"What happens when GPS can't find you?
Online maps are often wrong, which can be a big headache for a small business. Customers may swamp the store with angry or annoyed phone calls and emails, or they simply give up in frustration. Solving the problem is difficult.
If the business handles it on their own, they must first file a change request with the online map service and provide documentation of their actual address. Then they wait, but they also need to follow up several times with a phone call to make sure the service hasn't forgotten about the problem. The process takes a month or more.
Sometimes a company turns the problem over to their public-relations firm. Or it hires one of the start-ups that advertise map correction services online. Both services are expensive.
Some 50 percent to 70 percent of online business listings are wrong in some way, according to TeleMapics, a mapping and local-search consulting firm in Laguna, Calif. They also work with the Census Bureau and Rand McNally.
Still, address updates can lead to errors; streets get renamed or added after that database was put together; street and suite numbers can change, or a mistake is caused by a human error.
