Google plans to shut down Google Business Profile chat and call history, which let customers contact businesses in Maps and Search, on July 31, 2024
Google will be shutting down the Google Business Profile chat and call history feature on July 31, 2024.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google’s removal of Business Profile chat and call history continues a record of retiring communication and directory-adjacent features, including the earlier shutdown of inactive Google+ pages tied to Google My Business. It also follows Google’s longer migration away from legacy messaging products, culminating in the mobile Hangouts move to Chat.
For businesses, the significance is not simply another product sunset: these tools sat inside the Maps and Search surfaces where customers discover local merchants. Their removal changes which interactions businesses can manage through a Google-controlled profile.
First-order effects
- Google Business Profile users lose chat and call-history functionality on July 31, ending those customer-contact paths within Maps and Search.
- Customers and businesses that used those features must shift inquiries and follow-up to other contact methods the business makes available.
Second-order effects
- Businesses that treated Business Profile as an inquiry-management channel will need to revise staff workflows and ensure alternative contact details are current and monitored.
- The change makes a business’s own contact channels more important relative to Google’s profile interface, while reducing the interaction history available through that interface.
Third-order effects
- If repeated across local-search features, this would further position Business Profiles as a discovery and information layer rather than a full customer-relationship tool.
- The broader risk for merchants is platform dependency: capabilities embedded in a dominant discovery surface can be withdrawn, requiring businesses to retain independent ways to capture and manage customer relationships.
The trend: Google’s product strategy continues to concentrate support around selected platforms while pruning legacy or peripheral engagement features.