News about Klarr, and a small piece of it. A single case, which we are sharing because it illustrates what we have been measuring for months: more and more people no longer just search on Google. They ask an assistant.
What happened
On the evening of 3 November, a demo request came in through the form on our website. It came from a venue in south-west France that has its own restaurant, and it was sent from our comparison of restaurant booking software (in French).
Three days later, during the call, its team explained how they had found us: by putting their question to ChatGPT.
We are not naming the venue: it did not ask us to, and it is not a customer. It is a demo request.
What this case shows, and what it doesn't
What it doesn't show: a trend. One case is one case. Nor do we know the exact question put to ChatGPT, or how many other tools it mentioned alongside us.
What it does show: the assistant sent someone to a specific page, our comparison, which answers a specific question. That is consistent with what we saw in our study of 4 October: six assistants asked for the best restaurant in each Paris arrondissement, 120 answers checked, 82 different restaurants named first, and 17 answers out of 120 sending the customer to the wrong place. Assistants cite what they find clearly written somewhere, and get it wrong when the information is vague or out of date.
The reverse test
While preparing the demo, we worked the other way round. When you ask ChatGPT for a restaurant with a terrace and a view in this venue's area, it suggests three nearby restaurants, but not its own. When you ask about its main activity, on the other hand, it names the venue first.
On its website and on the sites that mention it, we also spotted small discrepancies: opening hours that differ from page to page, two contact email addresses, three phone numbers with no indication of which one reaches the restaurant. Nothing serious, but exactly the kind of vagueness that makes an assistant hesitate, and a customer too.
For a restaurant owner, in practice
Nobody can promise you will be mentioned by ChatGPT. What you can do is give it no reason to get you wrong or leave you out:
- The same information everywhere: opening hours, season, phone number, email, on your website, your Google listing and directories.
- Written answers to the questions people ask you: terrace, groups, access, allergens. What isn't written anywhere can't be picked up.
- A booking link on your Google listing and your website, so that a recommendation turns into a table.
- Replies to your reviews: they are pages that assistants read too.
And to find out where you stand, the simplest thing is to ask the question a customer would ask yourself, in a private window, or to take our free test.
What we are changing on our side
To find out whether this case stays isolated, our demo requests now show where the visitor came from: an AI assistant, a search engine, a social network, another website. Nothing is tracked for anyone who doesn't fill in the form. If more requests come in through an assistant, we will say so here, with figures.