{"id":17812,"date":"2015-03-30T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T13:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=17812"},"modified":"2015-03-30T13:33:13","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T17:33:13","slug":"google-my-business-improves-contextual-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/30\/google-my-business-improves-contextual-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Google My Business Improves Contextual Help – Tests Integration of Call Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"help-box\"Good News Bad News Update Monday, 9:00 am<\/strong>: Good<\/strong>: The Phone (and occasionally the chat) interface attached to the help link within the dashboard shows during business hours for support. Bad<\/strong>: It doesn’t appear to be working and you should continue to use the “old” way of clicking on the Contact Us link<\/a> in the Google My Business Support area to get phone support. <\/p>\n

Update Monday, 1:30 PM<\/strong> Apparently the phone contact option has been removed from the help screen. <\/p>\n

It appears that Google is improving access to their Help files from within Google My Business and is apparently testing moving access to phone support directly into the GMB dashboard. Apparently, in checking with international friends, this feature is currently US only.<\/p>\n

This is a screen shot of the new Help panel from within GMB today:
\n\"without-phone-option\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see from these screenshots taken yesterday, Google is also obviously testing moving both phone contact and chat support directly into the GMB as well. I learned about this feature when a client couldn’t figure out why Google wasn’t calling them back when they requested phone support. Since it was there yesterday and not working and gone today, it is not clear if they will in fact move phone support into GMB. They should.<\/p>\n

\"showing<\/a><\/p>\n

\"phone<\/a><\/p>\n

Google’s integration of help and support into the business center had long<\/a> been<\/a> a cobbled affair, often requiring long circuitous routes for the SMB to get support. This reached its nadir in 2011 and I penned Google Places: What might customer service look like<\/a>, which was a reprise of an article that I first wrote in 2009.<\/p>\n

With the rollout<\/a> of phone support in early 2013 and the rollout of Google My Business<\/a> in June, 2014\u00a0this has gradually and steadily improved. (Obviously there were many, many other steps in their improvement but these two struck me as salient.)<\/p>\n

If this new GMB integrated phone and chat support is rolled out, it would be one more step in their ongoing improvement of support. Building out a smart, context sensitive help system that makes support easy and accessible seems a bare minimum in the year 2015.<\/p>\n

Its amazing that it has taken 10 years but I am glad that the day is finally nearing when one can use Google support as an example of excellence rather than an example of a hell hole<\/del> the complete opposite.<\/p>\n

This likely speaks to the fact that the SMB spend must be getting significant and possibly to the growth trajectory of that spend. Regardless, it is a welcome and necessary change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good News Bad News Update Monday, 9:00 am: Good: The Phone (and occasionally the chat) interface attached to the help link within the dashboard shows during business hours for support. Bad: It doesn’t appear to be working and you should continue to use the “old” way of clicking on the Contact Us link in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-plus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t