What to do when one of my locations closes permanently?
When a location closes permanently, it normally means that the location won't reopen for the public any more. Many business owners would like to have all the profiles deleted on the local marketing platforms, but unfortunately the platforms don't support that kind of actions.
What are then the best practices when a store closes for good?
1. Mark the store as permanently closed in Localistico and publish. This updates the status of the profiles on all linked local marketing platforms such as Google, Facebook, Yelp etc. Updating the status also informs the existing customers that this location is no longer available. If the location would just disappear from the platform, customer might get confused. Keeping customers informed is a big part of building a relationship with trust between your business and your customers.
2. Google also recommends creating a post and updating the description of the store to let the customers know that the store no longer opens. This may also help Google to detect if someone is incorrectly trying to reopen a closed store via Google suggestions.
3. Keep managing the store with Localistico. As long as the closed store is registered in Localistico, Localistico detects when the profile gets opened on one of the platforms and is able to mark it again as closed. We recommend publishing the permanently closed stores at least once a month to override any platform suggestions. When Google finally deletes the profile, you may remove the store from Localistico. Please note that at the moment, Google doesn't provide any timeline for that action.