Survey: most people check you elsewhere before calling
By Mohit Sawhney
Near Media has published a summary of a consumer survey from the software company SOCi, discussing how people find local businesses. The headline finding: when someone is recommended a local business, most of them do not act on it straight away. They go and check somewhere else first.
This is a trade publication reporting a private company's survey, not an announcement from Google. Treat the numbers as one study's findings rather than settled fact. But the pattern behind them is worth a few minutes of your time.
What the survey found
According to the write-up, when an AI tool recommends a local business, only 19% of people would contact that business directly. The rest go verifying: 33% read reviews, 20% look at social, 16% run a search engine query, and 12% consult multiple sources. In total, around 81% check somewhere else before acting.
SOCi calls this the "verification loop" — the idea that people rotate between search, social, AI tools and review sites to confirm a choice, rather than moving in a straight line from discovery to phone call.
The survey also reports a large jump in people using AI tools to research local businesses in the last 30 days, from 9% to 52% year on year. Notably, search did not fall as a result — it ticked up slightly, from 83% to 84%. The report's reading is that people are adding AI on top of search, not swapping one for the other, and that Google increasingly acts as the place where they check the answer.
Other findings: 55% of consumers say they use social networks to search for local businesses; and starting points vary sharply by trade, with fuel and auto skewing towards mapping apps, while financial services skewed towards social.
What this actually means for you
Nothing here requires you to sign up for anything or change your profile today. The practical read is simpler than the terminology suggests.
Assume the customer will check your reviews. If someone hears about you from a friend, an AI tool, or a Facebook post, the survey suggests reviews are the single most common next stop. That makes your review count and your replies part of the decision, not an afterthought. If you have only a handful, getting your first Google reviews is a better use of an hour than most marketing tasks.
Make sure the details match wherever you appear. The point of a verification loop is that the customer is comparing what they see in one place against another. If your opening hours are right on Google and wrong on Facebook, or your phone number differs between your profile and your website, you have given them a reason to hesitate.
Have somewhere of your own for them to land. The write-up lists a short priority set for most businesses: your own website, Google Maps, Yelp and Facebook. A profile answers "are you real and are you open". A website answers "can you do the specific thing I need, and how much roughly". If you are unsure whether that second part is worth it, our guide on whether you need a website alongside a Google profile walks through it.
What not to do
Don't read this as "I must be on every platform". The survey does not say that, and neither does Near Media's summary. It says people check a few places. Being accurate and present in four places beats being half-finished in twelve.