What prompts should a local business test in AI assistants?
Short answer
Test the questions your customers would really ask: recommendation prompts that pair a service with a city you serve, prompts about your business by name, and the problem questions that come before a call. Word them the way a homeowner talks, avoid leading questions, and keep the wording fixed so later runs can be compared.
Test the questions your customers would really ask: recommendation prompts that pair a service with a city you serve, prompts about your business by name, and the problem questions that come before a call. Write them the way a homeowner talks, not the way a keyword list reads. Then keep the wording fixed, so that next month’s answers can be compared with this month’s.
The kinds of prompt worth testing
Each row below answers a different question about your business.
| Kind | Example | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Recommendation | “Who should I call for AC repair in Chula Vista?” | Whether you’re named when someone is choosing |
| Urgent | “My water heater is leaking in Oceanside. Who can come out today?” | Whether you’re named when speed matters |
| Specific job | “Who installs EV chargers in Carlsbad?” | Whether assistants connect you with that service |
| By name | “What do you know about [your company] in Escondido?” | What is said about you, and whether it’s accurate |
| Comparison | “[Your company] or [a competitor] for a panel upgrade?” | How you’re described next to a rival |
| Problem | “Why is my AC blowing warm air?” | Whether one of your pages is cited as a source |
How to word them
As full sentences, the way a person would say them out loud. People type a few words into a search box and write whole questions to an assistant, often with detail attached.
- Use the real places you work in: Rancho Bernardo, La Mesa, Vista. “San Diego” alone is too broad to tell you much.
- Include the qualifiers customers add, such as “licensed”, “open on Saturday” or “for an older house”.
- Don’t lead. “Is [your company] the best plumber in San Diego?” invites agreement and tells you nothing. Ask the neutral version.
- Don’t put your own name into a recommendation prompt. The point is to see whether it comes up unprompted.
How many, and where to find them
A short list you’ll rerun is worth more than a long one you run once. Start with the services that bring in the most revenue and the cities that matter most to you, and write one recommendation prompt for each pairing you care about. Add the by-name prompts and a few problem questions.
The best source of wording is your own customers. Ask whoever answers the phone what people say in the first ten seconds of a call. The search terms in Google Search Console and the questions left on your Google Business Profile are useful too. An AI visibility audit begins with agreeing this list.
Running them fairly
Ask each prompt in a new conversation, because earlier messages color later answers. If you ask about your own company first and for a recommendation second, the second answer is already biased toward you.
Some assistants remember past chats or personalize their replies. Where a setting or a temporary chat mode lets you switch that off, use it. These features change, so look at the current settings yourself.
State the city in the prompt so the answer doesn’t depend on where the assistant thinks you are. Note the assistant and the date, and run each prompt more than once. If you have never done this before, start with how to find out if ChatGPT recommends your business, which is simpler. What to record from each run is part of how I measure AI visibility.
What a prompt list can’t tell you
What real customers typed isn’t available to businesses, so your list is an informed estimate of their questions. Treat it as a sample, and revise it when a customer mentions a question you had not thought of. When you add or reword a prompt, mark that date, because results before and after it are no longer comparable for that line.