Have you recently noticed the new ‘questions & answers’ feature rolled out by Google in Google Maps app listings? Popular Columnist, Joy Hawkins recently shares her sharp observations about this latest feature so-called ‘Questions & Answers’. In mid-August, Google comes up with a new Q&A Feature on the Google Maps app for Android. For local SEO services in India However, this new feature is also available on mobile browsers.
Take a look at some important aspects of this new Q&A feature that every business owner needs to be aware of.
#1 If You Are Unable To See This New Feature, You Might Need To Update The App
Initially, there were so many people who were unable to see this new feature on the listing, but once they updated their app from the Play Store, they are able to see it.
#2 Customers Are Not Getting Notifications (yet)
If a user asks any question, he or she will be instantly notified when someone replies to their question. This is contrary to what Google has said in their official announcement: “When you get an answer to your question, we will send out a notification to you through Google Maps.” However, in every test that we’ve done so far, the user who has asked the question doesn’t receive any notification when another user responds to it. From this, we can assume that this is a bug that will be rectified by Google over time.
#3 Business Owners and Marketers Will Need The Google Maps App To Maintain A Track Of Questions
In order to get notified about every question asked by potential customers or visitors, business owners and marketers must have an updated Google Maps app and should be logged in using the same Google account that they use to keep their business listing updated in Google My Business. The important thing that you need to remember is that these notifications won’t show up anywhere in Google My Business listing, so if you are not using the updated Google Maps app, you will not get any sort of notification about the questions asked by the customers related to your business.
To test this function, we created a new account to submit a question, and then we logged in using the same Google account that we use to manage our business listing in Google My Business. Within a couple of seconds, we got a push notification on our mobile phone in the Google Maps app.
#4 You Can Check The Name And Profile Of The User Who’ve Submitted The Question
On the home screen that displays a list of questions, you won’t be able to see any user profile who has asked the question – all you need to do is click the question itself to see who’ve asked the question about your business.
#5 Business Owners Need To Avoid Giving Answers in “Yes” or “No”
As a business owner, you should try to avoid answering with a generic “yes” or “no”, because you have no idea when the user goes back and edits his or her question later. For example, if a user posts a question on your restaurant business listing and asking, “Do you offer vegan options?” If you give the answer is simple yes and the same user later could go back and edit his question to “What are different options you have in vegan?” and the answer would not remain the same. Thus, it is wise to give a brief answer to the question submitted by a user.
#6 Upvoting Questions Will Impact How The Submitted Questions Show Up In The Business Listing
In their official announcement, Google made it clear that “questions getting more upvotes will be more visible”. To check this, we’ve tried out on a business listing to see the impact of upvotes on submitted questions. Before the question had received any upvotes, this is how the business listing appeared:
After getting some upvotes on the question, this is how the business listing appeared after a few minutes:
See how both the question and answer show up on the business listing itself, without the user have to click on “See Questions”.
Conclusion
We are pretty much sure that Google will continue to make changes to this new Q&A Feature to make it more helpful for both business owners and users. If you have any question related to this post or you want to share something about Questions & Answers feature, let us know in the comment section below.
