For business owners · Launch League blog
Is your business ready for AI assistants? A ten-minute checklist
By Nick Gonzalez, founder, U.S. Air Force veteranPublished
The short answer
A business is ready for AI assistants when its phone gets answered, whoever answers can give a price range and next opening, its Google Business Profile has correct hours and services, and its website says plainly what it does, where, and how to book. You can check all four yourself in about ten minutes.
Read yourself like a stranger
An AI knows only what a stranger could find in five minutes: your profile, your website, and whoever picks up. Owners fill the gaps from memory without noticing. Once a year, check your business with nothing but what a stranger sees, and fix every gap you had to fill in.
1. Does your phone get answered?
Call your own number at three times: mid-morning, lunch, and half an hour after closing.
- Does a person answer? If not, does voicemail say when you'll call back?
- Is the voicemail box full?
- Does the caller get a text back when you miss it?
2. Can whoever answers say the three things?
What you do, roughly what it costs, and when your next opening is. Ask the person who usually answers. If they need to check with you, write the answers down where they can see them.
3. Is your Google Business Profile right?
Search for your business on your phone and read the profile as a customer would.
- Hours and holiday hours
- Phone number that actually rings somewhere
- Services listed by the names customers use
- Service area and booking link
- Recent reviews asked for and answered
4. Could an AI repeat your website correctly?
Open your homepage. Within one screen, does it say what you do, where you do it, and how to book? Is each main service on its own page, in plain words? Are your hours on the site, and do they match Google? AI assistants read websites the way a hurried stranger does. Vague slogans give them nothing to repeat.
5. Do your staff know the one rule?
Answer questions about the business; never give a caller payment details, codes or passwords. That handles legitimate AI callers and scammers in one sentence.
When to get help
If two or more of these failed, the AI Call-Readiness Audit does all of it for you, unannounced, at different times, and hands you a written report, a phone script and corrected profile details for $297 plus HST, credited toward any fix.
Questions
Quick answers
- Does this guarantee more customers?
- No. It removes the reasons a customer, or an assistant working for one, would skip you. What happens after depends on your price, your reviews and your work.
- How often should I check?
- Every season, and every time your hours change. Holiday hours are the detail businesses most often forget.
- Do I need an AI receptionist?
- Only if your phone regularly goes unanswered. If someone reliably answers and knows the three things, you may not.
- Is this the same as SEO?
- It overlaps. A clear website and accurate Google profile help search too, but this checklist is about being reachable and understood, not about rank.
Next step
What does your business sound like to an AI?
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Sources: Google Search Help: check pricing for local businesses with AI · Google Business Profile Help: manage advanced settings (automated calls) · Google Business Profile Help: Google will never ask for payment or passwords · Google: Duplex calls businesses to update hours on Search and Maps (2020). Coaching is not therapy, medical, legal or financial advice.