Use case · AI receptionist & voice-agent sellers

Find service businesses that still miss calls: no chat widget, no online booking

Builders and small agencies reselling AI receptionists, voice agents, chatbots or missed-call text-back to call-driven local businesses.

How it is usually done today

• Scrolling Google Maps and opening every website to see if there is a chat or booking widget.
• Buying generic lead lists with no signal about how the business takes enquiries.
• Pitching every business the same way, including ones that already have a receptionist tool.

Why that hurts

• Businesses that already run Podium, a chat widget or online booking are poor prospects, and you cannot see that from a listing.
• Checking sites by hand caps you at a few dozen prospects a day.
• Office lines and owner mobiles look the same in a spreadsheet.

How LeadMerlin does it

1. 1

   Search call-driven trades

   Emergency plumbers, locksmiths, HVAC repair, garage doors, dental offices: niches where a missed call is a lost job.

2. 2

   Keep the phone-only ones

   In the dashboard tick "No chat widget" and "No online booking". Via the API, filter on an empty web.tech.chat and web.tech.booking.

3. 3

   Prioritize busy shops

   Sort by most reviews: lots of reviews and no booking tool usually means a phone that rings a lot.

4. 4

   Reach the owner by email first

   Use the owner name and a verified email for a short, specific note. Use line type to keep cold calls on business landlines.

Search, then keep businesses with no chat or booking tool

curl -X POST "https://api.leadmerlin.com/api/v2/searches" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADMERLIN_API_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"keyword":"roofing contractor","location_codes":[1026201],"strictness":"moderate"}'

curl "https://api.leadmerlin.com/api/v2/jobs/$JOB_ID/results?limit=200" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADMERLIN_API_KEY"

# keep: web.tech.chat == null && web.tech.booking == []
# booking covers Calendly, Acuity, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber,
# Square Appointments, Vagaro, Zocdoc, NexHealth and more

Location codes in these examples are placeholders — always look yours up with GET /v2/locations first.

What comes back

Most useful for this job:

• web.tech.chat: the live-chat widget detected on the homepage (Podium, Tidio, Intercom, LeadConnector and others), or null.
• web.tech.booking: online booking tools linked or embedded on the homepage.
• Review count and rating as a busy-business signal; owner name, verified email and phone line type.

Limits and honest caveats

• Detection reads the homepage HTML. A booking tool that only appears on an inner page, or loads after a click, can be missed, so treat "none detected" as a signal, not proof.
• We do not read review text, so we cannot find reviews complaining about unanswered calls.
• The FCC treats AI-generated voices as artificial voices under the TCPA, so do not use an AI voice to cold call these lists. Use line type to avoid cold calling mobiles, and check the rules that apply to you.

Pricing

• 1 lead credit per business that has a website to enrich.
• Listings without a website are never charged (counted as skipped, not returned in results).
• Off-niche listings removed by the niche filter are never charged.
• Failed enrichments are refunded automatically.
• A search charges only what your balance covers: with 40 credits left, it enriches the 40 top-ranked matches. Set max_leads to cap any search.
• Locations, niche suggestions, polling and demo endpoints are free.
• Phone line-type lookups have a monthly allowance: 100 on the free start, 1,000 Starter, 2,000 Pro, 4,000 Agency. Numbers looked up before are free. Past the allowance, phones still come back without a line type.

FAQ

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