Our Partnership with Google’s Business Messages

At SIGNAL 2021, we announced our partnership with Google’s Business Messages and previewed support for Google’s Business Messages within the Conversations API. As consumers’ preferences continue to evolve, you have the opportunity to differentiate by meeting your customers on their preferred channels, especially as there is an increasing expectation that private messaging channels can be used for both customer support and commerce conversations with a brand.

More than half of consumers listed at least one method of asynchronous messaging, such as text or messaging applications, in their top three preferred ways of communicating with businesses. The pilot of Google’s Business Messages in the Conversations API enables your business to engage directly with your customers in one of the top places they go to look for information, Google Search and Maps. With the Conversations API, you can build custom customer care and commerce use cases across channels and add additional channels – like Google’s Business Messages – as they become available on the Twilio Customer Engagement Platform.

Meeting consumers where they are

In their moments of need, customers look to Google first to know, go, buy, or do something with a business.

• 70% of online experiences start with a search engine, and 92% of those searches start on Google
• Google Search has billions of searches worldwide every day.

As a result, this is not a new channel that consumers would need to adopt – they are already there. And it’s where they want to engage with your business. Google Search entry points led to 2 billion direct connections per month in the US in 2020 in the form of phone calls, requests for directions, messages, bookings, and reviews.

From Google Search, Google Maps and the Phone app on Android phones, consumers can click to chat directly with a business. Through that interaction, you can also get access to first party data to better understand and communicate with customers.

Consumer-initiated support and commerce

Imagine how much simpler every purchase becomes when you can answer a customer’s question right from a search result. With Google’s Business Messages, you can also use rich messaging features to create a visual and engaging shopping experience, allowing customers to see your product catalog through photo cards and carousels and respond to messages with a tap using quick reply buttons. 53% of customers say they are more likely to shop with businesses they can message, and Google’s Business Messages allows you to interact with them where they are looking for information when they are ready to buy, enabling your business to drive sales.

When customers have a product question or issue, they often turn to Google to understand how to address their issue or contact your business support team. With Google’s Business Messages, you can respond to their questions right from their search result, and take the value of live chat on your website and extend it through Google, decreasing the number of clicks it takes a consumer to engage with your team. You can have a few live agents handling incoming customer questions and eventually scale to add in automation or handle more complex inquiries. With 67% of consumers saying they would rather message a business than speak to a person, helping consumers resolve product issues over their preferred channel will help grow customer satisfaction.

Streamlined development of rich interactions

With Twilio, you can support rich, conversational messaging on Google’s Business Messages. The Conversations API allows you to manage multiparty conversational messaging at scale across channels including SMS, MMS, WhatsApp and now Google’s Business Messages. You can respond to customer inquiries and manage conversational workflows just as you would on other channels. With Twilio’s APIs, you can leverage your existing conversational workflows and content on a new channel and reach your customers in a new place.

Get started today

Meeting customers where they are, in Google Search, Google Maps and from the Phone app on Android phones, and enabling them to communicate in their preferred way via messaging will differentiate your business and drive customer satisfaction. Google’s Business Messages allows you to do just that by enabling your business to respond to customer inquiries where they are primarily looking for information, through Google Search and Google Maps. With Twilio’s Conversations API, you can create engaging customer support and commerce experiences to delight customers and drive satisfaction and sales.

Sign up here to pilot Google’s Business Messages with Twilio.