Imagine you own a restaurant and you get all your reservations online through your booking system; you even tell people to book online when they call, via an automated message. But then, all of a sudden, Google decides to hijack that booking link and replace it with Google Assistant's calling feature.
So instead of Google linking to the booking system you selected, let's say OpenTable booking integration. Now Google uses Google Assistant to try to call the restaurant and speak to a person. But no person will answer the call, the call goes to a message to tell people to book online. So the next thing that happens is that Google gives up calling, thinks there are no reservations available and tells those trying to book online that there are no reservations available.
That is exactly what is happening to one of Claudia Tomina's customers, as she posted about this on LinkedIn. Here is what she wrote:
Today, I noticed that a restaurant I manage had its OpenTable booking integration replaced with Google Assistant.Instead of OpenTable, Google now calls the restaurant to request bookings. But here’s the problem; Google has determined that it has called too many times, and now customers can’t book at all.
Worse yet, the restaurant doesn’t even answer its phones (they receive 1,500+ calls per month).
I turned off Google Assistant in the settings, hoping that would bring back the OpenTable booking link, but instead, it displayed: “This merchant is not accepting reservations through Google at this time.”
This is a horrible user experience that costs restaurants sales.
She posted these screenshots of the Google Assistant experience for this restaurant:
Pick a date/time:
Sorry, nothing available:
This is just one more example of how Google gets this booking stuff wrong; and we've covered plenty of previous examples over the years.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
