Your customers are already asking ChatGPT about you. Here are three ways to find out what it's telling them — from a five-minute manual check to a full automated audit.
Method 1: Ask it what a buyer would ask (5 minutes)
Open ChatGPT and ask the questions a real customer would. Don't ask "what do you know about Acme Plumbing" — buyers don't phrase it that way. Use these:
- "Is [business name] in [city] any good?"
- "What are [business name]'s hours?"
- "How much does [your main service] cost at [business name]?"
- "Best [your category] near [neighborhood]" — do you come up at all?
- "Does [business name] do [a service you offer]?"
- "[Business name] phone number"
Grade each answer: right, wrong, or refused. A refusal ("I don't have current information...") isn't neutral — it's a customer handed to whichever competitor the AI does know.
Method 2: Test the search-connected AIs
ChatGPT with browsing, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews pull live web data, so they test something different: what your website actually tells AI right now. Ask Perplexity the same six questions. If it misquotes your hours, the error is on a page you control — find it and fix it today.
Method 3: Run an automated scan (90 seconds)
Manual checks have two problems: you'll unconsciously soften the grading, and you won't repeat them next month. A free Scout scan automates the audit — it asks live AI models six real buyer questions about your business, checks the files AI reads (llms.txt, LocalBusiness schema), verifies your business info is consistent, and returns an A–F grade with every AI answer quoted verbatim. The report is a shareable link you can send to your web person.
What to do with the results
- Wrong answers about facts (hours, address, services): fix the source. Put the facts in plain text on your site, add LocalBusiness schema, and publish an llms.txt.
- Refusals: your site isn't giving AI enough to work with. Same fixes, plus a plain-English "about" section that states what you do and where.
- Competitor recommended first: look at their site. Almost always, they answer buyer questions in text ("We charge $X for Y", "Open Sundays") where you don't.
Re-check monthly — AI models and their sources change constantly. That's the boring part Scout Starter automates with weekly tracking.