Google has moved business messaging to the front of its Maps listings, putting a Message button beside the Call button on business profiles. Customers on Android and iOS can now start a chat from the top of a listing, instead of scrolling deep into the profile to find it. The change, described in Google’s monthly Small Business Bulletin, makes messaging as visible as calling for every business that has it switched on.
## What changed
The Message button now sits next to Call wherever a customer views a business on Maps: on the profile, in the expanded header, and in the bottom action bar. Tapping it routes the chat to the channel the business already uses, including WhatsApp and SMS. Google’s Lisa Landsman, who leads its small-business work, announced it in the Business Help Forums.
Landsman framed the move as a practical fix for missed customers. When a business cannot pick up the phone — mid-appointment, on a job, or after hours — a chat gives the customer a way to ask about availability or details instead of giving up.
Businesses should check that their preferred messaging channel is properly linked in their Business Profile, so incoming chats land where they already work. That check takes a minute, and it decides whether the new button starts conversations or sends them nowhere. [Google adds Messenger links to Business Profiles](https://geroundtable.com/google-business-profiles-messenger-links/)
## Our Read
This is a small move with a large effect on local search. Placement is the whole story: a button buried at the bottom of a profile is a feature, while the same button beside Call is an invitation. That placement is the difference between a feature people find and a feature people use.
Businesses that have messaging switched on should expect more chats, including the questions they used to get by phone. Those that never set it up will now look visibly quieter online than competitors who did. The gap will show up first where quick answers matter most: trades, clinics, salons and restaurants.
It also completes a direction Google has been moving in for months: the Business Profile is becoming a two-way channel, not a listing. Restaurants can now switch off third-party ordering providers themselves, and Messenger links are being added to profiles on their own. [Restaurants can switch off delivery apps one by one](https://geroundtable.com/google-business-profiles-ordering-controls/)
Messaging front and centre is the next step in that shift, and it rewards businesses that answer quickly. A profile that replies in minutes will win the customer who used to wait on hold; one that replies tomorrow will lose them to the listing next door.
## Why It Matters
For a local business, the first contact is often the whole sale. A customer who cannot reach you in the moment usually moves on to the next listing, not to your website. That is the cost of a missed call, paid in full before the business ever knows the customer existed.
Putting messaging beside the phone number lowers that barrier to almost nothing, and it does so on Maps, where most local searches end. The businesses that gain are the ones that treat chat as a front desk, not an inbox.
## Background
Google has been expanding messaging on Business Profiles through 2026, including an AI-powered messaging option that lets an agent answer routine questions from customers at no cost. The Maps placement applies to the standard messaging feature, which routes chats to the business’s own WhatsApp or SMS.
Source: [Search Engine Roundtable’s report](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-maps-messaging-android-ios-42472.html).
0 Comments