Today, we discuss how to enable and use the power of chat in Google Search and Maps.
This is a hugely powerful tool from Google that you should know about and it is free.
With additional resource and investment, you can leverage the power of Google to have this automated and as part of your overall communication strategy from the most influential channel of all. Google.
Find out more about development and chatbots from our team at disruptionworks.co.uk
Our latest series of podcasts, concentrates on voice and how that is going to impact the next few years with tips along the way. Find out more about voicebots here and if you have any subjects that you would like us to discuss then email info@disruptionworks.co.uk with the subject Podcast and we will see what we can do ;-)
Today, we discuss how to enable and use the power of chat in Google Search and Maps.
This is a hugely powerful tool from Google that you should know about and it is free.
With additional resource and investment, you can leverage the power of Google to have this automated and as part of your overall communication strategy from the most influential channel of all. Google.
Find out more about development and chatbots from our team at disruptionworks.co.uk
Our latest series of podcasts, concentrates on voice and how that is going to impact the next few years with tips along the way. Find out more about voicebots here and if you have any subjects that you would like us to discuss then email info@disruptionworks.co.uk with the subject Podcast and we will see what we can do ;-)
00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:09.200
Sean Bussell
Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting edition of disruption works chitchat with Sean and Steve. Steve, how you doing today?
00:00:09.430 --> 00:00:18.370
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah, very good. Uh up in Manchester today, I'm gonna be attending the DTX Manchester Expo and see what's going on.
00:00:16.850 --> 00:00:18.350
Sean Bussell
OK. You wanna give us a quick line?
00:00:19.080 --> 00:00:20.730
Sean Bussell
Yeah. What is that about? What? What is that about?
00:00:19.190 --> 00:00:19.540
Steve Tomkinson
Sorry.
00:00:20.990 --> 00:00:39.350
Steve Tomkinson
Well, it's a lot of innovation. So, so good for looking at uh partners as a lot of cyber security and vendors there. And you know there's a lot of kind of partner businesses there that might be useful to talk to you know, as well as people that we looking at.
00:00:39.430 --> 00:00:53.110
Steve Tomkinson
Some uh digital transformation. It is a digital transformation Expo. So yeah, I thought it would be interesting to to have a look at that one this year and now we're out the other side of COVID and it's worth attending, you know.
00:00:45.110 --> 00:00:45.390
Sean Bussell
OK.
00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:54.610
Sean Bussell
Is it quite a big show or?
00:00:55.150 --> 00:01:08.250
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah, it's quite a big one or it has been historically. So I want to see what it's like this year. You know, see what's 22, looks like, you know, and but so yeah. And I've got a couple of meetings as well, of course. But yeah, that's the main reason for being here.
00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:00.090
Sean Bussell
Yeah. OK.
00:01:08.770 --> 00:01:14.020
Sean Bussell
My son. OK, so slightly different take today it's. I guess this is a bit of a.
00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:21.190
Sean Bussell
Good to know if you're a business owner, I guess. Or a you're a marketing person for your business sale.
00:01:17.590 --> 00:01:17.830
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:01:21.940 --> 00:01:37.220
Sean Bussell
It's been around a short while, but now what's available is a is a Google search, live chat stroke chatbot feature. So if I just give you the quick heads up on that. So basically if you search for an organization or a business, restaurant, whatever it might be.
00:01:37.940 --> 00:02:09.790
Sean Bussell
In Google you'll I'm sure you'll be familiar this where you see the options for a website directions or you can get in touch with them or whatever it might be. But now what business is gonna enable within that is they can have an option in there for a chat feature. Now this is initially designed as a as a live chat, but people can also actually use it to have an automated chat in the background. So that's the kind of interest, Steve. But what are your thoughts on this? What's the direction of travel?
00:02:04.780 --> 00:02:05.100
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:30.560
Steve Tomkinson
Well, I think it's a really useful feature for business in our I mean Google, look, uh, they've invested quite heavily in this and and productized it to to make it a thing. But there's a very easy starting point for any business. So SME S or or any size business really.
00:02:32.100 --> 00:03:01.910
Steve Tomkinson
All businesses have got their my business listing, so a Google My Business, you'll go in and you'll set yourself up, put your opening hours in there, contact details, office address, all that type of stuff. So there's. So that's quite a powerful list in its own right under your own name and it's quite A and it's something that you know if you haven't got that set up really seriously need to do that. But what's enabled within there now that's a very easy nontechnical thing to.
00:03:02.010 --> 00:03:27.000
Steve Tomkinson
To enable this is chat and chat. Then is a live chat. So that means your team get alerts on the if somebody contacts you via that and then you can actually answer them. You know as a as a as a live chat agent within that very simple window. Nothing too complicated but really useful live conversation, you know.
00:03:26.950 --> 00:03:36.450
Sean Bussell
I think, and I think the point is this, this essentially enables users to jump straight into a two way conversation with your organization without.
00:03:37.180 --> 00:03:38.900
Sean Bussell
Even having to land on the website.
00:03:39.250 --> 00:04:09.310
Steve Tomkinson
No, that's right. So that and then and the, so this appears in Google search. So if somebody's looking for you, you're a paying or in straight away on their phone, which is probably the biggest use of this, it's gonna be on mobiles you know, so it's it's gonna be I'm trying to find your do you have this in stock or you know or I'm just around the corner you've got a table now you know rather than phoning you know or they can't get through on the phone they may try this you know.
00:03:54.610 --> 00:03:55.000
Sean Bussell
Yeah.
00:04:09.890 --> 00:04:10.930
Steve Tomkinson
That type of element.
00:04:11.260 --> 00:04:29.970
Sean Bussell
So let's think about the behaviors that this plays into zero click searches. I do it all the time. Actually I search business. I only want the directions, so that is really handy feature and also browsing habits and that people, I mean they can't be bothered anyway to go on to your website go 5 pages deep to find out this and that so.
00:04:21.580 --> 00:04:21.800
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:04:31.020 --> 00:04:43.650
Sean Bussell
I I get this as well. This is a totally plays into the behaviors and patterns that we're seeing for people around browsing habits and behaviors. They love messaging apps as well, so all this is playing right into that space, isn't it?
00:04:44.040 --> 00:05:04.210
Steve Tomkinson
It says very much so and you know that there's uh, you to get the most out of this, you probably need to be engaged with Google Workspace. So which is, you know, what was G suites and stuff like that. So you know I have that enabled within your business but it's very low cost and it's.
00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:25.580
Steve Tomkinson
And The thing is, everybody uses Google to search stuff, so you really need to make the most of that particular listing you know. And this is a direct contact from your listing. You know, people who don't wanna phone you don't wanna Donna speak to somebody face to face. Even you know, in that kind of way this is perfect.
00:05:26.350 --> 00:05:54.280
Sean Bussell
And the other thing that I was thinking about is this kind of helps businesses with what we would call zero click searches, where they've gone on Google to find your opening times. They haven't landed on your website and they didn't bother booking because they didn't go on the website, they weren't engaged. So it could help with that. I guess one of the there's gonna be some negatives for this, Steve, which is businesses are going to have to man this chat essentially so.
00:05:54.730 --> 00:06:24.420
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah. Well, the, the The thing is there is an option here to automate these. So the biggest piece that Google have been working on in the background is something called business messages. So business messages in the background are the automation of this. So you can have multiple routes through and you know have a fully integrated automated service in the background. The links into in Google's case.
00:06:24.700 --> 00:06:47.840
Steve Tomkinson
Uh, dialogue flow, so ESC X on dialogue flow for those guys and and and also your own systems as well. So your own, uh, kind of interoping with your own CRM, you know your Salesforce bot, all those types of things. So there's lots of interoperable options to expose your.
00:06:48.890 --> 00:07:08.310
Steve Tomkinson
And a communication logic, but back through to the chat. But that layer is a little bit more complicated, means a bit more hands on work, but it is something that the way working on now to to kind of have something that's a bit more out of the box for people you know.
00:07:08.050 --> 00:07:11.220
Sean Bussell
So. So I guess to put that in layman's terms is that.
00:07:11.910 --> 00:07:44.160
Sean Bussell
Someone could search your business, click, chat and actually be met with a chat bot that could provide immediate responses to your questions and queries. So yeah, how do I make a booking? Are you open tonight? You know, is this in stock? You know, whatever the questions that people normally ask your business, then the chatbot could be the first line of, let's say, an inverted commas defense to these inbound enquiries to whether it's to qualify people in or qualify them out or just to provide an excellent customer service experience because I guess.
00:07:31.300 --> 00:07:31.510
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:07:35.650 --> 00:07:35.890
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:07:44.660 --> 00:07:49.830
Sean Bussell
The other, the negative is. If you do man this, but you only man it's setting hours of the day. I don't know.
00:07:50.580 --> 00:07:54.570
Sean Bussell
You might know this is at the moment is whether you can have this on and off at certain times of the day.
00:07:54.880 --> 00:08:24.770
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah, you can. There's there are controls to be able to do that and and again so you can set it up to do to to to have that available in and out of hours. So there are controls that are not hard to set up from that perspective. So again, super powerful to to get this in place, but the the chat, if you consider the explosion of Facebook chat bots and the end and alternate and like WhatsApp and all that type stuff that people are.
00:07:58.000 --> 00:07:58.400
Sean Bussell
Right.
00:08:24.910 --> 00:08:39.290
Steve Tomkinson
Now business is really, really want this stuff. Well, what Google have just done really is you stepped all that and said and said this is now your first point. Of course you know, so.
00:08:34.340 --> 00:08:37.150
Sean Bussell
I was gonna say as long as like in poker when.
00:08:40.720 --> 00:09:11.160
Steve Tomkinson
If you get this right. Wow. Yeah, I I think you can get this. Uh, you know, you can have extraordinary engagement conversion straight off the back, you know, superb customer service that can blow the socks off any of your competitors because, like you said, they'd have to keep going through to your website. They'd have to go past their Google search going. I need to contact disruption works, chat. But I'm already talking to somebody or some or a bot.
00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:25.890
Steve Tomkinson
This provided me with self service journey. I need you know, it's hugely powerful, massively powerful. Anything in Google search is gonna be a powerful tool and and this is their next foray into this stuff, you know.
00:09:26.230 --> 00:09:30.640
Sean Bussell
Yeah, I think this is really gonna be game changing and that's not to understate it now.
00:09:31.660 --> 00:09:38.470
Sean Bussell
What expertise are required to provide or build your own chat bot within?
00:09:39.020 --> 00:09:39.530
Steve Tomkinson
Well.
00:09:39.170 --> 00:09:45.750
Sean Bussell
Dialogue flow is this. People are people gonna be able to do this from their marketing team or whatever or they it's gonna be specialist needed to do this stuff.
00:09:45.980 --> 00:10:17.870
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah, yeah. This isn't the easiest interface. Uh, so it's not bad. It's not. It's not terrible, but it's not the it's not the easiest thing, gets quite involved in that, but it's easy enough to to keep updated from a general FAQ perspective, because you can add knowledge bases and stuff like that and there and just, you know, links to particular content like, you know, your FAQ page will get scraped and things like that. So you can do some low tech stuff with that.
00:10:17.930 --> 00:10:49.220
Steve Tomkinson
Where that? Where too much difficulty, but some of the bigger flows will need a little bit like I was saying, it gets a bit more technical in the background. Connecting got business messages to your chat from tanned and then connecting it to your Umm dialogue flow chat bot. That process needs a little bit of hand holding, but we're actually we're actually building the bridge for that now. So it's it's a, it's something that we can help people with now which makes quite you know it gives them the opportunity of leveraging the power of this thing.
00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:58.160
Sean Bussell
And yes, and scraping people's website for the information is not the best customer experience really is. It's not very conversational.
00:10:56.310 --> 00:10:57.580
Steve Tomkinson
No, but it's good.
00:10:58.540 --> 00:11:00.050
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah, it's not so bad for just.
00:11:00.210 --> 00:11:31.300
Steve Tomkinson
I'm just for FAQ stuff, so that's usually if you haven't got another response then the fall back or be it's gone, it's going to the knowledge base. So what you do in dialogue flow is you give a like a waiting to that knowledge base so that you you know you put it really down if you don't really want it front and center or put it turn it right the way up if you want it front and center and be the first point of contact you know so all those things can be moderated quite easily.
00:11:31.730 --> 00:11:41.770
Sean Bussell
Yeah. OK. I just, I my general feeling is that most organizations, their knowledge bases and FAQ and not and not necessarily that strong are they.
00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:46.310
Steve Tomkinson
Alright, well that's the only problem you have to have significant setup to be able to do that.
00:11:47.550 --> 00:12:16.970
Steve Tomkinson
You know, and something like a CSV or something like that is is kind of the minimum requirement really to get it to, to, to be a powerful tool. But again, it's about how easy it this is to use, how easy it is to add it and all that type of stuff. Dialogue flow itself isn't too hard to add it. It's very it's quite wizzywig. So what you see is what you get. So it's pretty straightforward in there for editing stuff, creating new things a little bit more difficult, but.
00:12:07.760 --> 00:12:08.080
Sean Bussell
Help.
00:12:17.080 --> 00:12:18.210
Steve Tomkinson
Again, not super.
00:12:18.350 --> 00:12:23.080
Steve Tomkinson
And difficult. But it's. Yeah, you have to be a little bit.
00:12:24.210 --> 00:12:28.380
Steve Tomkinson
Just get up to speed with it, you know? So there's a little bit of on boarding to be done on that.
00:12:26.830 --> 00:12:27.120
Sean Bussell
OK.
00:12:29.060 --> 00:12:54.670
Sean Bussell
So what's the I guess my next question is about the future and and the the big picture, if this as we highly anticipate is gonna be the thing that everyone uses moving forward, what does that mean for what does that mean for websites? Are they just gonna be shop windows when people land on them in the future? Not gonna have all these pages because people will have just had an automated chat with your business?
00:12:35.040 --> 00:12:35.300
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:40.970
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:12:55.160 --> 00:13:25.010
Steve Tomkinson
Well, I think we, we've already started to move with that with all the social channels since that your customer service now isn't just round, just your own system, your own service and a lot of regard it's inside a different channel and Google search is one of the biggest channels out there. So what this is doing is allowing your customer service to confront and center it's easily accessible and engaged as possible and you know with everything that you can do in the background with this service, now you can off.
00:13:25.100 --> 00:13:54.670
Steve Tomkinson
You know, you know you can hand off to your human agents. You can integrate into your own systems. You can have some automated FAQs or automated self service journeys. So you can do all that stuff. But with that have but through all through the Google Channel without having to go anywhere else and that's that's how people are gonna engage. They wanna do engage as quickly as possible. You were talking about zero clicks.
00:13:55.100 --> 00:13:55.840
Steve Tomkinson
Of course.
00:13:56.610 --> 00:14:10.920
Steve Tomkinson
That's this is it. This is zero clicks. You know, this is. I just want to get my order traced. I just wanna find out where my order is, you know? So you just go straight on chat. Where's my order? What's your order number? There it is. It's here.
00:14:11.740 --> 00:14:42.830
Steve Tomkinson
You know, and if you make it that simple, people will engage with you. You know, you've gotta look at the power of Amazon and and how much they have transformed the retail journey. And that's, you know, that's huge. And the reason they've done that is because it's so easy to use. You return stuff, Daddy. Easy. You get stuff delivered anytime you like. That's something delivered the other day. It needed a signature. They said, oh, we've tried. We'll try again. I was thinking, ohh. I'm not gonna see that.
00:14:42.910 --> 00:14:49.260
Steve Tomkinson
But another day or two, no. They came back in 20 minutes and tried me again, and I was at home though.
00:14:44.750 --> 00:14:45.010
Sean Bussell
Umm.
00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:52.590
Steve Tomkinson
And you just go, wow, that's really good.
00:14:53.730 --> 00:15:07.180
Sean Bussell
The the Amazon do so well, the customer service experience, the fact is just the next day with Prime and all that stuff. It's very difficult for people to get in there. So but you've gotta keep up all the same, haven't you?
00:14:57.200 --> 00:14:57.510
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:15:04.190 --> 00:15:04.480
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:20.060
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah, and this is this is one of those tools that's going to enable you to do that because your customer service can be on par. You know, you can really raise your game with this stuff, you know then that's quite so important.
00:15:20.180 --> 00:15:50.070
Sean Bussell
And like to say, you know, because it's integrated into peoples systems, if they wanna do that, then yeah, track an order. And I was also thinking, you know, purchase things you want some new trainers speak to the speak to the bot essentially. Couldn't you through Google? Yeah. What you look at I'm looking for some trainers. Uh great men's women's you know what color Nike whatever. I've got these carousel of options within your budget that you've specified so you could do some really cool things with all this as well just over the top of all that and like say.
00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:25.590
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:15:35.010 --> 00:15:35.220
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:15:42.640 --> 00:15:42.820
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:15:50.670 --> 00:16:04.250
Sean Bussell
People want instant gratification from the brands that they engage with, and that's why even myself, as much as I'd like to, it's just difficult to move away from Amazon because they make it so easy to do what you need to do.
00:15:53.400 --> 00:15:53.620
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:16:04.690 --> 00:16:04.890
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:16:05.890 --> 00:16:09.170
Sean Bussell
OK, slightly digressed I guess, but I think in terms of.
00:16:10.050 --> 00:16:10.470
Sean Bussell
You know.
00:16:11.420 --> 00:16:13.890
Sean Bussell
Funny at more about this stuff. What should people do?
00:16:14.640 --> 00:16:14.950
Steve Tomkinson
Well.
00:16:15.020 --> 00:16:28.440
Steve Tomkinson
Well, I I think they certainly you should be looking at your Google setup. You know look at your Google My Business you can enable live chat yourselves. You don't need somebody like ourselves to to do that. You know it's an easy tool to to start getting involved with.
00:16:29.620 --> 00:16:33.170
Steve Tomkinson
You know you'll need to do some a little bit of work in your Google Admin.
00:16:33.590 --> 00:17:03.040
Steve Tomkinson
UM for workspace to make sure that the right people at the right messages and stuff like that. But you know that's pretty nontechnical. And then beyond that you probably need to reach out to somebody like ourselves to say right, what we wanna make this automated or want to integrate this to our systems or you know that type stuff and that's your next best big step to have an automated agent in there because that's gonna be the power because out of hours then the IT isn't available.
00:17:03.250 --> 00:17:18.310
Steve Tomkinson
OK, cool doesn't go off, and you know that they're always that if you can be in that space all the time, 24/7. Yeah, you're gonna win the game. You know, you're really are. And it's so super important to have that stuff in place.
00:17:19.120 --> 00:17:26.510
Sean Bussell
And I I guess from a sector perspective, this this is gonna cover all sectors, really, isn't it in the majority at least?
00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:56.780
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah. Anybody that's really getting them views of their, their local my business stuff you know that that really needs to be something you consider. So any hospitality businesses attached for lately Paramount I think anybody that's that's got contact through through that that kind of search for their brand list then I think that's what they you know you need to be considering how you engage with those people.
00:17:57.070 --> 00:18:27.650
Steve Tomkinson
You know, so any there, any ecommerce retailers and things like that, you know you've gotta, you've gotta look at that as being your primary. You know, this is how you get in contact, you know, retailers and generals huge you know, because when you do the Google My Business owners, a retailer with multiple sites then you get a listing for every single site. So that means you could probably have chat for every single site. So that means the local site where can have chat with people, they're around the corner from going. Yeah, we're here. We're out.
00:18:08.030 --> 00:18:08.380
Sean Bussell
Yeah.
00:18:27.740 --> 00:18:42.210
Steve Tomkinson
Happy to alpia. Why don't you pop in? You know? And they can have those conversations and drag people in the door when it's so hard now to get people into the High Street and get people to to in your store. And it's so important to get that full form.
00:18:42.690 --> 00:19:03.480
Sean Bussell
Yeah, I think any business that deals with direct to the consumer is gonna benefit from this. So yeah, as Steve mentioned, really if it's if this sounds something of interest and hopefully it does, it should be then do feel free to get in touch with us and we'd be more than happy to have a chat with you about what the options are and and how we sort of broach this really.
00:18:46.760 --> 00:18:47.140
Steve Tomkinson
Yeah.
00:19:04.620 --> 00:19:08.130
Sean Bussell
OK, good stuff. Anything else on that, Steve that you wanted to cover is final thought?
00:19:08.660 --> 00:19:37.190
Steve Tomkinson
No, not really. I suppose the only expansion with all that stuff is as soon as you start building things in dialogue flow, then you start integrating things into Google assistants as well. So then you you can also be on the smart speakers and and all that type of stuff, and they've gotten to get integration into telephony and everything. So the world starts opening up quite differently when you when you enter these big systems. And so it can be transformatory in there.
00:19:36.780 --> 00:19:39.490
Sean Bussell
And then I guess you could still deploy that on the website?
00:19:40.080 --> 00:19:53.180
Steve Tomkinson
Yep, same thing. So you know, all these things are centralized and you have, you know, to really powerful tools that end in the background. The don't have to cost you the actual earth to to run them and host them.
00:19:53.760 --> 00:19:59.950
Steve Tomkinson
UMI. But you do need to help enhance. These aren't necessarily super non technical spaces.
00:20:00.450 --> 00:20:14.650
Sean Bussell
Yeah, definitely for sure. OK, good stuff. Well, thanks very much for your time today, Steve. I say, I hope everyone found that interesting. If you do have a topic that you would like to struction works to discuss that, do feel free to get in touch, we'd be more than happy to take a look at it. Thanks very much.
00:20:15.040 --> 00:20:17.130
Steve Tomkinson
Super. Thanks a lot. Cheers now.