Engaging Customers Using Google My Business

Promoting your business to potential customers with Google My Business is a simple, effective way to tell a story and get your business information to stand out on Google Search & Maps. As well as showcasing your business information with the use of pictures and contact information, with Google My Business you can engage and interact with your customers.

Interact with Customers-

Google My Business allows you to have more communication with your new, existing and potential customers in a more public way through posts and photos. 

Did you know, Business Profiles with photos receive 42% more directions requests and  35% more clicks through to their website than businesses that don’t! 

Posts-

Got a sale coming up or a big announcement to make? You can also add posts with promotions, announcements, offers or new stock updates, these will be visible on both Search & Maps. Posting on your Google business page allows you to engage with new and existing customers, posts will be visible for 7 days and then be archived unless a date range is selected.

There are four types of posts you can make – 

What’s New: These are primarily for general information you would like to share such as new products or services you offer. With ‘What’s New’ posts, you can include a photo or video, description, and action button.

Events: With event posts, you can promote events at your business, just provide the event name, start and end dates & times. Just like the ‘What’s New’ posts, you may want to include photos/videos, a description, and an action button. If your event meets certain criteria, it may also be included in the overview tab of your business page to appear more prominent to customers.

Offers: Starting a new offer or promotional sale on a product? Offer posts would work best! Offers will appear at the top of your business profile on Search & Maps and the updates tab amongst other posts. With Offer posts, you can include descriptions, video, photos, terms and conditions link and coupon codes – a ‘view offer’ button will automatically be added to the post.

Products: You can update your Products tab with new products. However, they won’t be made as shareable posts.

Read and Reply to Reviews- 

Reviews allow potential customers to make informed decisions on whether to use your products or services or whether to look elsewhere. When customers leave reviews on your business profile everyone can see them – good or bad; Google My Business allows you to read and publicly respond to these.

Here are some tips on replying to reviews-

Don’t get personal: Customer reviews may not always be positive – and that’s okay, no one can be perfect all the time! Keep your responses useful, courteous and positive. Understand that the customer’s negative review might just be due to mismatched expectations. Don’t share any personal data regarding the customer and try to avoid burning bridges. Instead, offer them the chance to contact you privately to discuss the matter. A positive interaction might sway them to alter their review.

Thank customers: While you don’t need to thank every customer publicly, thanking those who have left positive reviews shows people that you appreciate their support.

Don’t be a salesperson: If someone has left you a review, they have already used your product or service, there is no need to sell them anything.

Keep it short: Reviewers won’t always be expecting a long public response, keep any replies short and sweet – keeping in mind the professionalism and tone in your replies – you are still a business after all.

Set up booking systems-

Booking systems make the process of booking services you offer a lot smoother for your customers. If you already have a booking provider, you are automatically able to receive bookings through your Business profile. Don’t worry if you don’t have a booking provider, Google has a range of supported scheduling providers to choose from.

Benefits of booking systems-

Booking Links: Once you have a booking link you can use it anywhere such as Facebook, Instagram or your website.

Manage Customer Bookings: Using scheduling providers means you can modify bookings and update customer information.

Service Management: You can manage your services and their availability (group classes etc.) in bulk you can use your scheduling provider.

I hope you have found this useful and now have some idea of how you can interact more with your customers. If you’d like more information on how you can use Google to benefit your business, get in touch today and we can discuss how we can help.