Siri is giving out wrong phone number for my business

Question

I am an optometrist and when people use Siri to find me Siri is giving my home number instead of my office number. How can I correct this issue?

Answer 1

The process used to be opaque and therefore complicated, but Apple now has a self-service web app for small businesses to self-list:

• https://mapsconnect.apple.com/

I've not had any issues with updating and creating listings and the email feedback you get is quite helpful if you run into any questions or snags.

If you fail to update your own listing directly with Apple, you can also try to get other data sources like Google Maps, Yelp, etc... correct in case Apple pulls data from other sources. I recommend making an Apple entry for your business rather than letting the system try to guess the correct information.

Answer 2

Siri had our information wrong as well. I followed the link and altered the information but got an error message that claimed the automated process did not approve the changes and it asked me to fill out a form to be sent to a human.
I have not heard back. I also got an email from apple.com saying something similar and it asked me to reply to their email to get hold of a human. I have not heard back.

below is a copy of the email

Unfortunately, our automated system was unable to approve your edits. If you believe that we have made a mistake, please reply to this email and request a manual review. One of our team members will then review your profile and notify you of our decision.

Answer 3

There are two possible scenarios:

1) The person searching for your phone number knows you and has your information stored in their iPhone already. Siri will always look first into a person's contacts when asked to "Call X". If the person searching only has your home number, it will go ahead and call that number. This will override any public information Siri may have access to. You have no control over this other than to always ask people to add your office number to their contacts. If Siri is not specifically told which contact to call, it will prompt the caller and they'll have to choose which number to call.

2) The person searching for your phone number DOES NOT have you in their contacts. If phrased correctly, Siri will search across common search engines (Bing, Google, etc.) to find the most likely match. If the results return your home number before your office number then that is because of the way your information appears online. You have some ability to affect this if you are willing to search for yourself and then work with each of the sites that lists your information to get it listed the way you want it to appear in search results. Or you could hire a company that specializes in such work. Many of those can be found by searching for "online reputation management".

Answer 4

It sounds like what is happening is that people are using Siri to search the web for your name, "Phone number for Doctor John Smith?" or some such.

If that is indeed what you are referring to then what is happening is Siri is using Bing or Google to search for you by name and it just so happens that your home number shows up in the search results before your business number.

Which is not really an issue with Siri or even Apple. The issue is with the WWW.

In other words there are more links to pages with your home phone number on it then there are to your business phone number. Go ahead, type your name into Google and Bing and see what the results are. There is very little you can do about that besides either changing your home number or putting an outgoing message directing patients to the correct number.