How do people find an HVAC company now?
The searches are blunt: "AC repair near me," "AC not cooling," "furnace not working," "HVAC company open now," "heat pump repair," usually with a town name. Most happen on a phone, in an uncomfortable house, and the caller picks from the first few businesses on the map.
More of them now skip the search box and ask an AI tool:
- "Who's the best AC repair company in Phoenix?"
- "My furnace is blowing cold air. Who can come out today in Columbus?"
- "Is it worth replacing a 15-year-old heat pump, and who does it near Charlotte?"
ChatGPT, Claude, Google's AI Overviews, Gemini, and Perplexity answer those by pulling from search indexes, listings, and reviews. If your company isn't in what they find, a competitor gets named instead. The free AI visibility report shows you who that is today.
What gets an HVAC company recommended?
Mostly the basics, done thoroughly. Your Google Business Profile needs the right primary category, every service you actually do (AC repair and replacement, furnace and heat pump service, duct work, maintenance plans), and a service area that matches where your trucks go. Your website needs a page for each main service and town that answers the question in its first sentence, so a tool looking for "furnace repair in Westerville" finds a page that says exactly that.
Reviews carry a lot of weight. A steady flow of recent reviews that mention the job and the neighborhood ("fixed our AC the same afternoon") gives Google and the AI tools something specific. That's what review generation is for.
Then there's the AI side itself: making sure AI crawlers can read your site, that Bing has you (ChatGPT search leans on it), and that your details match everywhere. AI search optimization covers that, and we track the answers every month so you can see whether you're being named.
Some states also require your contractor license number in your advertising. Florida, for example, requires it "regardless of medium" (section 489.119, Florida Statutes). We check the rule for your state and put the number where it belongs.
How do the seasons change the work?
HVAC runs on the weather, and the weather depends on where you are. Summer AC demand peaks in the South and Southwest, while furnace and frozen-condensate calls come in waves during cold snaps up North. Heat pump companies in between get both, often in the same week in spring and fall.
The busy season is when you need to be visible, and the slow season is when you build for it. A post about what to check before calling for AC repair, published in May, is the kind of page people find in July and AI tools quote. Shoulder months are for tune-up reminders, maintenance plan pages, and asking last season's customers for reviews. Blog content keeps that calendar filled.
On the coasts, hurricane and storm seasons add another wave: units that won't restart after an outage, flooded condensers, and surge damage, all at once.
When the calls come in
The hottest afternoons and the coldest mornings bring the most calls, and that's exactly when every tech is already on a job. After dark the calls get more urgent: a house at 85 degrees and climbing, a newborn, an elderly parent with no heat. The AI receptionist answers every one with questions you approve:
- Is the system running at all, or running and blowing the wrong temperature air?
- Any ice on the outdoor lines, water around the indoor unit, or a frozen condensate line?
- Any burning smell, gas smell, buzzing, or a breaker that keeps tripping? (If yes, it follows your safety instructions and treats the call as urgent.)
- Is anyone in the home elderly, an infant, or medically at risk from the heat or cold?
- Are you on one of our maintenance plans?
- Address, gate code, pets, and the best number to reach you.
Then it books the right slot by your rules or transfers an emergency to your on-call tech. It never diagnoses the problem and never promises an arrival time you don't have.
What Kedvezo does for HVAC companies
- AI search optimization and local SEO, so you show up on Maps and in AI answers for heating and cooling work in the towns you cover.
- Reviews after every finished job, and a website with a page for each service and town.
- The AI receptionist answers every call, triages emergencies, and books by priority.
- Missed-call text-back for callers who hang up, and follow-up on replacement quotes that go quiet. Texting goes live after carrier registration, usually 1 to 3 weeks.
The Google Business Profile checklist for HVAC and plumbing companies covers the profile in detail if you'd rather start on your own.