Reputation Management for Contractors
Every customer asked after every job. Every review answered. Reviews that say your trade, your town, and the job — the words buyers search. Built inside Google’s rules, so the profile is never at risk.
Run the 6-Gap Revenue Map below with your own numbers — 90 seconds, no form, no email. It tells you whether reviews are your #1 gap or a symptom of one.
The operator record behind the method · auto dealership internet department · 27 documented months
Not contractor review results — Andrew’s own numbers running a franchise auto dealership’s internet lead department, every lead tracked to the sale for 27 documented months; 35.6% of the appointments that showed became sales. The same habit — every customer, every time, tracked to what happened next — is what a review system needs. The monthly reports are available on the call.
Reputation management for contractors is the ongoing work of earning, monitoring, and answering customer reviews — on Google first — so a homeowner comparing three companies picks yours. Done right, it is a lead system: every finished job is asked for a review, every review gets an answer, and the reviews say what buyers search for. Done wrong — gated, incentivized, or faked — it gets reviews removed, a public warning on the profile, or the profile suspended.
Where contractor reputations leak
You do good work. The homeowner is happy. The job closes and nothing happens — and six months later a competitor with worse work and better asking is the one Google shows first.
Happy customers rarely review on their own; unhappy ones don’t need asking. Without a system that asks everyone, the reviews that arrive on their own are the ones you’d rather not have.
A 4.8 whose last review is eight months old reads as a company that stopped working. Google weighs how recent and steady reviews are; buyers do the same by instinct.
“Great service, would recommend.” True — and useless. No trade, no town, no job. Google and AI answers surface reviews that match what a buyer typed; this one earns nothing beyond the star.
A gift card for five stars. A link sent only to customers you liked. A cousin’s five-star. Each breaks Google’s written policy — and the first two break a federal rule as well. The consequences land on the whole profile, not the one review.
Most review tools fix Leak 1 and stop. We close all three and keep the trapdoor shut. Own the pipeline.
Not sure whether reviews are your #1 gap — or a symptom of one? See it in about 90 seconds, using your own numbers.
6-Gap Revenue Map™
The map scores the six gaps between a search and a booked job and shows what a booked job costs you today. A weak review profile is sometimes the gap itself — and sometimes it’s a Response Gap seen from outside, because the customers who never got called back are the ones writing. Ninety seconds tells you which. Nothing is saved.
Six things decide whether a search turns into a booked job. We measure all six, score them, and hand you the one that costs you most. Here is the instrument, running.
Click any gate to hold it while you read. The scan picks back up after 20 seconds.
This is an example. Yours runs on your actual site, your actual competitor, your actual reviews.
Get my real scan →Takes 30 seconds to request. No call, no pitch. Your gaps documented on video within 48 hours.
What we build & run
Runs after every job, not as a campaign. Open any part for the details most reputation pages skip.
The request fires from your job-closed trigger — CRM, invoice, or a weekly list — not from memory. Everyone gets it, in the same words, the day the crew leaves, with one reminder a few days later. The link opens the Google review box directly. If your follow-up system is built, the ask rides on it.
A reply is read by the next hundred buyers, not the one customer. Positive reviews get a short, specific reply that names the work. Negative reviews get the protocol: acknowledge, take it offline, state the fix — never argue in public, never a template. Reviews that break Google’s rules get flagged with the right policy cited.
Google is the profile that ranks, that Local Services Ads pull from, and that AI answers cite — so it gets the ask first. Facebook and BBB next; Angi, Houzz, and Nextdoor where your trade gets compared there. We monitor all of them in one place and route the ask by platform, because the rules differ — Yelp tells businesses not to ask at all.
Reviews lift a complete profile and stall on an incomplete one. We set categories to your real services, keep services and photos current, and post job updates so the profile reads as active. If you run Local Services Ads, the same reviews feed your LSA rank once the profile is linked.
Under all four runs the thing that makes them safe and useful at once: the rules, in writing.
The rules, in writing
Most of what gets a profile flagged is done in good faith by someone told to “get more reviews.” Tap for the call, and why.
Everything we run lives on the green side — and you get the policy references in writing, because “our agency said it was fine” is not a defense.
Bans incentives, discouraging negative reviews, selective solicitation, review stations, staff quotas, content requests, and reviews from employees, vendors, or family. Consequences: quiet removal, a public “fake reviews were removed” warning on the profile, or suspension — which takes the map-pack position, LSA eligibility, and your reviews with it until reinstated. Google’s policy →
In force since October 2024: fake reviews (AI-generated included), bought reviews, undisclosed insider reviews, and suppressing honest negative reviews are each violations carrying civil penalties. The FTC warned ten companies in late 2025 and filed cases in 2026 — including against a home-services company for employee and relative five-stars. The rule →
We ask everyone. We never script, never pay, never post for you. You stay primary owner of the profile; we work as a manager and never reply from an account that isn’t yours. We keep the request log, so if a review is ever questioned you can show who was asked, when, and what they were told.
Already flagged or suspended? That’s the first thing we fix: reinstatement request filed, the old vendor’s asks audited, and a clean request log started — no guarantee on Google’s timeline, and no shortcut that puts the profile back at risk.
Want the policy references in writing — and a read on whether reviews are even your first fix? Both come with the Gap Review.
Measured to the booked job
A review does two jobs: it moves your rank, and it convinces the buyer reading it. Both depend on the words inside it, and both can be measured.
Google matches review text to what a buyer typed and quotes it in the map pack; AI answers cite it. A review that names the trade, the town, and the job is retrievable proof. Ask for the customer’s own account and the searchable words arrive on their own.
Every ask is logged to the job, every review dated to the ask, every call and form tracked to the profile. You see how many jobs produced a review, how fast, and what came back — instead of guessing whether reviews “help.” Better data. Better decisions.
The review that says nothing
“Great company, very professional, would definitely recommend to anyone!”
The review that gets found
“They replaced nine windows on our 1970s brick ranch in Kingsport in one day, cleaned up like they were never there, and the quote was the price. Two months in, no drafts.”
Same customer, same job, same star. The second one shows up when the next homeowner in Kingsport searches for window replacement — and closes the sale before the call. Nobody scripted it.
Proof, in the format this page is about
Our own review history is short on purpose: every review is from a real engagement, asked for after the work, in the customer’s words. Here is one, from an agency owner who watched the method run on a window and door business.
★★★★★
Andrew was a huge help developing an in-depth marketing system for a window and door business we were working with. His process went way beyond a cookie cutter strategy. He took the time to learn about existing bottlenecks, how to identify new growth opportunities, and measure marketing effectiveness beyond traffic and leads. He even took into account the crew's installation capacity. Things we never would have thought of on our own. If you're in the contractor space and looking to expand into new markets, Andrew is your guy. Highly recommended!
Gregg Murray · Founder, Relaunch Digital
Verified Google review · agency peer
Client results anonymized by industry; each is documented and can be walked through on the call. Reviews shown as visible page content only, never as self-serving review markup — Google prohibits it, for us and for you.
The comparison that matters
| What you’re really comparing | Review software ($40–$300/mo) | A typical reputation agency | Reputation management by Andrew Ryan Marketing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the asking | You — if someone remembers. | Their platform, one template for every client. | The system, from your job-closed trigger, to every customer. |
| What the customer is told | Often a “suggested review” or a star-first screen — the gating Google bans. | Varies. Ask to see the request first. | Nothing but “describe the job.” The words are theirs. |
| Negative reviews | An alert. | A templated reply, sometimes days later. | Answered in your voice inside a day; flagged for removal only when Google’s policy supports it. |
| What you can see | Count and average. | Count, average, a monthly PDF. | Ask-to-review rate by job, recency, and calls traced to the profile. |
| What you keep | The reviews and a subscription. | Often their login and their list. | The profile, the request log, the playbook, and the trigger in your own CRM. Build capability, not dependency. |
Review software isn’t the enemy — we use some of it. The difference is who owns the ask and what the customer is told.
Where we run it
A review system doesn’t care about our zip code. Johnson City reputation management is where it started; the same system runs for window and door, remodeling, fence, flooring, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors anywhere a job is worth a few thousand dollars or more.
Before you book
By asking every customer, every time, at the moment the job closes — by text and email, with a link that opens the review box in one tap — and by asking them to describe the job rather than telling them what to say. Most contractors who “can’t get reviews” simply aren’t asking consistently. A trigger in your CRM or invoicing that sends the request automatically fixes that without anyone remembering.
Review gating — screening customers first and sending the review link only to the ones likely to be positive — violates Google’s Business Profile policy, which names “selectively soliciting” as rating manipulation, and the FTC’s Consumer Review Rule treats suppressing honest negative reviews as a deceptive practice with civil penalties. Some review-software tools still do it with a “how was your experience?” screen before the link. Don’t use them.
No. Google prohibits reviews earned with money, discounts, or free products or services — even if you don’t ask for five stars — and the FTC rule bars incentives conditioned on a positive review. You can thank a customer after they’ve reviewed on their own; you can’t offer anything for the review.
Only when they break Google’s policies — a review from a competitor, from someone who was never a customer, about a different business, or containing prohibited content. An unfair but genuine review stays — answer it calmly and specifically, then let a steady flow of new reviews move the average and push it down the page. There is no shortcut that doesn’t risk the profile. We’ll tell you which of yours has a real removal case.
More than the top three companies in your map pack, arriving at a steadier pace — that’s the real target, not a round number. Recency matters as much as count: a profile whose newest review is months old reads as inactive to Google and to buyers. The 6-Gap Revenue Map on this page scores your profile against that standard.
Yes to both. Review count, rating, recency, and the words in reviews are among the strongest local ranking signals, and Local Services Ads rank partly on the Google reviews linked to them and on response time. Reviews lift a complete profile; they stall on an incomplete one — which is why the profile is part of the system.
It’s a layer of the system, not a bolt-on: a flat monthly fee by tier that covers the ask, the responses, the profile, and the reporting — never a per-review price, never a fee that rises with your review count. Our tiers are public: see pricing. Andrew runs the strategy and the weekly decisions on every account himself.
Run the 6-Gap Revenue Map with your own numbers, then bring the result to a 20-minute review. We’ll name the highest-leverage fix — and tell you plainly if reviews aren’t the place to start. No pitch; you keep the read either way.
Growth engineered to reduce risk. The most revenue, for the least risk.
No form. No sales team. No callback queue. Every channel below goes straight to Andrew.
423-299-1718 · Johnson City, TN · The person you reach is the person accountable for your results.