Google Business Profile now lets eligible, verified businesses add WhatsApp or text messaging as a contact option. Google also documents location-level API attributes for both channels, which makes a controlled rollout possible across a portfolio.
Last verified: September 10, 2026.
The feature is easy to switch on and easy to misroute. If 70 plumbing profiles all point to one WhatsApp number, the receiving team still needs to know whether the customer meant Phoenix, Mesa, or Tucson. If the profile shows text instead of WhatsApp, dispatch needs to know that before a campaign or branch script promises the wrong channel.
For a multi-location service business, the real project is not adding a button. It is connecting one public profile to one accountable response path, then proving that the message reached the right market and produced a customer outcome.
Google's WhatsApp and text messaging help covers eligibility and manual setup. The Business Information API guide documents the location attributes. If profile ownership and business groups are already inconsistent, fix the Google Business Profile access model before a bulk update. The Cheers multi-location local SEO system is built for the wider job of keeping each profile, location page, customer route, and visibility record aligned.
Important
Add a messaging option only after the team can identify the intended location, staff the channel, test the public button, and reconcile the conversation to a booking or service outcome.
The short answer: choose one public messaging route per profile
A claimed and verified profile can add WhatsApp or text messaging when the feature is available in its region. In the Business Profile editor, an owner or manager opens Contact, finds Chat, selects the channel, and supplies the WhatsApp click-to-chat URL or the text number.
Google says different profiles can use the same WhatsApp link. It also says that if both WhatsApp and text messaging are configured, only text messaging appears on the profile. Those two details should shape the rollout.
A shared channel is not automatically wrong. It is safe only when the central team can recover the profile or location context, ask for it without creating friction, route the conversation to the correct branch, and retain that identity through dispatch or booking. Otherwise, give the location its own managed destination.
This is an external contact option, not a return of Google's old native Business Profile chat. Google ended native Business Profile chat and call history on July 31, 2024. Eligible profiles may now expose WhatsApp or SMS instead, but the conversation happens in the business's chosen channel.
Decide between WhatsApp and text messaging by market
Do not pick WhatsApp because it sounds more modern or SMS because it feels universal. Pick the channel the location can operate.
WhatsApp can fit markets where customers already use it for service conversations and the business has a governed WhatsApp Business inbox. SMS can fit a dispatch model built around business texting and phone-number ownership. A 100-location platform may legitimately use different channels by country or brand, but each profile should have one documented public choice.
Before rollout, confirm five things for each profile:
- Eligibility: The messaging setting is available on the claimed and verified profile in that region.
- Destination: The WhatsApp link or text number belongs to the business and reaches a monitored business channel.
- Location context: The receiver can determine which branch or service territory the customer selected.
- Coverage: A named team owns response hours, escalation, consent, privacy, and after-hours handling.
- Outcome record: The conversation can be tied to a qualified request, booking, dispatch, completed job, or closed outcome without exposing private message content.
This is also the right moment to decide whether a national inbox, regional hub, or branch number owns the channel. Corporate ownership can improve continuity. Local ownership can improve context. The correct design is the one that preserves both accountability and the branch the customer chose.
Route the conversation before adding the button
Imagine a restoration platform with 35 service areas and one 24-hour WhatsApp inbox. A customer opens the Business Profile for the closest branch and asks for help with a flooded basement. If the inbox receives only a phone number and message, a centralized coordinator may not know which market the customer viewed or which crew can respond.
The routing record should connect the public profile, Google account and location resource, internal store code, channel destination, receiving team, service territory, hours, escalation owner, and downstream booking source. The Google location identifier guide explains why Place ID, Business Profile location resource, and the brand's store code need separate fields.
For a shared inbox, test what context actually arrives. Do not assume the receiving platform includes the originating Business Profile. If it does not, the first response needs a low-friction way to confirm city, ZIP code, or preferred location before promising service. That question should route the lead, not restart the entire intake.
The branch also needs a failure path. If the primary team does not respond within the operating SLA, the conversation should move to a named backup or central dispatch queue. If the customer is outside the service area, the team should transfer the request deliberately rather than leaving two branches to respond.
Add one location manually or update locations through the API
The manual path is useful for a pilot. The API path is useful after the mapping and operating controls are stable.
Manual setup for a pilot location
Open the location's Business Profile while signed in as an owner or manager. Select Edit profile, open Contact, find Chat, and choose WhatsApp or text messaging. For WhatsApp, Google asks for a click-to-chat link. For text messaging, it asks for the number. Save the change, wait for the public profile to update, and inspect the live button on the mobile surfaces customers use.
Availability can vary by region and profile. A missing setting is not proof that the profile is broken. Record the eligibility result and continue with an approved contact path rather than creating duplicate profiles or repeatedly changing categories.
API setup for a controlled portfolio update
Google's API guide uses the Business Information API attributes endpoint for a specific location. The WhatsApp value is attributes/url_whatsapp and uses a wa.me link with the phone number in international format. The SMS value is attributes/url_text_messaging and uses an sms: URI.
Each write is scoped to one location resource and one attribute mask. That makes the location crosswalk and change log part of the implementation. Before updating anything, fetch the current attributes, compare the proposed value, and retain the previous value. After the PATCH returns successfully, fetch the location again and inspect the public profile. An HTTP 200 response confirms the API request, not the customer experience.
Do not run a portfolio-wide patch directly from a spreadsheet of phone numbers. Pilot a small, representative group first, including a storefront, service-area business, shared inbox, and location-owned channel if those patterns exist in the portfolio. The Business Profile change-monitoring guide shows how to preserve the resource, proposed change, public readback, and operator decision.
Next step
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Verify the public button and the customer handoff
Verification needs a real conversation path. Search for the location as a customer would, open the profile on a supported mobile surface, tap the visible contact option, and confirm which app or composer opens. Check the recipient, location context, automated response, response time, transfer behavior, and booking record.
If both WhatsApp and text are configured, confirm that the profile behaves as Google currently documents and exposes text. Do not rely on the editor state alone. The public button is the customer truth.
Run the test with a clearly marked internal test conversation and no customer data. Google tells businesses not to expose confidential information through profiles. The receiving team should apply its own messaging consent, retention, and privacy requirements before the channel goes live.
The final readback belongs in the location record: what customers can see, where the button opens, who answered, which location was selected, whether a backup path worked, and whether the downstream system retained source and branch identity.
Measure conversations without trusting one dashboard
Google's current Business Profile performance help lists Messages as the number of different conversations through the profile and supports performance downloads for multiple profiles. That help page does not make a message a qualified lead or booking.
There is also a documentation boundary to treat carefully. Google's 2024 native-chat deprecation notice says the BUSINESS_CONVERSATIONS metric stopped being available in the Business Profile Performance API after July 31, 2024. The current developer DailyMetric reference still lists that value. Do not promise an automated message metric until the technical team verifies what the account and API actually return.
Use the available Google report for profile-level activity, then use the owned channel and customer systems for the rest. Record whether the conversation was new, which location received it, response time, qualified service need, booking or dispatch status, completed outcome, and revenue where appropriate. Aggregate operational fields for leadership; keep message content and personal data out of the visibility report.
The Google Business Profile performance guide explains why profile actions, connected customer outcomes, paid activity, and AI visibility require separate reads. A branch with 40 conversations and two booked jobs has a different problem from a branch with 10 conversations and eight booked jobs.
Run the first 30 days as a controlled rollout
- Days 1 through 5: Select three to five representative profiles, document eligibility, map each channel destination, assign coverage, and record the baseline contact path.
- Days 6 through 12: Add the chosen option manually, test the live button, run internal conversations during and after business hours, and fix location-context or escalation gaps.
- Days 13 through 21: Expand through controlled API updates only after current-value fetch, location crosswalk, change log, rollback value, and public readback are working.
- Days 22 through 30: Compare conversations, response coverage, qualified requests, bookings, and unresolved routes by location. Repair the operating path before expanding the portfolio.
The rollout is ready to scale when a reviewer can choose any profile and answer four questions: which contact option is visible, who receives it, how the team knows the intended location, and what customer outcome followed. The button is configuration. That accountable chain is the system.
Further Reading
- Google Business Profile Help: Add WhatsApp or text messaging. Supports profile eligibility, manual setup, regional availability, shared WhatsApp links, and the rule that text is shown when both options are configured.
- Google Business Profile APIs: Add WhatsApp and Text URLs. Documents the location attributes, accepted URL formats, attribute masks, update method, and deletion path.
- Google Business Profile Help: Native chat and call history deprecation. Separates the retired Google-hosted chat feature from current external WhatsApp and SMS options and documents the Performance API metric change.
- Google Business Profile Help: Understand performance. Defines the current Messages metric and individual or multi-profile report options.
- Google Business Profile Performance API: DailyMetric. Provides the current developer reference that technical teams should compare with the deprecation notice and live API behavior.
- Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business. Supports accurate profile representation, location-specific contact details where possible, and protection of confidential information.
- Google Business Profile Help: Manage profiles in bulk. Supports business groups and bulk management for organizations with ten or more eligible locations.
Amadeus Peterson is the CTO & Co-Founder of Cheers, the local search platform for multi-location service businesses.