What replaced Google Business Profile chat for trade shops
2026-10-16 · 6 min read
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It's 7:40 on a Tuesday night. A homeowner in a ranch house has water coming through the kitchen ceiling, and she's searching Maps for a plumber. Your listing comes up with good reviews and a photo of your truck. A couple of years ago she'd have tapped Chat and typed "leak from upstairs bathroom, can someone come tomorrow?" Now she sees Call, Website and Directions. She taps Call. Your shop line is forwarded to a phone that's face down on a workbench, so it rings out to voicemail. She doesn't leave a message. She just goes back to the list.
You never find out she called.
What replaced Google Business Profile chat?
Nothing replaced it inside Google. According to Google's own help page (checked October 16, 2026), chat and call history stopped working in Business Profile on July 31, 2024. The same page says chat FAQs and customer quote requests are no longer supported. Customers can still find you and reach you from Search and Maps, but what they can do now is call your number, open your website, or, where Google offers it, send a text or a WhatsApp message to a number you supply.
Before, messages sat in an inbox Google ran for you. Now they go wherever your profile points, and if nobody is there to answer, that's where they stop.
Check what your profile shows today
Look at your listing on a phone the way a customer would, then open the profile editor:
- In your Business Profile, go to Edit profile, then Contact.
- Confirm the phone number is your business line and that it isn't hidden. With call history retired, Google's page says the call button now dials your own number instead of a Google forwarding number.
- Look for a Chat field. Google's chat setup page (checked October 16, 2026) says verified profiles can add either WhatsApp or a text message number there, but only in "select regions," so it may not be offered on yours. If you add both, Google shows customers only the text option.
- Check that the website link goes to a page with a short request form. If it goes to a homepage with a phone number on it, that page just hands her back to the same phone.
If the Chat field is there, fill it in with the same business number your call button uses. Then texts and calls arrive in the same place. A personal cell turns into a problem the first time someone goes on vacation, and the business number vs personal cell post explains why.
What losing the chat inbox costs a small shop
The people who used to send a chat still need a plumber, so most of them call instead. For a shop where the person who answers the phone is also the person holding the wrench, a call during a job either interrupts the job or rings out.
A ring-out from your profile leaves no trace anymore. With call history gone, there's no list in Google showing that someone called at 7:40 and hung up. Unless your phone system keeps its own log and somebody reads it, the lead disappears and the profile looks quieter than it really is.
Maps quote requests went the same way. A homeowner who used to fill in a short request without leaving Google now has to visit your site or call, and some of them will just pick a shop that answers the phone.
| What she does on your profile | Where it lands now | What happens when you're busy |
|---|---|---|
| Taps Call | Your business line | Rings out, usually no voicemail |
| Taps Chat (if your region has it) | A text to the number you entered | Sits unread on whoever holds that phone |
| Taps Website | Your site | Depends on whether there's a form and who gets it |
| Tries to request a quote in Google | No longer offered | She calls someone else |
What a working setup looks like
These are the steps I take when I set this up for a trade shop:
- Put one business number on the profile. The call button and, where it's offered, the Chat field both point to it.
- Text back every missed call. If a call to that number goes unanswered, she gets a text from the same number within a minute: your shop name, that you're on a job, and one question, like "Is water actively coming in, or can it wait until morning?" The missed-call text back page shows how that works, and this post has wording to use.
- Put a real form behind the website button. Ask for her name, the address, what's wrong and a photo if she has one. The lead capture form post covers which questions to ask.
- Send everything to one place. Missed-call texts, Chat texts and form requests all end up in one list, and each lead shows up there once with a time stamp.
- Let urgent words ring a phone. Messages with "flooding," "no heat" or "gas smell" skip the template and go straight to you or the on-call tech.
- Tag the source. Each lead is marked as coming from the Google profile, the website or a referral, so you can see what the profile actually brings in now that Google no longer shows you. The lead source tracking post goes through that part.
Texting customers from a business number takes some carrier paperwork first, and the setup timeline post explains what that involves and how long it takes.
What stays human
The system catches the lead, and you decide what to do with it. Sizing up a ceiling leak from a photo, deciding whether it's tonight's job or tomorrow's, and giving a price are all yours. Emergency calls should still reach a person, which is why urgent wording rings a phone instead of getting a template. I'd keep replying to reviews on the profile yourself, too. A reply from the person who remembers the job reads better than anything a template can write.
All the setup does is make sure she hears back from you before she calls the next shop on the list. I built lead capture and tracking for a Chicago-area pool service company along these lines, so every inquiry lands in one place with its source attached. There's more on what this looks like for a shop on the plumbing automation page.
If you'd like me to check what your profile shows a customer and wire up whatever's missing, send me a note and I'll start with a free 20 minute process audit.