Home service contractors are constantly searching for ways to connect with more customers. Over the past year, there has been a huge uptick in the utilization of AI platforms that serve as chatbots. ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Bard, Grok, and Facebook have started to become the household names of AI chat. This week the industry has been introduced to another chat platform DeepSeek which rapidly became the most popular downloaded app for Apple and Chrome devices. The potential disruption to the market is worth following as the reviews for this chatbot have been very positive and the press coverage will certainly increase demand in the short term.
Top plumbers in Dallas, roofing contractors in Cedar Rapids, HVAC repair experts in Atlanta. These searches occur daily on chatbots and more contractors are hoping to have their digital marketing efforts improve their visibility within these chats.
With limited published insight available on the algorithms that build chat results, we have to turn towards prompting to glean more information. Here is what we have discovered for DeepSeek and how it may be used to improve visibility today and in the future.
A search for “top electricians in Detroit” brought these companies as suggestions:
According to DeepSeek the order of recommendations for these companies was determined by many factors, with a large focus on the electrical companies' ratings, reviews, and reputation. This type of language is consistent with chatbots when they are recommending companies. The great thing about chatbots is they can be prompted to share additional details and through these prompts, we can get further insight into factors that could influence their recommendations.
Range of ServicesExperience and Expertise
Customer Service
Licensing and Insurance
Reputation and Reliability
Quality of Workmanship
Transparency and Communication
Emergency Services
Warranty and Guarantees
Community Involvement
Digging deeper, we wanted to find out if DeepSeek was leveraging 3rd party websites that might influence the electrical companies they recommended. So we prompted the platform with this question.
Were there any third-party websites that influenced the recommended companies list?
Yes! Third-party websites and platforms played a significant role in influencing the list of recommended electricians in Detroit. These platforms provide valuable insights through customer reviews, ratings, and other relevant information that help gauge the reliability, quality, and reputation of service providers. Here are some of the key third-party websites that were considered:
Based on the above list there are some opportunities for contractors to improve their visibility on DeepSeek.
One of the key items discovered during this analysis is the data being used to provide the recommendations was from October of 2023, which lends itself to being quite dated in modern digital marketing terms.
The good news is that the insight provided by DeepSeek correlates with many other leading AI chatbots. As these chatbots quickly evolve, we can anticipate that the factors they use to influence results will change and the freshness of their data crawls will increase dramatically.
With more and more users testing out chatbots, contractors who are looking for greater brand awareness and customer leads are turning to the marketing experts from HLM to create comprehensive digital marketing strategies to reach more customers.
For over fifteen years HLM has been helping home service companies fill their dispatch boards. If you are searching for a marketing agency to help you attract more customers and generate leads consistently, contact HLM to speak with a marketing expert today.