What information customers look for before they contact a local business

Before a customer requests a quote, they have usually looked at more than one business and ruled some out. The reasons for ruling a business out are rarely dramatic: an unanswered question, a missing detail, a phone number that is not there. This guide lists the things customers look for and shows how each one corresponds to something you can set on your Annuvell Local profile.

The basics: what, where and when

Three questions come before any other, and a customer will usually move on if any one of them goes unanswered.

Can I tell what you actually do?

The first question is whether you offer the service they need. Your description and your list of services answer it. Customers scan for specific words, so a dentist who lists emergency appointments, or an electrician who lists consumer unit replacement, is easier to match than one who describes themselves in general terms. Keep services as individual entries rather than a single sentence.

Are you near me, and do you cover my area?

Your address and town place you on location pages and in postcode searches. If you travel to customers, your description should name the areas you cover, but the address itself must be real. Customers searching by postcode are using it to judge distance, and a vague or missing address makes that impossible.

Are you open when I need you?

Opening hours are one of the fields the completeness panel checks, and one customers rely on directly. Someone deciding whether to call now or tomorrow needs to know. Hours that are missing force a guess; hours that are wrong cost trust when the customer turns up or rings and finds you closed.

Contact and presentation

How do I get hold of you?

Customers differ in how they prefer to make contact, which is why the enquiry form lets them choose email or phone. Your profile should offer both a phone number and an email, and a website if you have one. The dashboard checks that your website is reachable and shows a warning if it is not; a link that does not work is worse than no link at all.

What does it look like?

A logo and photographs help a customer recognise a business and get a sense of its scale and standards. Until you upload a logo, your listing shows a category icon, which is honest but says nothing about you. Photos of premises, vehicles or completed work are the most persuasive content many small businesses can add.

The finer details

Does it have the specific thing I need?

Many categories have comparison attributes, the practical yes-or-no facts a customer filters on. On your profile these show as verified (checked against your website), provided by the business (confirmed by you), or not stated. Customers can only filter on confirmed attributes, and while an unanswered one is never treated as no, it is also never treated as yes.

Has someone else answered my question already?

FAQs on your profile save customers a message. The AI profile workspace can draft FAQs from the facts already on your listing and leaves open questions for you to answer. Nothing is published until you approve it, so the drafts are a safe way to find the questions you have not yet addressed.

Is this information trustworthy?

Customers look for signs that a listing is maintained. The Verified badge reflects a completed ownership check, never a payment. Provenance labels on comparison facts tell them what was checked and what was self-declared. And because search results and editorial guides are never pay-to-play, a customer reading your profile on Annuvell Local knows it earned its place by being accurate.

Putting it together

Customers compare more than one business. A complete profile does not guarantee they will pick you, but an incomplete one gives them a reason not to. The completeness panel in your dashboard exists so you can see the gaps as a customer would.

Next steps

• Read your public profile as a stranger would and note every question it leaves open.
• Fill the missing fields listed in your completeness panel.
• Confirm your category's comparison attributes.
• If you have not claimed your listing, begin at Find my business, and see the FAQ for how claims work.