I wrote this article for the Together We Count blog, where it was published on 4 August 2026. It’s about why most heating firms are built for the customer who panics and invisible to the customer who plans. Here’s a summary, and you can read the full article on Together We Count.
The two customers every heating firm serves
Every heating firm hears from two very different customers in the same month. One has a boiler that has stopped working and wants an engineer within hours. The other has spent around three weeks deciding to replace a boiler, comparing firms and working out what they are willing to pay. The second call is worth far more, yet most firms build their marketing around the first.
Why the researching customer cannot find you
A homeowner in research mode looks for installation pricing, a plain explanation of grants, photographs of finished work and reviews that read like proof. Many heating websites were built years ago to answer one question: who can fix my boiler today? A firm whose reviews describe the actual job gets found by the researcher, while firms with generic praise get skipped without ever knowing it.
AI search raises the stakes
Homeowners now ask AI tools which local heating firm to use and receive a single recommendation, assembled from Google Business Profiles, reviews and website content. A firm that is invisible to a person doing research is invisible to the AI doing it on their behalf, so the two problems now compound each other.
The firm I used as an example
For a real example from my own work, Flow Plus Plumbing’s results were a first booked job within 24 hours of launch, then 17 tracked enquiries and 4 booked jobs in the first two weeks. Those came from a new website plus Google Ads. Today I work through Local Services Ads and Google Business Profile, which you can read about in my guide to Google Business Profile for boiler installers.
Being ready when the phone rings
Getting found is half the job. The article also looks at how quickly firms respond, drawing on a 2011 Harvard Business Review study which found that firms replying within an hour were far more likely to qualify a lead. That research covered business sales rather than homeowners buying boilers, so the useful part is the direction, which matches what firm owners describe to me.
Key takeaways
- Market to the homeowner who researches as well as the one who panics.
- Make your Google Business Profile and your reviews describe installation work.
- Reply to every enquiry quickly.
Want to know if planners can find you?
Tell me your company name and postcode area and I’ll record you a free 5 minute video plan showing where your next boiler installations could come from. There’s no call and no meeting.
