Christian Hustle shares his SMX Boston presentation on new research into how consumers use AI search tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews) to discover and choose local businesses. Uberall surveyed 2,000 consumers in the US, UK, France, and Germany and found that 0% never search online before visiting a local business, making search the starting point for every local visit. Preferred discovery channels include Google (78%), Google Maps (51%), social media (51%), and AI tools (19%), with AI adoption growing quickly. After searching, 98% take further actions and 77% compare competitors; calling is the top contact method, with country-specific differences. Key deterrents are unclear/high pricing (48%), bad reviews (46%), and missing information (28%). He recommends maintaining accurate listings, actively managing reviews, removing contact friction, and being upfront about pricing.
Podcast Episode Transcript:
[00:00:01] Hey, welcome back to the Default Answer Show. Christian Hustle here, and in this video I’m actually sharing my full presentation from the last SMX Boston, where I presented the results of a new research on how local customers are starting to use AI search platforms. Think of Chat GPT, Google AI overviews to discover and choose local businesses for this study Uberall surveyed 2000 consumers across multiple countries. To understand one simple question, how many people are actually using AI as part of their customer journey when they’re trying to find a local business? How many of them are actually using AI search
[00:00:44] The results were pretty eye-opening.
[00:00:47] The short version of this episode, or the TLDR, is that AI search adoption is growing extremely fast, as fastest as we’ve ever seen in anything in marketing. Every month, more people are using platforms like Chat, GPT, Gemini, AI overviews to research compare options, and they’re trusting AI to decide who to contact.
[00:01:09] Which means the way customers discover businesses is changing as we speak. So in this presentation, I break down how often customers are using AI search today, where AI fits in the customer journey nowadays.
[00:01:24] What types of questions people ask AI when researching businesses. And what does this shift means for visibility, reputation, and recommendation in modern search. So if you work in local marketing, uh, you’re an SEO or you’re running a multi-location brand, understanding how AI discovery is shaping customer behavior is becoming critical.
[00:01:47] With that, let’s jump into the presentation.
[00:01:49] Raise your hands. That’s what I’m talking about. So my name is Christian Hussel. For the last 12 years, I’ve been consulting global brands, uh, franchises, retailers, SMBs, and recently, you know, I’m, I’m into ai, I’m a personal user, I’m a marketer and I bought a used Harley recently and I bought it from a friend.
[00:02:09] It’s like, hey, this is my first two wheeler, well guess well, at the second day, the fricking bike broke and started to leak fuel. So I started taking pictures of the fuel line, right? And I see the, the dripping, and I’m like, what if I use Chad GPT to figure it out, right?
[00:02:23] Because I’ve never fixed a motorcycle. Took pictures and started telling Chat GPT, Hey, what is going on? I have no clue. So I diagnosed the motorcycle. It helped me find the parts near me. It checked inventory for me, and it told me exactly where to go. And it was just mind blowing because obviously yes, I’m a marketer, I use it differently.
[00:02:43] But then we start questioning, it’s like, is this the future? Right? Is are consumers gonna start looking for local businesses using AI to the point where they’re asking prices, inventory, everything? So to gauge how much right this is going on and, and how much search, has. Transcend through the last several years, we actually surveyed 2000 customers.
[00:03:05] These are real customers, shoppers, consumers, not anybody here, right? No marketers, no tech savvy’s. This was just regular people and we went across the us, uk, France, and Germany, and we wanted to gauge like what’s going on? What are, what are the consumer habits on local search? What triggers trust to visit your location and what scares them away?
[00:03:25] Because honestly, it’s, let’s be honest, sometimes we scare them away, right? So how people search and how to show up when it matters most. So we ask consumers, how often do you really search for local businesses online before actually showing up to a store or location? So by show of hands, who you know, I’m gonna go through these quickly, just raise your hand.
[00:03:45] Which one do you think was the correct answer here? So what percentage said never. They never search for an online or a local business. Online. A 0% lemme C, so a couple B, 2%, C 4%, and D 9%. So the correct answer was zero. So that means that it’s safe to say every single local visit starts with a search. So in, in with some way, shape, or form, physical location doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gonna drive traffic, right?
[00:04:19] You gotta really bring that online presence and, and drive your visibility that way. So then we said, okay, well we understand that everybody’s searching for a local business online. So then we ask, how are you doing this? And these are the, the top preferred ways of how consumers are finding local, you know, local businesses.
[00:04:41] And I really wanted to call a few ones here because I saw a few surprises. Not surprised. Google at the top. Number one, the surprise party. 78% is not as high as it was one year, two years ago, right? Google Maps seems pretty stable. 51% social media. Who? Who here? Raise your hand if you ever search for a restaurant or, or things to do nearby on TikTok.
[00:05:06] That, that’s shocking to me, right? ’cause I’m, I’m a Google guy. It’s like I go straight to Google, but all my siblings, all my friends, they’re on TikTok searching for stuff and then obviously not surprised. AI tools 19%. So there’s 19% of your customers out there searching for your brand on AI tools. And this includes Google ai, Google AI Mode Chat, GPT, and all things in between.
[00:05:28] And obviously Apple Maps up and coming 11%. So we know Google is a king, but AI is growing and that’s where more than ever accuracy at scale is critical, right? We know that AI platforms are really looking at your local pages. They’re looking at your local data to learn about your brand, to learn about each and every single one of your locations.
[00:05:50] Searching is just the beginning, right? It used to be like if you were ranking number one, you were probably closing and, and turning that into a conversion. It’s not the case, right? Like people are more than ever comparing everybody in the list. They’re comparing prices, reviews, reputation. So being number one is not really gonna drive the conversion.
[00:06:09] And it’s important to know that your digital visibility equals revenue. So in the insights that we got from this survey and from this report, 98% of customers actually take further actions post search, right? That means. Check your reviews, visit your websites, click for directions before they even show up.
[00:06:30] 77%. Actually compare your brand or your business to a couple of competitors. See which one is better. Right? And, and this goes across the board. Obviously if there’s some brand loyalty that can influence that. But if you’re a local, you have local competition and you’re, you’re trying to really absorb that the traffic, think about this, right?
[00:06:49] I keep this in mind because this is gonna come in handy as we get into the tips. So then we ask consumers how they prefer to contact local businesses when they made a decision. They’re, or they’re on the fence right before they visit. So what do you think was the preferred method of contact? Because in my case, I would’ve answered text.
[00:07:08] I mean, I’ve negotiated cards. I recently bought a card through text. I talked to Delta Airlines and it was on iMessage, and I’m used to that right. Anybody wanna raise their hand and try to guess what is the number one way that local consumers try to contact a local business? Call, call. Call. Yeah, that was pretty spot on Call was the number one way.
[00:07:30] And this was across every of the countries, the number one way of how they want to contact a local business. Why? Probably because they want answers quickly, right? Like, I wanna know, are you guys open? Right? Can I come right now? This is all the fast, right? It has to be fast. Now we started noticing international trends between these countries where like the UK prefers social media to DM and and contact that local business.
[00:07:55] While Germany, obviously, you know, people from German or Germany would know, they’re very organized, so they like to book ahead. They like appointment settings. Then we have friends who were all into, I’d rather call like, I don’t wanna do anything else. I just wanna call and I’m going to compare reputation a lot more than any other country.
[00:08:14] And when it came to us. Obviously we got access to AI tools a lot faster and earlier than most countries. So the 19% of the consumers in the US are using AI tools already. So then we were talking to our friends on Google and they told us they noticed five times more views on a regularly updated Google business profile.
[00:08:37] So it’s not just claim it and let it stand there and think that it’s already said and done. And it’s continuously adding information, it’s updating it, it’s really what makes your location, your store, your brand unique. Right? So if I’m looking for a local restaurant or a bar and I wanna bring my dog, I see the f the, the one on the right dog is front and center, right?
[00:09:01] It is like I, you can’t even see the bar, you can’t even see the tables. You see a dog chilling in the patio. And that could trigger my conversion because that’s exactly what I was looking for. So once you’ve been chosen, the goal is not to blow it, right? Like you, you made all this progress, and for that you really need to be real time ready.
[00:09:20] Customers wanna act quickly, sometimes even same day. So making that first contact effortless is going to be key. Think about click to calls, think about easy forms. Think about very easy buttons and ways to interact with your brand right then. Show them what they’ll experience. I’ll tell you the story. I was in South Korea last year and we took my two stepsons and we were looking for a cake pop experience, right?
[00:09:46] Korean pop. And I found it on, on Google Map. So we show up. We could not find first how to get in to the building. ’cause this was a three story underground mall on a 50 story building. So we couldn’t find the way down. Once we’re down, we could not find, it was a mall. We could not find where the hell is this cake pop thing.
[00:10:05] We could not find it. It was like. I, you know, it was disappointing and you don’t want that, you really wanna nail that first impression. You wanna capture their loyalty from the beginning of the journey. At the same time, you know, I, I’m sure that if, you know, if we raise their hands, sometimes we scare customers away.
[00:10:22] And it’s important to know how are we doing that so we can fix it. So we ask what are where the main reasons that you would opted to not visit a local business after you found it. The answer was actually unclear or high pricing. So this was pretty surprising and I actually met a local pest control recently at a networking event, and I was talking about it.
[00:10:47] Every time you talk to a small business owner or you know, any brand, AI comes up and he goes, I just did a job at a, you know, local customer. And I asked the lady, Hey, how did you find me? And the lady answered well, I asked Chad, GPT, I want a local pest control that has competitive rates, competitive prices, and good reputation.
[00:11:07] And you were number one. You were the first one. I called you. And he said, you know what’s funny? I added my prices on my website two weeks ago. So that was pretty interesting. And oftentimes, you know, being aware of these deal breakers can set you in the right path. So 48% said lack of pricing or surprise with a, you know, sticker shock was a, a factor that they would opt in not to visit your brand locally.
[00:11:32] 46% were scared from bad reviews, which is not surprising. I mean, reputation is a big deal. And then 28% were scared of missing information that was mean in South Korea, right? It is like showing up and I don’t have a clue where the hell I’m going. So let’s dodge those flags. So how do we keep them from running away from us?
[00:11:50] Let’s be upfront about pricing. Let’s own that reputation. Let’s work towards, it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean just collecting reviews. It means responding. It means managing them, keeping your information fresh and accurate because this is all being fed into AI tools and, and knowledge, right? So the more information data you have out there, the better I want you guys to really make finding your locals, your, your local stores.
[00:12:16] Offices, brands make it effortless, right? Like make it very easy for them to find you, to contact you, and to convert, and to visit you. And at the end of the day, mind your digital voice. Let’s be human. Especially in the AI world, I think that human touch is gonna go farther than, you know, automated robotic responses.
[00:12:35] So let’s go over some quick actionable items so you can stop guessing and start winning. Visibility is to be seen. It’s to be chosen. It is not just to become number one anymore. We need to be chosen. We need that business data accuracy at scale because all these AI tools are, are learning from that Optimizes data really gives you AI ready for what’s coming, right?
[00:12:58] Remember that 19%, as of today, 19% of your customers using AI tools to try to find you. So let’s think about them. Reputation. Trust is gonna win every time. That’s where we’ve seen, like even if you’re number five on search results, but you have a stellar reputation, you may take the business from ranking number one, right?
[00:13:18] Reputation can go a very, very long way. So let’s be proactive, collecting and responding to every single one, especially the negative ones. ’cause that’s where you’ll be surprised. A lot of brands don’t respond to negative reviews. Those are the most important chances. You have to turn it around. Right. Like, Hey, this is real, right?
[00:13:36] Something happened. We’re we apologize. Let’s be human about it. Another customer comes and reads that and they see that you care. Magic happens. So to drive engagement, let’s remove friction. Let’s make it easy to act fast. Click to call chat. Easy bookings forms that work, right, and they’re not crazy complicated to fill out.
[00:13:57] Conversion really means don’t blow your chance. Like let’s, let’s do our best to have clear pricing. Special offers are going a long way. I mean, Google, Google Business Profile launch a feature that is powered by AI, gathering your specials from social media and pulling them into Google Business profile without you having to do anything.
[00:14:16] This is a theory of mine, but what if they start doing that for ai, right? What if AI now knows and can learn and predict those specials that you have posted somewhere else? So let’s, let’s monetize that. Your next customer is already searching. They’re comparing you. They’re making a decision every single day.
[00:14:33] I really want you guys to leave here today and say, I wanna show up. I wanna stand out and I wanna earn their trust from the first click. So if you’re curious about your, what your locations look like, whether you’re franchise, multi-locations, any, anything along those lines, just scan this QR code here.
[00:14:50] You can scan all your listings, all your locations, all the data to see what is out there, right? Because it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be. Very important to you to, to find those flags, to see what’s going on and how can we solve it? How can we solve this problem? With that, thank you so much.
