How do messaging and call history work on Google Business Profile?

How they work depends on what Google currently offers, because Google has added, changed and retired both messaging and call history on Google Business Profile more than once. No web page can tell you which version your profile has today, and any article that describes the buttons in detail may already be out of date. The purpose of each feature has changed less, and you can check for yourself what your profile has. Neither feature should be your only record of who contacted you.

What each feature is for

Messaging gives a customer a way to write to you from your profile instead of calling. It has taken different forms over the years. At one point it was a chat built into Google’s own apps. At another it was a button that hands the customer over to text messaging or a separate messaging app. The idea stays the same: the customer writes from the profile and waits for you to reply.

Call history was a log of the calls that began with the call button on your profile. To keep that log, Google routed those calls through a forwarding number, so the business could see answered and missed calls in one list. Whether your profile offers anything like it now is something to check and not assume.

How to check what your profile has now

Look in the profile itself, because that is the only current source.

1. Sign in to the Google account that manages the profile, then search for your business name on Google to open the management view.
2. Go through the editing and settings options and look for anything about messages, chat or calls.
3. Read Google’s own help text for that option. It describes the feature as it works today.
4. If an option you read about is missing, assume it has been withdrawn or isn’t offered for your type of business or region. Your profile is probably not broken.

If you turn messaging on, answer it

An unanswered message is worse than having no message button. A homeowner in Carlsbad with a leaking water heater who writes to you and hears nothing will contact the next company on the list.

Before switching it on, decide who reads the messages and during which hours, and on which phone they arrive. Google has at times shown customers how quickly a business tends to reply, and has at times switched the feature off for businesses that didn’t respond. Check the current terms when you enable it. For the same reason, how fast you answer calls from Google matters too.

Why I wouldn’t rely on Google’s call log

A feature Google can withdraw isn’t a record you own. When a logging feature is retired, the history can go with it unless you saved it somewhere. And while it existed, it covered only calls placed by tapping the button on the profile. It didn’t cover calls from your website or your ads, or calls from someone who read the number and dialed it by hand.

An owner who wants to know which marketing produces booked jobs needs tracking that belongs to the business and covers every source. That’s what call tracking is for. The profile is a special case, because the phone number on it’s a business fact that other listings should match, so tracking calls that come from Google Maps needs its own approach.

What you can still count on

The profile’s performance report has continued to count taps on the call button, whatever has happened to the detailed call log. It sits with the other performance numbers in the profile, and it’s a tap count, not a list of conversations.

My advice is to treat Google’s messaging and call features as a convenience for your customers. Use them if they are offered and you can staff them. Keep the record of who called, and what came of it, in a system you control.