Google Review Requirements for TCS Dealers

We partner with a lot of business to consumer service providers to help drive traffic to their website and generate leads. Many Trane Comfort Specialist (TCS) dealers Start Today to get their phones ringing and their trucks on the road.

In order to better inform our clients, we keep up with changing TCS requirements. These changing requirements are intended to not only improve the overall quality of the TCS program, but to increase the brand awareness and perceived quality of TCS dealers. As such, Trane is continuously improving their program, offerings, and requirements.

One such significant requirement change is that in order for HVAC contractors to qualify to be a TCS dealer in 2019, they must receive 20 Google reviews, and average 4 stars.

Getting these many good reviews in Google can be a challenge to many contractors especially those that are smaller and focused on the work instead of the marketing. Here are three tips on how to go about getting the reviews you need.

Tip 1 – Get Your Google Listing in Order

If you’re not already listed as a business in Google, then that’s your first order of business. Update it to get things like the open and close dates and times right. Include your logo and the website address to your website. Put as much information in there as possible including pictures. When customers find you online, you want them to be wowed, not underwhelmed.

Tip 2 – Ask Customers for a Review

Although this is obvious and simple, it’s very often overlooked. After you finish providing service, instruct your staff to request a review. Be sure to state that you would like the review on Google, not somewhere else like on Facebook. Remember, only Google reviews count towards this requirement.

Let me caution you that you may not want to ask everyone for a review. If the customer is clearly not happy for some reason then it’s most important to address the issue rather than ask for a review. So train your staff to look for signs that the customer is happy before asking for a review. Better yet, give them a checklist of what to look for, and practice. Practice makes perfect.

Tip 3 – Make it easy to leave a review

If you make it easy for a customer to leave a review, they are much more likely to leave a review. Let’s face it – it’s a bit of a pain to leave a review on Google normally. You have to google for the business, then drill into reviews, and then add a new review. Wouldn’t it be much easier if you just sent them a link to make the review?

Well, you can! It’s a little convoluted, but you can generate a URL that you can send to a customer. They just click and they’re directed to your Google review ready to leave a review. Here’s the link for Array Digital.

You can even give them a link that will prefill 5 stars.

Obviously that’s kind of a long and nasty link to send to someone, so we typically create a nice looking URL to send to customers which will then redirect them to the real URL. Something like http://review.mydomain.com <<– This link doesn’t actually work, but we could configure one for you to use and send to your customers.

What To Do Next

Preserve the TCS dealer status that you worked so hard to get. And besides, you don’t want to risk losing all of the benefits that come with the program. So be sure to start asking for Google reviews of each (happy) customer and make it easy for them to give you one. Google reviews are only one part of the picture when it comes to optimizing your Trane Comfort Specialist listing. Now that you understand the reviews, here’s more how to make sure your listing is optimized too.

About Array Digital

Companies come to us when they need more online leads to take their business to the next level. We help grow consumer focused businesses (B2C) grow their local market share through search engine optimization (SEO), social media, and targeted online advertising.