Google Business Profile management for HVAC contractors

How a customer picks an HVAC contractor on the map

Three kinds of reader arrive at one listing, and none of them stands at the same point in the life of the same machine. One is choosing what to buy. One wants the yearly visit booked. One is standing under a unit that has stopped. A listing written for the first of them loses the other two, and the other two are where the years of work are.

• Where the reader sits in the life of the machine sorts everything else. Choosing a unit, booking the yearly visit and reporting a breakdown are three separate errands, and a listing that offers installation alone answers one reader in three.
• Whoever fits the equipment is also being picked as the firm called every year afterwards. People know this, and they read for evidence that you will still be around in five winters, not merely that you are free this one.
• Equipment names carry the search. Readers type the manufacturer, sometimes the model family, and a listing that never says which makes it looks after has nothing to match against what they typed.
• Domestic and commercial readers part company at the first glance. A homeowner is thinking about one wall in one room. A shop manager is thinking about a unit on a roof, a machine room and a building that cannot be shut for a day.
• The week the reader is in changes what they read. On the first cold week or the first hot one, the whole city needs somebody at the same moment, and only two things get read: whether you are open, and whether the number is answered.
• Whether you take on equipment that somebody else installed is a real question for a good half of the readers, and almost no listing in this trade answers it anywhere.
• Reviews are skimmed for the returns rather than for the arrival. Did the firm come back for the service. Did they come back when the same machine failed again.

The fields that decide which of the three jobs reaches you

Two things carry the weight here and neither one has a field of its own: which relationship with the machine the reader is asking for, and which machine it is. Both live in the services list and the description, which is exactly why both are so often left as a single word.

• The services are split into the three relationships, installation, scheduled maintenance and repair, and each is named the way a customer says it rather than the way a work order puts it.
• Equipment class is written into the same place, because Google keeps no field for it: wall units in flats, light commercial systems, plant on a roof or in a machine room. A reader with the wrong machine should be able to see it before dialing.
• Manufacturer names appear only where you have confirmed them in writing, and never inside the business name, which Google does not allow to carry other companies' names anyway. A make on your list reads as an invitation to bring a warranty fault to your door.
• Nothing describes the firm as approved, appointed or authorized by a manufacturer unless you have sent the agreement. That status exists on paper or it does not exist, and the listing carries only what the paper carries.
• The primary category follows the direction that holds the workload, and the other half of the year lives in the secondary ones, so a firm that heats in winter and cools in summer can be found in both seasons.
• The service area matches the drive you make for a routine visit, not the one you would make once for a large installation. Where those two differ, the longer reach is described in words instead of drawn on the map.
• The answered questions carry the three that keep coming back: which makes you look after, whether you take on equipment you did not install, and how often a machine is due to be seen.

Three jobs, then the machine, then the season, then the phone

Four corrections come up on nearly every HVAC listing, and the order between them is not decorative. Until the listing knows which of the three jobs it is describing, nothing under it can be written correctly, and until it knows which machines you touch, the season cannot be set on it.

1. 1

   Installation, maintenance and repair stop sharing one line

   A person choosing who fits a unit is choosing who they will ring every year for the next decade. A person whose unit stopped this morning is choosing nothing at all. Both land on the same listing. You confirm which of the three you take now, which you hand on, and on what terms. The services, the description and the answered questions are then written in three groups rather than one, so the reader sorts themselves before the phone rings.

2. 2

   The machine decides who is even able to take the job

   A wall unit in a flat, a light commercial system over a shop floor and plant on a roof mean three different crews, three different pieces of access equipment and quite often three different businesses. Google keeps no field for any of it, so it is written into the services and the description. You confirm the classes you take and the limit you will not go past. Manufacturer names go on in the same pass, and only the ones you have confirmed in writing, because a make on the listing is read as an invitation to bring a warranty fault to your door. Nothing describes the firm as approved by a manufacturer until the agreement has been sent.

3. 3

   The season is read off the weather, not off the calendar

   Demand here does not arrive on a date. It arrives with the first cold week or the first hot one, it arrives for everybody at once, and it arrives in different weeks in different countries. So the seasonal parts of the listing move with the forecast: last season's offer comes down and the current one is given an end date, the duty window is described by the months it genuinely runs, and where the installation diary has closed until spring the listing says so while the repair line stays open. You confirm what changes and when. The log holds the date each seasonal value went up and the date it was retired, which is what makes the next turn of the season a check rather than a rebuild.

4. 4

   Then the number, and what the listing does not promise

   Only now do the contact fields carry meaning. Every published number is called from outside the business and the one a person answers becomes the number on the listing. A seasonal out-of-hours line goes in as the hours somebody genuinely picks up, described by the months the arrangement runs, and the listing makes no claim of a line that never closes, because in this trade that promise is tested on the coldest night of the year. No arrival time and no promise that a machine will be repaired appear anywhere: what you are able to commit to is said on the call, by the person who will do the work. The only waiting time named on this page is how long the manager takes to come back to you about the profile, and that is one business day.

Reviews written years apart about the same machine

The arguments that land here are rarely about one visit. A single review carries an installation from four years ago and a breakdown from last week as though they were one event. Another is written in the week when the whole city called at once. Both can be answered in public, and neither can be answered with a verdict.

• A review that mixes an old installation with a recent failure is answered by laying out the visits and their dates, with no statement at all about why the machine stopped.
• A review from a peak week saying nobody could get through is answered by describing how the queue works when everybody calls inside the same three days, and never with a time.
• A review expecting the manufacturer's warranty from you is answered by separating the two: the work you stand behind yourself, and where the equipment itself is dealt with.
• A review complaining that you would not take on a unit fitted by somebody else is answered with the condition stated plainly, so that the next reader meets it before dialing rather than afterwards.
• Themes that repeat, a survey that changed once the crew arrived, a machine back on the list a second winter, move into the report instead of staying in the feed.
• A draft naming a serial number, a flat, an address plate or another firm is rewritten before it goes anywhere near publication.

One crew, or branches in several climates

1. Week 1

   Access, and an inventory of the claims. Everything happens inside the account your business owns, still filed in plenty of browsers under its older name, Google My Business. The manager writes down what the listing asserts today: the makes, the equipment classes, the works, the hours and anything that reads as an approval. You also draw the line between the small corrections the manager may simply make and the ones that wait for your word.

2. Week 2

   The three jobs, and the machines. Installation, scheduled maintenance and repair become three separate groups in the services, each named the way a customer would say it, and the equipment classes you take are written out beside them. Makes with nothing behind them leave the description on the same pass.

3. Week 3

   The season, and the route to a person. The current offer gets an end date and the previous one comes down; the seasonal duty window is described by the months it runs; every published number is called from outside the business. Reviews that have been sitting unanswered get their first replies, inside what the package covers.

4. Week 4

   The month in writing. The report says what the listing was claiming, what got corrected, what went out, and what is still exposed. That last part is usually short and specific: a make still unconfirmed, a condition still unwritten, an answer in the questions section written by somebody who has never worked on your equipment.

Read the weeks below as an example of ordering, not as an outcome anybody was promised and not as a calendar you have to match. Where the listing asserts a manufacturer approval that no agreement stands behind, that line is dealt with before anything else is touched.