Somebody switched it on. Maybe it was you, eighteen months ago, or the marketing company you used for one quarter in 2024. Either way there is now a Message button on your listing, people have been tapping it, and the replies have been going nowhere. You find out when a customer mentions she messaged you twice and gave up. The feature that was supposed to make you easier to reach has been quietly telling people you ignore them.

This is the part of messaging nobody warns you about. Turning it on is a two-second toggle. Living with it is a commitment, and the bar is higher than most owners expect. EZ Texting's 2026 Consumer Texting Behavior Report, based on a survey of 959 US consumers, found that nearly 70 percent expect a business to respond within an hour, with the report noting that slow or ignored replies damage trust. That is the real question in front of you, and it is one Optuno walks clients through before flipping anything on: not whether messaging works, but whether you can answer.

What messaging adds to your listing

When messaging is on, a Message button appears on your Business Profile in Search and Maps. A customer taps it and types. The message reaches you through the Google Maps app, and you reply from there.

The appeal is obvious once you think about who uses it. Messaging captures the person who will not call. That is a much bigger group than most owners believe, and it skews toward the customers with the smallest questions and the least patience: do you take walk-ins, is the part in stock, can you fit me in Thursday. These are people who would otherwise have skipped you rather than picked up the phone.

There is a second effect worth naming. A message is a lower-commitment first contact than a call, so people who are still comparing options will message three businesses at once. Whoever answers first often wins, not because they were better, but because they were there.

Messaging is not a marketing channel. You cannot use it to broadcast offers, and trying to would breach the rules. It is a service channel, and it lives or dies on response time.

The honest case against turning it on

Most articles about this feature will not tell you to leave it off. Sometimes you should.

The core problem is the clock. Once you invite messages, you have accepted an expectation you may not be able to meet, and the data on response expectations is unforgiving. A one-person business with their hands inside an engine or a client's hair for eight hours a day cannot reliably answer within an hour. An unanswered Message button is worse than no Message button, because a customer who is ignored does not conclude you were busy. They conclude you do not care, and some of them say so in a review.

Google has historically been willing to switch the feature off for profiles that leave messages unanswered, which tells you how seriously the response window is treated.

So the test is simple and it is not about whether messaging is good. It is: who is answering, on what device, within what window, including at four o'clock on a Saturday? If the answer is a specific person, turn it on. If the answer is a vague hope, leave it off and put your effort into the phone and the booking flow, which do not carry the same implicit promise. Being reachable in fewer ways, reliably, beats being reachable in more ways, badly.

How to turn it on or off

The toggle lives in the Google Maps app rather than in Search, which is why owners often cannot find it.

Open the Maps app signed in to the account that manages the business, get to your business profile, and look under the settings for the messaging option. Turn it on, and the Message button appears on your listing within a short time.

While you are there, set your welcome message. This is the automatic reply that goes out the moment someone messages you, and it is the single most useful thing on this screen. Use it to set expectations plainly rather than to say hello. Something that names a real response time and offers the phone number for anything urgent will do more good than a cheerful greeting.

Turning it off is the same path in reverse, and there is no penalty for doing it. If you have inherited a Message button nobody is watching, switching it off today is an improvement, not an admission.

Before you make changes to the profile, it is worth knowing where you stand, and Optuno's free local SEO report gives you a snapshot of your rankings, listings, and reviews as a baseline.

Making messaging work if you keep it

If you have decided to answer, build the habit deliberately rather than hoping you will notice.

Turn on notifications in the Maps app. This is the whole system for most small businesses. Without them, messages sit unread until someone thinks to look, which is exactly the failure you were trying to avoid.

Give it an owner. On a team, messaging needs one name attached to it, and preferably a backup for days off. Shared responsibility for a live channel means nobody has it.

Answer fast and short. You are not writing correspondence. A one-line reply within a few minutes beats a thoughtful paragraph the next morning by a distance that the response-time research makes plain.

Move it to a call when it gets complicated. Messaging is for quick answers and for booking. When a conversation needs real detail, offer to call, since the point of the channel is speed rather than depth.

Watch the tone. The messages are informal, and it is easy to be too casual with someone deciding whether to spend money with you. Read it back before you send.

Where messaging fits in the bigger picture

Messaging is a conversion tool, not a ranking one. It will not move you up the map pack. What it does is capture people who found you and would otherwise have moved on, which is the same job the booking button does at a different moment.

It pairs naturally with the rest of the profile. Someone who messages to ask a question is often the same person who reads three reviews before deciding, so the work you put into reviews and photos is what makes them message in the first place. That broader picture is covered in Optuno's guide on how to get more customers as a small business, and the field-by-field work in its guide to Google Business Profile optimization.

The decision is yours, and it is a real one. If you would rather have someone watching the channel so the button is a promise you keep rather than one you break, Optuno's plans cover Business Profile management and the local SEO work around it, with no long-term contracts, no setup fees, and a dedicated contact.

Frequently asked questions

Where do Google Business Profile messages go?
They arrive through the Google Maps app, signed in to the account that manages the business. There is no separate messaging app, which is why turning on notifications in Maps is the practical difference between answering and missing them.

How fast do I need to respond to Google messages?
Faster than feels comfortable. Survey data puts consumer expectation at a response within an hour for roughly 70 percent of people, and Google has been willing to disable messaging on profiles that leave messages unanswered.

Can I turn off Google Business Profile messaging?
Yes, from the same place in the Maps app, and there is no penalty. If nobody is reliably watching the channel, turning it off is better than leaving a Message button that goes unanswered.

Does messaging improve my Google rankings?
Not in any direct way worth counting on. Its value is conversion, capturing people who would not have called. Treat it as a way to win the customers you already attracted rather than a way to attract more.

What should my welcome message say?
Set a realistic expectation rather than a greeting. Name a realistic response time and point anyone urgent to your phone number. A welcome message that promises an instant reply you cannot deliver makes the problem worse.

Can I send marketing messages to people who contact me?
No. Messaging is a service channel, and using it to push offers breaches the rules and irritates the customer. Answer the question they asked.