With 84% of consumers searching daily for local businesses, local experience (LX) is now a key entry point—and a vital driver—of the overall CX journey.
Customer experience (CX) begins long before a purchase—it starts the moment a consumer searches for your business online. This initial interaction sets the tone for everything that follows, influencing whether they choose to engage, trust, and ultimately make a transaction.
In the fast-evolving digital world, consumers expect more than just visibility; they want accuracy, speed, and personalised convenience from the very first touchpoint. Rio SEO’s fifth annual Local Search Consumer Behaviour Study sheds light on these shifting expectations.
Based on a survey of U.S. consumers, the report reveals how search behaviour is evolving, driven by the demand for precise information and AI-powered ease.
With 84% of consumers searching daily for local businesses, it’s clear that local experience (LX) has become a critical entry point—and a powerful driver—within the broader CX journey. For many brands, the moment a customer finds you in search is the moment your CX truly begins.
“In today’s digital search environment, just being visible is no longer enough on its own,” said Kyle Ferguson, CEO of Press Ganey Forsta’s Cross-Industry Division.
“Customers expect personalised, real-time answers across every platform, and they’re choosing businesses that show up with accurate listings, strong reputations, and fast responses. This study confirms what we hear from clients every day: your local experience strategy is now a defining competitive advantage.”
ALSO READ: To Drive ROI, CX Leaders Must Move Beyond Vanity Metrics
Key Findings:
- Local Search Is a Daily Habit: Most people look for local businesses online every day, making visibility highly competitive. In fact, 84% of consumers search locally daily.
- AI-Powered Search Changes the Game: AI is transforming how people discover businesses. 60% of consumers click on AI-generated summaries in Google Search, and 32% value AI features like personalised recommendations.
- Reviews and Reputation Matter Most: Consumers heavily depend on reviews—75% read at least four before deciding. Star ratings are the top trust signal, but active brand engagement in reviews is becoming increasingly important.
- Speed and Accuracy Shape Experience: Correct business listings are essential, as 53% of consumers avoid businesses with inaccurate info. Moreover, 59% expect brands to respond within 24 hours when contacted.
What Leading Brands Are Doing to Elevate CX
Today’s customers are more informed and more selective than ever. They rely on AI-enhanced search results, read reviews before making decisions, and expect seamless digital experiences from discovery to purchase. For enterprise brands, these findings signal the need to rethink local strategy across every touchpoint.
Many brands are using local experience management tools to ensure accuracy, surface relevant reviews, and optimise visibility across both Google and Apple Maps. By managing listings at scale, engaging with feedback, and preparing for AI-powered discovery, these organisations aren’t just staying visible—they’re staying chosen.
“Search isn’t a moment, it’s a journey,” added Kyle Ferguson. “From the first tap to the final purchase, consumers expect real-time answers, accurate listings, and personalised experiences. The brands that meet those expectations—across mobile, AI, and local platforms—are the ones that will win.”
ALSO READ: Phonexa Increases Consumer Conversions Through SMS
Microsoft Dynamics 365 represents a robust cloud-based CRM solution with features such as pipeline assessment, relationship analytics, and conversational intelligence. It utilises AI-powered insights to provide actionable intelligence via predictive analytics, lead scoring, sentiment analysis, etc. Currently, Microsoft operates in 190 countries and is made up of more than 220,000 employees worldwide.
HubSpot is an inbound marketing, sales, and customer service software provider, offering robust CRM and automation solutions. Some of its products include Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Operations Hub, Content Hub, Commerce Hub, Marketing Analytics and Dashboard Software. Guided by its inbound methodology, HubSpot enables companies to prioritise innovation and customer success.
Monday.com is a project management software company, offering a cloud-based platform that enables businesses 
Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Freshworks is a global AI-powered business software provider. Its tech stack includes a scalable and comprehensive suite for IT, customer support, sales, and marketing teams, ensuring value for immediate business impact. Its product portfolio includes Customer Service Suite, Freshdesk, Freshchat, Freshcaller, Freshsuccess, and Freshservice. Freshservice for Business Teams has helped several global organisations to enhance their operational efficiency.
Talkdesk offers an innovative AI-powered customer-centric tech stack to its global partners. The company provides generative AI integrations, delivering industry-specific solutions to its customers. Talkdesk CX Cloud and Industry Experience Clouds utilise modern machine learning and language models to enhance contact centre efficiency and client satisfaction.
The company offers comprehensive cloud-based solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, Gaming Consoles, Microsoft Advertising, Copilot, among other things, to help organisations offer enhanced CX and ROI. Its generative-AI-powered speech and voice recognition solutions,such as Cortana and Azure Speech Services empowers developers to build intelligent applications.
IBM is a global hybrid cloud and AI-powered 
Uniphore is an enterprise-class, AI-native company that was incubated in 2008. Its enterprise-class multimodal AI and data platform unifies all elements of voice, video, text and data by leveraging Generative AI, Knowledge AI, Emotion AI and workflow automation. Some of its products include U-Self Serve, U-Assist, U-Capture, and U-Analyze. Its Q for Sale is a conversational intelligence software that guides revenue teams with AI-powered insights, offering clarity on how to effectively keep prospects engaged.
Google Cloud accelerates every organisation’s ability to digitally transform its business. Its enterprise-grade solutions leverage modern technology to solve the most criticial business problems 
8×8 offers out-of-the-box contact centre solutions, assisting all-size businesses to efficiently meet customer needs and preferences. It offers custom CRM integrations support and integrates effortlessly with third-party CRMs like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, and more. Offering global support in all time zones & development teams in 5 continents, its patented geo-routing solution ensures consistent voice quality.
Sprinklr is a comprehensive enterprise software company for all customer-focused functions. With advanced AI, Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform lets organisations offer human experiences to every customer, every time, across any modern channel.
Upland offers a comprehensive suite of contact centre and customer service solutions with products including InGenius, Panviva, Rant & Rave, and RightAnswers. InGenius enables organisations to connect their existing phone system with CRM, further enhancing agent productivity. Panviva provides compliant and omnichannel capabilities for highly regulated industries. Whereas, Rant & Rave, and RightAnswers are its AI-powered solutions, 
Zoho Social, a part of Zoho’s suite of 50+ products, is a comprehensive social media management platform for businesses and agencies. The Zoho Social dashboard includes a robust set of features, such as Publishing Calendar, Bulk Scheduler, and Approval Management to offer businesses all the essential social media publishing tools. Its monitoring tools help enterprises track and respond to relevant social conversations.
Hootsuite, headquartered in Vancouver, is a social media management platform that streamlines the process of managing multiple social media accounts. Some of its core offerings include social media content planning and publishing, audience engagement tools, analytics and social advertising. Its easy-to-integrate capabilities help marketing teams to schedule and publish social media posts efficiently.
Brandwatch enables businesses to build and scale the optimal strategy for their clients with intuitive, use-case-focused tools that are easy and quick to master. Bringing together consumer intelligence and social media management, the company helps its users react to the trends that matter, collaborate on data-driven content, shield the brand from threats and manage all the social media channels at scale.
Zoho Corporation offers innovative and tailored software to help leaders grow their business. Zoho’s 55+ products aid sales and marketing, support and collaboration, finance, and recruitment requirements. Its customer analytics capabilities come with a conversational feature, Ask Zia. It enables users to ask questions and get insights in the form of reports and widgets in real-time.
Salesforce-owned Tableau is an AI-powered analytics and business intelligence platform, offering the breadth and depth of capabilities that serve the requirements of global enterprises in a seamless, integrated experience. Marketers can utilise generative AI models, AI-powered predictions, natural language querying, and recommendationsons.
Fullstory is a behavioural data platform, helping C-suite leaders make informed decisions by injecting digital behavioural data into its analytics stack. Its patented technology uncovers the power of quality behavioural data at scale, transforming every digital visit into actionable insights. Enterprises can increase funnel conversion and identify their highest-value customers effortlessly.
Contentsquare is a cloud-based digital experience analytics platform, helping brands track billions of digital interactions, and turn those digital 
Amplitude is a product analytics platform, enabling businesses to track visitors with the help of collaborative analytics. The platform leverages the capabilities of 
Adobe Experience Cloud offers a comprehensive set of applications, capabilities, and services specifically designed to address day-to-day requirement for personalised customer experiences at scale. Its platform helps play an essential role in managing different digital content or assets to improve customer happiness. Its easy-to-optimise content gives users appropriate marketing streams, ensuring product awareness.
Started in 2005 in a Sweden-based small town, Norrköping, Voyado offers a customer experience cloud platform that includes a customer loyalty management system. This platform helps businesses design and implement customer loyalty programs, track customer 
TapMango provides a comprehensive, customisable, flexible and feature-rich customer loyalty program. The loyalty tools include an integrated suite of customised consumer-facing technology, easy-to-use merchant tools, and automation algorithms, all aimed at enhancing customer experience. Adaptable to any industry, TapMango’s platform helps merchants compete with larger chains, converting customer one-time purchases into profitable spending habits.
Adobe Experience Cloud offers a comprehensive set of applications, capabilities, and services specifically designed to address day-to-day requirements for personalised customer experiences at scale. Its innovative platform has played an essential role in managing different digital content or assets, to improve customer happiness or satisfaction. Some of its products include Adobe Gen Studio, Experience Manager Sites, Real-time CDP, and Marketo Engage.
