Sooner or later a customer will tell you she found you “on the AI”. She’ll have typed “gas engineer near me who does Worcester boilers, not too expensive” into ChatGPT on her phone, and your name will have come up with two others. You won’t know why. Neither has anyone else outside those companies, honestly. But you can make sure that when anything goes looking for a gas engineer in your area, it finds clear, true, up-to-date facts about you.
Where customers look now
Word of mouth is still the best lead you’ll get. After that, a homeowner with a cold house usually does one of four things.
They search Google and look at the map. The three or so businesses that show with a pin, stars and a call button get most of the attention. Those come from Google Business Profiles. Google says local results are based mainly on relevance (does the profile match the search), distance (how far you are from the searcher) and prominence (how well known you are, including your reviews and how many you have). It also says you can’t pay to rank higher there.
They use a directory. Checkatrade, TrustATrader, MyBuilder and similar sites work in different ways. Some are paid memberships with checks and reviews; MyBuilder charges when a customer shortlists you. Whether they pay off depends on your area and your trade. Track what each one brings in, in paid jobs, not leads, before you renew.
They ask in a local Facebook group or on Nextdoor. That’s word of mouth with a search box, and it runs on your name and reviews.
They ask an AI assistant. ChatGPT, Google’s AI answers, Copilot and others now answer “who should I call” questions directly. This is growing, but nobody has reliable figures for how many trade jobs start there, and you should be wary of anyone who claims to.
What we know about AI assistants, and what we don’t
Here’s the honest position. When ChatGPT searches the web, OpenAI says it sends the question to third-party search providers, works out a rough location from the person’s connection, and may use trusted providers for things like nearby business listings. It then writes an answer from what it finds. So it isn’t inventing businesses from thin air. It’s reading the same web your customers read: your website, your Google profile, directory listings and reviews.
What isn’t known is exactly how any of these assistants choose which three names to give. The companies don’t publish it, it changes, and different assistants behave differently. Anyone selling you a guaranteed “AI ranking” is guessing, or worse.
That leaves one sensible strategy, and it’s the same one that works on Google and on a homeowner’s gut: be easy to understand and easy to check. If your trade, area, hours, registration and prices are written plainly in the places that get read, any search, human or machine, has something solid to go on. If they only exist in a photo of your van or in your head, nothing can find them.
You can’t control how an AI picks three names. You can make sure everything it reads about you is plain, true and up to date.
What makes someone pick up the phone
Being found gets you looked at. These are what get you rung.
Gas Safe registration, shown so it can be checked. Put your business registration number in words on your website, your Google profile and your quotes, not just the yellow logo. Customers can check a business on the Gas Safe Register website by registration number or trading name, or by calling the register on 0800 408 5500. Each engineer’s ID card carries a licence number they can check too, and the back of the card shows the types of gas work that engineer is qualified for. Licence numbers change when the new card is issued each year, so keep your website pointing at the business number.
If you’re a plumber who doesn’t do gas work, say so plainly: “Plumbing, leaks and bathrooms. We don’t do gas work.” It saves wasted calls, and falsely implying Gas Safe registration has put people in front of a court. It’s not a marketing decision.
A clear service area. List the towns or postcodes you cover. If you work from home, Google says service-area businesses that don’t see customers at their address should hide it and set a service area instead.
Real photos. Your van, your face, your work. A tidy cylinder cupboard you fitted beats a stock image of a smiling man with a spanner every time.
Prices, or at least the call-out fee. Not every job can be priced from a sofa, but a call-out fee, a typical service price or a “from” price tells a customer you’re straight with them. It also stops the calls from people who were never going to book.
Hours that are true. If you don’t do evenings or emergencies, say so. If you do, say what it costs.
Recent, real reviews. Ask every customer, at the end of every job. Since April 2025, fake reviews and hidden paid-for reviews are banned under consumer law, and the CMA is investigating businesses over it. You don’t need tricks. You need to ask, every time. See how to ask for reviews without it being awkward.
The one-hour checklist
Put an hour in the diary this week. Do these in order and stop when the hour’s up. Pick it up again next week.
Then a few rules to keep it working:
One last thing. Being found is wasted if nobody answers. A customer who picked you out of three names will try the next one if your phone rings out. See why the missed call is the expensive one. Datify can answer your business calls using your name, hours and services, take the details, and send you a summary on WhatsApp, so a new customer gets a proper answer even when you’re under a floor. It’s set up with you and tested with a real call before it covers your number. See how that works.
Nobody outside the AI companies knows exactly how assistants pick which engineer to name, so ignore anyone selling guarantees. What works everywhere is plain, matching, checkable facts: your Gas Safe business registration number in words, your service area, real photos, your call-out fee, true hours and recent reviews. Spend one hour fixing your Google profile and listings, then answer the phone when it rings.
Writes about what actually happens when you put an AI in charge of real business operations — including the parts that go wrong.