Finding customers through AI assistants: a 5-step method

Your customers have picked up a new habit: before calling a professional, they ask an AI assistant for advice. “Which accountant for my small company?”, “a good restaurant for 12 people this Saturday?”. The answer names a few businesses. Here is a five-step method to become one of those names, and to turn that into customers.

Step 1: list your customers’ questions

Start from your services and your areas, not from abstract keywords. For each service, write down how a customer would ask for it out loud, in each city where you work. Think about the different intents:

Intent	Example
Discovery	“Who does drain unblocking in Roubaix?”
Comparison	“Compare plumbers in Roubaix for drain unblocking”
Decision	“Which plumber should I choose in Roubaix for drain unblocking, with good reviews?”
Brand	“What do you think of Plomberie Durand?”

Recoia builds these questions on its own from your website, and weights them by real demand (search volumes). For businesses in France and Belgium, the questions are asked in French, the way your customers ask them.

Step 2: measure who gets recommended

Ask each question several times to each assistant: a single answer proves nothing. Note who is cited, with which link and from which sources.

Step 3: choose the opportunities

An opportunity is a topic (a service in a city) where demand is high and you are rarely recommended. Start there: that is where your next customers are. In Recoia, the Opportunities tab ranks them for you, with the competitors cited instead of you.

Step 4: publish the right page, be present in the right places

For each opportunity:

• create or improve the dedicated page (see our 12-point checklist);
• look after your presence on the sites AI assistants consult for that topic (directories, reviews, local media);
• check that what the AI assistants say about you is accurate (phone number, opening hours, prices).

Step 5: measure the effect, then start again

Every 2 weeks (or weekly if you choose), the measurement runs again. When your recommendation rate clearly improves, move on to the next opportunity. Also track visits from AI assistants: they are the link between a recommendation and a customer (how to measure them).

In short

Step	Time	Tool
Questions	5 minutes	Recoia builds them from your website
Measurement	Automatic	Every 2 weeks, several runs per assistant
Opportunities	10 minutes of reading	Opportunities tab
Pages	1 to 3 hours per page	Page brief provided
Tracking	Automatic	Charts, citations, clicks, alerts

Updated 26 September 2026.