Google Maps will allow you to chat with locals and businesses

Can you imagine chatting with the bakery in your neighborhood or with the cafeteria that you frequent the most? Very soon you will be able to do it through the Google Maps application. Basically, it will be an option that will appear in the side menu of the app and that will be used to send messages to the owners of the establishments. The objective is that you can ask your Doubts or concerns about the products that are sold in a specific store, or the food that is served in a restaurant that you want to go to.

With the new function of chatting with locals and businesses, Google Maps tries to gain a bigger foothold, also competing with WhatsApp Business, one of the services created precisely for this purpose. If it is implemented for all users, you will see a new tab (Messages) between the option "Your contributions" and "Share location" within the Google Maps menu. Sending messages to businesses will give you the opportunity to ask questions without having to make a phone call. You could, for example, order a cake for your partner's birthday while on the bus, or find out if a shoe store has your size saving you from having to go for nothing.

In order to talk to customers, business owners will need to download Google My Business (available for iOS and Android).From there, they can take a look at the pending messages and reply to them. This means that for you to be able to chat with an establishment, they must have previously registered in this app and be an active user. If so, it will appear in their list of Google Maps the option to Send Message. Once you do, a chat window will open in Google Maps itself.

The chat is quite simple. It is used to exchange words, no images, stickers or emojis. You are thinking so that the text is the protagonist, After all, it is not about interrupting the work of the businesses but about making it faster and more efficient.Of course, it should be noted that the response messages do not have to be anonymous, they can be personally signed by whoever writes them. Undoubtedly, a very interesting new function that is beginning to be in the testing phase. We will be waiting to see if it is definitively implemented for everyone in the app.