Where your competition is in Illinois
The largest concentrations of appliance repair companies in our Illinois data are in Chicago, Aurora, Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, Schaumburg, Evanston, Elgin and Bloomington. Competition for the map pack is heaviest there, and so is the reward: the same review count that dominates a small town is invisible in Chicago.
The map pack in Illinois
The map pack is a three-slot race, and in Illinois it is won by review count and recency far more than by rating: 60.5% of Illinois appliance repair companies are already at 4.5 stars or better, so stars do not separate anyone. The 75th percentile is 78 reviews and the 90th is 230. Those are the numbers to plan around, not the median.
The website gap in Illinois
Website presence in Illinois: 61.0% of appliance repair companies link one, 39% do not. The national figure is 31.1% without. Google and the AI answer engines both use the site to confirm what you do and where, so a missing site costs more than the leads it would have produced on its own.
Hours and after-hours calls
12.5% of Illinois appliance repair companies list themselves as open 24 hours. If you take after-hours calls, say so in your profile hours, because Google shows "Closed" in red on a profile that says it is closed. If you do not, list real hours and let missed-call text-back cover the gap, so the caller gets a reply instead of dialing the next name.
How Illinois compares
Of the 49 states in our data, Illinois ranks 5th for the number of appliance repair companies, 35th for median review count, and 8th for the share with no website, which leaves more room than most states for a shop that builds a real site. The review bar is lower than in most of the country, so a few months of asking every customer moves you up fast.
| State | Listed | Median reviews | No site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois | 439 | 18 | 39% |
| Indiana | 154 | 40 | 38.3% |
| Iowa | 71 | 22 | 36.6% |
| Kansas | 84 | 11.5 | 36.9% |
| Michigan | 204 | 42 | 34.3% |
| Minnesota | 116 | 28.5 | 31% |
| Missouri | 136 | 24 | 37.5% |
| Nebraska | 53 | 14 | 34% |
| North Dakota | 28 | 16.5 | 32.1% |
What to do first in Illinois
- Put up a real website if you are in the 39% without one. Service pages, city pages for Chicago, Aurora, Arlington Heights, tap-to-call on every screen.
- Set a review velocity. One review per job day, asked at the door, moves a 18-review shop past the Illinois 75th percentile (78) within a year. The guides have the scripts.
- Finish the Google profile: primary category, every service you offer, real job photos, and hours that match reality. It is free and it is where Illinois customers decide.
- Turn on missed-call text-back. Run the calculator with your own numbers to see what unanswered calls cost.
- Then, and only then, spend on ads. Pointed at a profile with 18 reviews and no website, ads pay for your competitor's education. Pointed at a finished profile, they work.
The full national picture, with percentiles, ratings and hours, is in the benchmark report. The method is on the about page.