How To Create The Perfect Google Business Welcome Message
Why Google Business Messages?
Google Maps has 155 million monthly users and it's estimated that Google handles 5.6 billion searches per day - two trillion searches a year!
Connecting with your customers at these two touchpoints is more beneficial than ever.
Gone are the days when you needed to send customers to a website or social media profile to contact you. Google Business Messages allow you to chat to customers directly in a Google search result (also known as a SERP, or Search Engine Results Page), on Google maps, or through your Google Business Profile (formerly known as 'Google My Business', or 'GMB').
With automation and chatbots for Business Messages in their relative infancy, we've included some great example welcome messages, and tips to help you get the most from your Google's Business Messages chatbot integration.
5 Tips To Help Create The Perfect Welcome Message
Improving user onboarding experiences and conversion rates of your users has never been as crucial as it is now.
A welcome message could well be the first contact a customer will have with you.
The two are unavoidably linked!
Writing better welcome messages for your chatbot solutions can really help set the tone for your customers, and establish a great experience.
These tips will help you to write more effective welcome messages for all your chatbots!
1. Greet, Introduce & Encourage
The major aims of your Google My Business chatbot welcome message should be to greet your new user, explain your chatbot's purpose, and encourage them to take action.
Use your welcome to set expectations for your customers and guide them through the initial stages of their interactions with your company.
2. Keep it Simple
Your message should only be a maximum of a few lines.
Avoid large chunks of text - try and split your content down, naturally, into separate messages.
3. Define Your Chatbot's Persona
Always make sure your users know they are interacting with a chatbot.
Humanizing your chatbot makes the whole experience more usable and fluid - if you don't convey a persona, your users will decide on it for you.
If you don't convey a persona, your users will decide on it for you
Your welcome message is the first opportunity to introduce your chatbot's personality. The language you choose sets your assistant's tone and values - which should match those of your brand.
PS - now's a good time to give your assistant a name. Keep its name short, memorable, and easy to spell & pronounce.
4. Use Emojis (But Not Too Many)
A great way to humanize your Google Business Messages chatbot is to incorporate emojis into your conversation.
Not only are emojis a great way to add space to your text, but they can also add small personality traits to match the tone of your message - whether that be amicable or exciting!
Be sure to stay true to your chatbot's tone of voice, and think about how appropriate they are in context. Emoji are difficult to use effectively in corporate or stressful/sensitive settings, e.g. funeral directors, emergency dentists, or divorce lawyers.
Whatever you go for, go easy. Too many and you'll end up looking spammy - stick to the occasional one here and there to add a visual break, rather than something to focus on.
5. Make Your Call To Action (CTA) Clear
In general, users won't have a lot of time to explore your chatbot's capabilities.
It's wise to make your call to action as clear as possible - you simply can't afford for customers to be confused when they are presented with your chatbot's welcome message.
When designing your call to action, keep your key business and marketing goals in mind.
Making use of Google Business Message's conversation starters is a good idea to follow up with, so users can easily select your CTAs.
You can use up to 5 of these, e.g. "Choose your bike" | "View bikes" | "See latest offers"
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5 Awesome Welcome Message Examples
Now we've looked at some tips to consider, let's dive into our 5 awesome examples.
1. Conversational Commerce
This welcome is aimed at increasing sales for a bike manufacturer:
"Hi I'm {Bot’s name}, the GoodBikes virtual assistant.
I can help you, "Choose the correct bike for your riding", "View our bikes", "View latest bike offers".
How about highlighting an offer to drive sales:
"Hello, {Customer’s first name}! I’m {Bot’s name}, and I’d be happy to help you win a 25% discount on your first purchase with {Your brand’s name}. Can I help you find a particular trainer?"
"Road | Trail | Track”
2. Announcements
Offer current data that enables self-service for users.
Change the welcome message and conversation starters to temporarily contain this information if there is a big development or event that you anticipate people would look for, like a service outage.
"Hi, I'm the Livewire virtual service agent"
"
I've got one thing you need to be aware of, we currently have an outage; normal service for your area is due to be resumed at 5:00 PM"
"Is there anything else I can help you with today?
I've got one thing you need to be aware of, we currently have an outage; normal service for your area is due to be resumed at 5:00 PM"3. Contextual Welcome Messages
Contextual information can be used to personalise your greeting.
The user's name, location, entrance point, and place ID are all included in your contextual data (for location-specific entry points).
For each language and place of business that you support, you're able to design a special welcome message:
"Hi I'm {Bot’s name}, the {your brands name} virtual assistant for {location}. I can answer questions about {location}, how can I help?
Closing time | Services | Parking Info"
4. Customer Support
Provide an extra level of support for your customers and manage expectations with response times.
“Hello, {customer’s first name}! Thanks for your enquiry.
Please expect a response from our support agent within 24 hours. In the meantime, why not take a look at our product tutorial: {link to tutorial}"
5. Event Specific
Your welcome messages can be seasonal or tied to promotional events; use your welcome message to highlight this to the user:
"Welcome to {your restaurant name}, I'm {chatbot name} the virtual assistant. Don't forget its burger night tonight, 20% off all burgers! What can I help you with?
Call us | Order online | Book a table"
Conclusion
Following these tips will help you stand out from the crowd and get the attention of your ideal consumers as well as help your existing ones.
Utilizing Google's Business Messages for your brand is surprisingly easy.
All you need is the help of a Google Business Messaging API partner. Knowledgeable partners, such as The Bot Forge, will help you provide rich conversational messaging solutions that will help you increase client loyalty and engagement
About The Bot Forge
Consistently named as one of the top-ranked AI companies in the UK, The Bot Forge is a UK-based agency that specialises in chatbot & voice assistant design, development and optimisation.
If you'd like a no-obligation chat to discuss your project with one of our team, please book a free consultation.