Small businesses rely on Google for customers, but struggle to reach the tech giant in their moment of need

Canadian small business owners are struggling to receive timely support from Google when issues such as misleading reviews, suspended profiles and out-of-date business hours affect their ability to reach customers.

Stuck in a frustrating maze of drop-down menus and e-mail forms, some entrepreneurs say a lack of available, person-to-person customer support from the Big Tech platform sets them back in competitive online markets in which maintaining search visibility and positive reviews are key.

Michelle Auger, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said there’s no easy way for small businesses to reach Google for help. Based on feedback from CFIB members, Ms. Auger said the grievances reported by small business owners across the country are extensive when it comes to getting prompt, non-automated responses.

“They really are at the mercy of whatever is out there from Google,” she said.

Google did not respond to e-mailed requests for comment.

Factors such as the exponential growth of corporate giants such as Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc., and the COVID-19 pandemic, have forced an increasing number of small businesses to invest in building their online presence. The CFIB reported that from 2018 to 2020, the number of Canadians who shopped online grew by almost 50 per cent. In 2023, more than half of small business owners surveyed said they intended to continue to improve their online sales.

However, Google’s enduring near-monopoly on online searches means building an online presence can often increase small business owners’ reliance on the search engine to maintain a steady flow of income. Vass Bednar, the executive director of McMaster University’s master of public policy in digital society program, said not being searchable can affect the discoverability of a business and often lead to questions of legitimacy.

“If a business doesn’t have its own website, it’s like, ‘Do you even exist?’” she said.

Toronto-based arborist Michael Kenins said his small business, Vista Tree Management, suffered a loss of around $61,800 in sales when its Google business profile was suspended, based on sales made during the same amount of time before the suspension.

After three years of building his company’s online presence, Mr. Kenins said his battle with Google began abruptly at 5:30 a.m. on June 5. After trying, unsuccessfully, to merge a duplicate listing for his company with its current one, he woke up one day to a notification telling him his business profile had been temporarily taken down.

“I thought, ‘Well, I better appeal that. That’s obviously a mistake.’ I’d never even heard of Google suspensions, and we’d changed our addresses and done things a number of times over the years with no problems,” he said.

After rushing to submit the required appeal documents, Mr. Kenins said he was told he would receive a response within three to five business days. It was 22 days before his company profile was reinstated. During that time, Mr. Kenins said Vista only received 53 of the 125 quotes it had projected it would receive.

Mr. Kenins is proud of the profile his company has built on Google. With several other arboricultural companies competing for jobs across the Greater Toronto Area, Vista’s 4.9-star rating from 71 reviews helps it stand out from the rest, he said. When it was suspended by Google, he feared the business’s positive online footprint was lost forever.

There was no Plan B, Mr. Kenins said. Vista is searchable on the neighbourhood networking site NextDoor, and Mr. Kenins said he pays for ads on Bing, Facebook and Instagram, but none of them offered the same traction as Google.

“We don’t have enough financial capacity and expertise to leverage other marketing channels to make up for the loss that Google represents,” he said.

Throughout the ordeal, Mr. Kenins said the impossibility of reaching a human voice at the tech giant left his company vulnerable.

“You literally have no idea how long it’s going to take, no way to get in touch with Google to resolve it, and really no ability to change your circumstances,” he said.

The inability to speak with a real human over the phone any more isn’t exclusive to Google, Ms. Bednar said. The phasing out of this kind of customer support is becoming a common trend in some markets. For example, Flair Airlines and WestJet Airlines both charge $25 fees to customers who wish to book flights by phone, instead of using the company’s website.

“This erosion of customer support is happening in this broader context where we’re pushing the work back on to consumers for all sorts of things,” she said.

Despite eventually having his profile restored, Mr. Kenins said he expected better support from a search engine that has publicly acknowledged its dominance in the online world.

“It’s shocking to me that, on one hand, we rely so heavily on Google, yet it seems to have absolutely no care or concern when it comes to managing some of their products that have a deep impact on the livelihoods of the people they serve,” he said.

Ms. Auger said part of the problem with Google is there’s no industry watchdog to complain to. Following changes the federal government made to the Competition Act on June 20, which expanded the scope of abuse of dominance by large corporations, Ms. Auger said she’d like to see a role such as an ombudsperson implemented next.

“There’s no overarching organization that oversees the online space to make sure that some of these bigger players are fairly playing as well. There’s no one monitoring what the Amazons and Googles are doing in terms of their business models,” Ms. Auger said.

Similar to how the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission serves as an administrative tribunal for its industry, Ms. Auger said there could be merit in having a similar body for the online world, to improve the timeliness with which issues can be resolved.

“I think there just needs to be a level playing field in the online market, making sure that small businesses have a fair chance to compete.”