Answer the Maps questions a customer already typed
Customers type questions on your Maps listing before they ever call. After-hours. Do you serve my city. What do you not do. Those questions are already public. An empty answer, or a stuffed one, is what they read at 9pm. Ethical AI is in Frisco, Texas. We write the answers for HVAC, plumbing, pest, roofing, and other shops that roll trucks in Dallas-Fort Worth. One honest answer each. No keyword pile.
Open the questions that are already typed
Do this on a desktop, signed in as the owner. Open the listing. Find the questions block. Read every question out loud, including the ones a stranger posted and the ones you never approved. Write them in a note with three columns: the question, the true answer, and whether you will stand behind that answer on the phone tomorrow.
Sort them into three piles.
- Hours and after-hours. Do you pick up, or do you not.
- Where you actually roll a truck this month.
- What you refuse. Panel work you do not pull. Pests you do not treat. Roofs you do not walk.
Ignore the questions that are really ads from other shops. Report those. Do not answer them with a city list. The questions from real people are the ones that change a call.
One answer, one fact
A good answer is two or three sentences. It names the thing they asked. It says yes or no. It tells them what to do next, which is usually to call the number already on the listing. It does not add five cities. It does not promise a rank, a price you have not seen, or a same-day window you cannot keep.
Weak answer: a sentence that proudly lists eight suburbs and a 24/7 badge. That sentence answers nothing. It also trains the listing to look like every other stuffed profile on the block.
Strong answer: "We schedule service calls Monday through Friday, 8 to 5, and Saturday morning. If you call at 11pm, the phone goes to voicemail a person checks at 7am. For a no-heat call after hours, leave the address and we call you back in the morning."
The strong answer will not thrill a slogan writer. It will match what the person hears when they dial. That match is the point. A listing that lies about hours creates a one-star review you earned.
What you do not do
The most useful question on a trade listing is the refusal. Do you work on tankless. Do you treat commercial kitchens. Do you haul the debris. Answer the refusal in plain words. Customers who are a bad fit stop calling. Customers who are a fit trust you faster, because you did not dodge.
Keep the refusal specific to the work. Do not use it as a place to sneak in a second service you hope to be found for. If you do not install generators, say you do not install generators. Stop there.
Who is allowed to press publish
The owner, or one named person the owner picks, posts the answer. A model can draft the sentence from the note you wrote. A model does not invent the hours. A model does not add cities. If the draft adds a claim you would not say at the kitchen table, delete the claim before it goes up.
Use the same public name as the invoice and the truck. If those three do not match, fix that before you write a dozen answers. The name on the invoice has to be the name on Maps. Otherwise the person who liked your answer leaves the review on a listing you do not control.
Service area without a city dump
When they ask whether you come to their city, name the cities you drove to in the last 30 days, and only if you will drive there again this month. Three cities you can say on the phone is enough. A paragraph of every suburb in North Texas is not an answer. It is the same stuffing that gets a description ignored.
If you only work a tight radius around the shop, say the radius in miles and the shop city. One shop city, and about 25 miles, is a sentence. Eighteen city names is a billboard.
Roofers hit this same wall on the homepage. One city, a real service area, and photos of jobs you did is the page that matches the listing. The questions block should not contradict that page.
Tonight
- Write down every live question.
- Answer the three that mention hours, area, and a job you refuse.
- Read each answer out loud. Cut any city you did not drive to this month.
- Post them under the name that is already on the truck.
- Check them on your phone, logged out, before you close the laptop.
Need the next step on the listing? Start at get started. One honest answer per question. Ethical AI · Frisco, TX · 469-669-2728.
