By Hamza Ali · WeProms Digital · November 7, 2026
On November 6, Google switched on a Message button next to Call on Google Maps listings across Android and iOS. If you run a halal takeaway in Bolton — Great Lever, Deane, Halliwell — that button is now a free order line sitting on the profile families already use to find you. It costs £0 per order. And in most Pakistani-owned takeaways we see, nobody is watching it.
The feature is small. The habit it demands is not.
Google has turned a directory card into an inbox, and the shops that treat it like an inbox will take the orders. The rest will keep paying commission for customers who tried to reach them direct first.
The Message button that appeared on your listing
Search Engine Roundtable reported on November 6 that eligible business listings now show a prominent Message button beside the Call button in Google Maps on both Android and iOS. When a customer taps it, the chat routes to whichever channel the business has configured — WhatsApp or text messaging. The rollout follows Google’s Business Profile chat guidance, which describes the messaging options a verified profile can switch on.
Your Google Business Profile — the free listing controlling how your shop appears on Google Maps and Search — has quietly become a two-way channel. Availability rolls out by region, so open your profile settings today and look for the Messages option. If it is there, point it at the WhatsApp number your family already answers.
The customer base is not small. Bolton counted 9.4 per cent of residents as Pakistani in the 2021 census, one of the larger South Asian communities in the North West, per Bolton’s public health intelligence data. When someone in Great Lever types “halal takeaway near me”, that person is one tap from your listing and one message from your till. Right now the message goes into a void.
That is the whole problem in one sentence.
The questions halal customers ask before they order
The messages that arrive are not general chatter. They are trust questions, and halal customers ask them before anything else: Is your meat halal-certified, and by whom? Is the fryer separate? Can you do a mixed grill for ten on Saturday? Are you open late during Ramadan?
We see the same five questions across takeaway accounts in Bolton, Manchester and Bradford. None of them need a phone call during the dinner rush. All of them need a fast, written answer, because the customer asking is usually standing on the pavement comparing three tabs on their phone.
The fix is simple. Write the answers once, save them, and paste them within the hour.
Ready-to-paste saved reply for the most common question:
“Assalamu alaikum! Yes — all our meat is halal-certified [certifier name] and our fryers are separate. For parties of ten or more we do mixed grill platters from £[X] per head. Shall we reserve a table for Saturday?”
Saved replies — pre-written answers kept ready in your messaging app — turn a two-minute hunt into a ten-second paste. Write five: halal certification, party platters, opening hours, delivery area, parking. Ramadan sharpens the stakes, because families lock in their iftar spots weeks ahead; the shop that answers on the night is the shop that gets the booking. If your listing does not yet surface in Maps searches at all, start with why a Birmingham halal takeaway disappears from Google Maps before adding messaging on top.
Where the money actually goes when nobody answers
An unanswered Maps message is the shop phone ringing during Friday prayer. The customer hears the ring, gives up, and tries the next halal takeaway on the list. The order does not vanish. It lands on Just Eat or Deliveroo with commission on every item, or in a competitor’s till.
Run the numbers on your own till. Worked example — substitute your own prices: a takeaway receiving five Maps messages a week, where two become direct orders at a £28 average, keeps £56 a week in-house. Across a month that is £241 of direct revenue. Answer the same messages the next day instead of within the hour and roughly half of those customers are gone — about £120. Never answer, and the figure is £0 while the apps collect.
Offers give the same channel a revenue push. Google published new help documentation on managing offers on Business Profiles on November 6, covering how offers appear on your listing, how you add them, and how to request removal of a third-party offer that is wrong or unauthorised. The official offers guide notes the feature works in select regions and languages, so check availability for your profile before planning around it.
An iftar family box priced at £49, with food, packaging and delivery costing £29, leaves £20 contribution per box (worked example — substitute your own costs). Twelve pre-orders before Ramadan opens puts £240 in the till before the first fast begins. The offer post on your listing is what makes those pre-orders findable. For a wider view of listing hygiene, see how delivery-app links clutter a takeaway’s Google listing.
Why six reviews from this month beat forty from 2023
Google does not publish how much review recency weighs in local ranking, and anyone claiming an exact formula is guessing. You do not need the formula. A customer reading your listing filters by dates themselves, and a wall of stars that stopped in 2023 reads like a shop that changed hands.
Google’s own review guidance tells you what to do: reply to reviews, because replies post publicly under your business name and the reviewer gets notified. Google checks replies before they go live — usually within about ten minutes — and the reviewer can update a review after reading your response, which resets its date. The same documentation explains how to generate a review request link or QR code straight from your profile.
Falsifiable claim: a takeaway with six reviews from the last eight weeks converts more Maps visitors than an identical shop with forty reviews frozen in 2023. Rank position aside, you can test that in a single week with one shift of review asks.
The ask is one line at collection, sent only to customers who agreed to hear from you:
“Assalamu alaikum [name], thank you for tonight’s order. If everything was right, a quick Google review helps our family shop more than you would think: [review link]. Reply STOP and we will never message you again.”
Timing matters more than volume. Ramadan 2027 is expected to begin around Monday 8 February, with Eid al-Fitr expected around 9–10 March, subject to moon sighting, per Khaleej Times’ calendar guidance. Families shortlist iftar spots and caterers in December and January, so reviews landing in November and December are the ones they read. The halal trust signals compound too — pair fresh reviews with adding Google’s halal badge to a Bradford takeaway’s profile, because certification questions and recent reviews answer the same worry from two directions.
The twenty minutes a week that answers most of it
One person, one phone, twenty minutes a week. That is the entire staffing requirement for the new inbox, and it fits the quiet gap between the lunch and dinner runs.
Turn on notifications for both messages and reviews, so the phone buzzes when a customer writes rather than when someone remembers to check. Reply to every review — the old ones included — in one sitting this week; Google posts replies publicly under your business name, which is free reassurance for every future reader. Schedule your Ramadan 2027 hours early, because wrong holiday hours on a listing quietly cost orders every single night, as one Kuwait mandi restaurant learned the hard way.
The checklist that operationalises all of it:
- Open your Google Business Profile settings and check for Messages; if it is available, route it to the WhatsApp number your family already answers.
- Write five saved replies: halal certification, party platters, opening hours, delivery area, parking.
- Turn on push notifications for messages and reviews on one named person’s phone — not the office tablet nobody carries.
- Ask one customer for a review at collection every shift, using the template above and only where they consented to be contacted.
- Reply to every review, past and new, this week.
- Before 8 February 2027 (expected Ramadan start, subject to moon sighting), schedule Ramadan hours and publish an iftar family-box offer through the Offers tool.
Read next: Can My Blackburn Takeaway Recover Its Google Traffic Before Ramadan? and My Halal Butcher’s Calls Dropped. What Should I Check First?
We have worked with takeaways, butchers and halal grocers across the UK and the Gulf on exactly this stack — messaging, offers, review rhythm and Ramadan calendars — and the pattern holds everywhere: the listing that answers wins the order that the apps would otherwise tax. WeProms Digital runs this as a managed service, and you can see the approach on our Google Business Profile and local SEO page for overseas Pakistani businesses. Based on our experience, the setup above takes a fortnight of part-time effort to bed in; if nobody in the family has that fortnight, our review and reputation work covers the review half of it. Message us on WhatsApp or use the contact page — we reply in UK business hours.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I turn on messages for my takeaway’s Google listing?
Open your Google Business Profile, open Settings, and look for the Messages or chat option, then follow the prompts to connect a channel such as WhatsApp. The feature reaches eligible listings in stages, so if the option is missing today, recheck after your next profile update. Availability also depends on region, which Google documents in its Business Profile chat guidance.
Does answering customers on Google Maps cost anything?
No. Google charges nothing for the Message button, the chat, or the orders it brings. The real cost is time — roughly twenty minutes a week for a single-site takeaway — against commission on every item when the same order arrives through a delivery app instead. Direct messages protect your margin; the apps rent you your own customers.
Can I ask customers for Google reviews by WhatsApp?
Yes, if they agreed to hear from you and the message includes an easy opt-out. UK rules on electronic marketing require consent before promotional messaging to individuals, and the ICO enforces that, so keep your list to customers who opted in and honour every STOP reply. Use Google’s own review link or QR code rather than any third-party review gate, because Google’s terms expect you to ask all customers, not only happy ones.
When should my takeaway start preparing for Ramadan 2027?
Ramadan 2027 is expected to begin around Monday 8 February, subject to moon sighting, so the listing work belongs in December and January. That is when families build their iftar shortlists and book caterers. Aim to have Ramadan hours scheduled, an iftar offer live, and a run of fresh reviews before the end of January, then hold the rhythm straight through Eid al-Fitr, expected around 9–10 March.
What does WeProms charge to manage a Google Business Profile?
It depends on the scope — number of locations, review volume, and whether you want Ramadan and Eid campaign calendars included — so we quote per business rather than publishing flat rates. Message us on WhatsApp at +92 300 0133399 or via the contact page with your listing URL and we will come back with a fixed quote and a starting audit. No minimum spend, and the first conversation costs nothing.
About WeProms Digital
WeProms Digital is a Lahore-based local SEO and Google Business Profile agency working with overseas Pakistani and halal-minded business owners across London, Birmingham, Manchester, Dubai, Riyadh, Toronto, Houston, and beyond.
The team specialises in local search visibility, review and reputation programmes, and Ramadan and Eid campaign calendars, with a track record of running listing, messaging and offer management for takeaways and halal retailers across the UK and the Gulf.
Get in touch: hello@weproms.com · WhatsApp +92 300 0133399 (replies in UK and Gulf business hours) · weproms.com/contact-us
Sources & References
- Search Engine Roundtable — Google Expands Business Messaging To Google Maps On iOS & Android — November 6, 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Business Profile chat
- Search Engine Roundtable — Google Business Profiles Manage Offers Help Document — November 6, 2026
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage offers on your Business Profile
- Google Business Profile Help — Manage customer reviews
- Bolton JSNA — Ethnicity: 2021 Census profile for Bolton
- Khaleej Times — Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha 2027 likely dates
Additional reading from industry feeds:
