businesses quietly lose people: somebody ready to book, sitting on your listing, with one question in the way. That is the whole argument for treating the listing as a working channel, which is what our Google My Business management and the rest of our local search work is really about. For dental practices it is also the cheapest new patient source you already own.