Strategy

Where North Dallas Customers Look Before They Pick You (and a 6-Step Checklist)

New neighbors are moving into Collin County by the tens of thousands, and they find businesses through Google, social media and ChatGPT. Then they check your reviews. Here's the path, what it means here, and six things to fix this week.

By Larry & Mindy · November 3, 2026

Picture someone who just closed on a house in Prosper. No go-to dentist yet, no favorite taco spot, nobody to call about the gutters. So they ask around. Except "around" now means Google, Instagram, Facebook and, more and more, ChatGPT.

In our corner of Texas, that person isn't rare. Collin County added 42,966 residents in the year ending July 1, 2025, the second most of any county in the country. Every one of those new neighbors is shopping for new places.

Here's how they're doing it, and what to fix so they land on you.

The new path: find you, check you, then decide

SOCi surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. consumers for its 2026 Local Discovery Index. To find a local business, 83% use search engines, 55% use social media, and 52% used an AI tool like ChatGPT in the last 30 days. A year earlier, that AI number was 9%.

But people don't take one source's word for it. When AI recommends a business, 81% check something else before getting in touch. The most common first check is reviews (33%), then the business's social media (20%).

BrightLocal's 2026 review survey tells the same story from another angle: 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, and AI tools jumped from 6% to 45% use for local recommendations, now the third most popular source after Google and Facebook.

So customers can find you in several places, but they judge you in the same few: your reviews, your social pages and your website. If those stops look empty, old or out of sync, the AI pick or the Google result doesn't save you.

Why it matters even more in North Dallas

The checkers live here. SOCi found regular AI use climbs from 47% in households earning under $50,000 to 76% in households earning $100,000 or more. Always reading reviews climbs from 63% to 76%, and preferring businesses that answer their reviews climbs from 62% to 80%. Collin County's median household income was $121,600 in 2024. If those patterns hold here, your customers are some of the most careful researchers around.
Facebook isn't dead. Among people who use social media to find local businesses, Facebook leads at 73%, then YouTube at 69%, Instagram at 67% and TikTok at 50%. If your customers are homeowners and parents, keep your Facebook page alive.
We've seen it ourselves. A recent lead told us she found The Social Watermark by asking ChatGPT. That's the new word of mouth.

Your 6-step checklist

Most of these take 15 minutes or less.

Finish your Google Business Profile. Claimed, every field filled in, real photos, correct hours. In a study of 10,000 U.S. local businesses, the ones both ChatGPT and Perplexity surfaced averaged about 133 Google reviews. The ones neither surfaced averaged about 11. That's a pattern, not proof, but it's a loud one.
Keep reviews coming, steadily. 74% of consumers only care about reviews from the last three months, and 47% won't use a business with fewer than 20. Ask every customer the same simple way, at a natural moment. Don't offer discounts or freebies for reviews, and don't pick only the happy customers to ask. Google's rules forbid both.
Answer every review in your own words. 72% of consumers are more likely to choose a business that responds to its reviews. Copy-paste replies backfire: 50% say a templated response makes them unlikely to choose you.
Treat Instagram and Facebook like your front window. 43% of consumers look at a business on social media to preview it before they visit. And since July 10, 2025, public posts from professional Instagram accounts can show up in Google results. Put your city and what you do in your bio and captions ("Allen family dentist," "McKinney kitchen remodels"), and post recent photos of your real space and your real team. Short videos matter more every month: Instagram just started testing longer videos called Features, and it says people will mostly discover them through short Reels clips. More on that in a coming post.
Make your facts match everywhere. 67% of people who use AI have been given wrong information about a local business at least once. Check that your name, phone, hours and service area match on Google, Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, Apple Maps and your website.
Ask the robot once a month. Type "best [what you do] in [your city], TX" into ChatGPT and Gemini. Note who shows up. If you don't, the fix is usually steps 1 and 2.

Full disclosure: we're new in town too, so we're working this same checklist on our own business. When we asked ChatGPT and Gemini for social media agencies in Allen in early November, we didn't make either list. Yet. (One agency that made both lists got two different street addresses from the two tools, which is step 5 in action.) Watch our review count grow right along with yours.

Our take

AI and social media changed where people start looking. They didn't change where people decide. The finish line is still honest reviews, real photos and a quick, human reply. That's good news for local owners: no national chain can buy 50 genuine reviews from your own regulars. In a county adding tens of thousands of neighbors a year, the business that shows up the same way at every stop gets the first shot at them.

Curious what ChatGPT says about your business right now? Pick a time on our calendar for a free 30-minute call and we'll look it up together, or call or text us at (214) 233-5212.

Sources

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