What happens when a customer asks ChatGPT or Yelp Assistant to contact my business?

When a customer asks ChatGPT for a quote, the request usually reaches you as a normal marketplace lead. Nothing says AI sent it. OpenAI's Get Quote feature is "currently in beta and being tested with approved partners."¹ Tygart Media reported in September 2026 that these requests route into Yelp as billable leads. They land in your Yelp inbox "with no source tag."²

Tygart's summary of the new path: "problem → ChatGPT → a name → a button → a lead. Your website is not in that chain."² Your reply is still in the chain. This runbook shows where each assistant's request lands and how to answer it.

Outcome: every AI-originated quote request gets a priced, timed reply and a follow-up. Time: one hour to set up, then minutes per request. Prerequisites: owner access to your Yelp business account (and any other listing you pay for), your price list or price ranges in writing, and access to your calendar.

What happens when a customer taps Get Quote in ChatGPT?#

ChatGPT's Get Quote button hands the customer to a partner platform's quote form. OpenAI's developer spec sets the rules. ChatGPT shows the button on a business card "only when the business has an eligible service provider." The partner supplies a feed with your business ID, name, address, coordinates, phone and website. A tool called request_service then opens the partner's quote widget inside ChatGPT.¹

Note what the feed holds. It holds your contact details, not your prices or availability. The answer to the customer's question still has to come from you.

Tygart reports that home-services quote requests from ChatGPT route through Yelp. It also notes a non-exclusive licence of about 330 million Yelp reviews and 8 million listings to OpenAI, reported in July 2026. A request then arrives as a Yelp Request a Quote lead, billed at your standard Yelp lead price. "You never know ChatGPT was involved."² These are trade-press findings. Verify against your own Yelp inbox and billing.

What does Yelp Assistant do when it contacts a business?#

Yelp Assistant is Yelp's own AI acting for the customer. Yelp's April 2026 release says it can reserve tables, order food and schedule appointments through Vagaro, Zocdoc, Calendly and RepairPal. It can also "obtain estimates from professionals across 450+ service categories."³

Yelp's October 2025 release adds two facts that matter. Yelp rolled out "response quality badges" nationwide. And it said the Assistant will become "the front door… and the primary way people discover and connect with great local businesses."⁵ Your reply speed is now shown to customers on Yelp.

Yelp's August 2026 post covers the ChatGPT side for restaurants: booking tables, joining waitlists and changing reservations through Yelp. Yelp also says it has "a 3.4x lead in citations over its nearest competitor" for home services across major AI platforms. That is Yelp's own claim.⁴

Where does each AI assistant's request land?#

Each AI assistant sends a customer's request down a different path. Find your row before you set anything up.

The volume is still small but growing. BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US adults found 45% used AI tools for local recommendations, up from 6% in 2025.⁷ SOCi's 2026 index found ChatGPT recommends 1.2% of the 350,000+ brand locations it tracked.⁸ Being named is rare. Wasting the request once named is the avoidable loss.

Use this runbook if, and do not use it if#

This AI quote-request runbook fits service businesses that take quote requests through a listing. Check the filter.

Pre-flight: five checks before the next request arrives#

The pre-flight checks confirm you will see an AI-originated request and can answer it fast. Run all five. Do not skip to the reply sequence.

1. Open your Yelp business inbox. Find your last five quote requests. Verify: you can see each one and your reply. Fail: requests with no reply. Answer them today.
2. Check how you are notified. App push, email, or both. Verify: a test request reaches the person who answers within five minutes. Fail: notifications go to an inbox nobody reads. Change the address.
3. Find your lead price. Open your Yelp billing. Write down what one request costs. If you cannot find it, use Angi's reported average of about $44.50 per lead as a placeholder.⁹
4. Write your quote facts. Price or range for your five most common jobs, service area, earliest availability, what you need to give a firm quote. Verify: one page, no gaps.
5. Set your reply-by target. Thumbtack found pros replying within 30 minutes were "25% more likely to get hired than those who respond within three hours."¹¹ That is Thumbtack data, not Yelp's. Use it as a target anyway.

How to answer an AI-originated quote request: three messages#

An AI-originated quote request gets the same three-message sequence as any paid lead. The first reply answers. The second follows up with something useful. The third closes the loop.

Notes on the illustration: the request carries no sign it came from ChatGPT. The reply gives a range from written facts, names what changes the price, and offers two real times. The follow-up is set before the first reply goes out.

Message 1: within your reply-by target
"Thanks for reaching out about [job]. For [job], our price is usually [range] for [what's included]. The price depends on [one or two factors]. I can [confirm on a short visit / give a firm quote with a photo of X]. I have [time 1] or [time 2]. Which works for you? Quick question: how did you find us?"

Message 2: 1–2 days later if no reply
"Following up on your [job] request. I'm holding [time] for you until [day, time]. If that doesn't suit, send me a time that does, or the [detail] I asked about and I'll firm up the price."

Message 3: 3–4 days after message 2, then stop
"Last note from me on [job]. I've released the time I was holding. If you still need this done, reply here and I'll send current availability."

Message 1 ends with "how did you find us?" for a reason. It is the only reliable way to learn which requests started in ChatGPT. Message 2 holds a real time. Message 3 stops. For why two follow-ups is enough, see how many times to follow up with a lead.

Three ways this fails, and the exact fix#

AI-originated quote requests fail in three predictable ways. Each one has a check.

Failure 1: you pay for requests you never see#

A paid quote request that sits unread costs the full lead price. An Angi pro wrote on Trustpilot in September 2026: "I got one job out of 30 leads."¹⁰ At Angi's reported average of about $44.50 a lead, 30 requests a month is about $1,335 prepaid.⁹ That is Angi's figure; Yelp's per-lead price is set per account.

Symptom: your billing shows more requests than your replies. Fix: compare the two counts every week. Verify: the counts match.

Failure 2: you reply without a price#

Requests sent by AI on a customer's behalf are often price checks. Invoca measured Google's AI calling businesses for prices in late 2025. 26% of those calls went unanswered. 48% of the answered calls did not give a price.¹³ That was phone, not Yelp. The written version is a reply that says "call us for a quote."

Symptom: customers go quiet after your first reply. Fix: give a range from your written facts and say what changes it. Verify: every first reply in the last week contains a number.

Failure 3: a booking link with no follow-up#

A scheduling link is not a follow-up. Calendly's Yelp integration lets pros "share scheduling links directly within Request a Quote (RAQ) conversations."⁶ That helps the customer who is ready. The customer who is comparing three quotes goes quiet, and nobody follows up.

Symptom: sent links, few bookings, no second messages. Fix: schedule message 2 when you send message 1. Verify: every open request has a next step and a date.

Rollback and monthly health check#

The rollback for this runbook is simple: if a template reply ever misstates a price, stop using templates for that job. Reply by hand until the facts page is fixed.

1. Count requests and replies. Monthly, from your Yelp inbox and billing. They should match.
2. Count "how did you find us?" answers. Track ChatGPT, Yelp, Google and other. This is your only source data.
3. Check reply times. Sample five requests. Each should meet your reply-by target.
4. Re-check the paths table. Quarterly. Platforms change fast.

The same reply rules apply to other listings. For wedding listings, see why Knot and WeddingWire leads go quiet. For Google's own AI in your messages, see Google's Business Profile AI agent.

Where Valet fits#

Valet answers a small business's written inquiries, including listing, directory and marketplace lead emails, website forms and email. It answers whoever writes, including AI assistants acting for a customer. Replies come only from the owner's own facts, offer real times from the calendar, and follow up at most twice by default before stopping and telling the owner why. One check first: whether a marketplace lets you reply to a lead from email depends on that platform's setup, so confirm how your Yelp requests reach you. The free lead check reviews 10 to 20 recent inquiries and shows which went unanswered or stopped after one reply.