GMB Listing for a different company at the same address

[ila_aw]

I have a client with two different businesses -residential and commercial. Both businesses are separate legal entities, with different names (but both the names start with the same letters eg - A&B Heating and A&B Commercial Services), both have different phone numbers (but same first 6 numbers, different last 4 digits) and staff. But they share the same office address.
We had separate GMB listings for both for a long time, then one day Google decided to mark them duplicates and suspend one. I reached out to Google support, explained the situation, had a long back and forth but they just wouldn't reinstate the listing citing that company names were similar, etc. What they did was, suspended the residential listing instead of commercial, making us lose 500+ great reviews but we were able to get it back after we deleted the commercial listing.

So now we have only the GMB for the residential company, nothing for the commercial.

Obviously being a service business, this is detrimental to the commercial company. We want to create the GMB listing again for them. What are the options? It seems that just adding a Suite number won't help here and given the history of suspension, I want to be very careful with it.

Any suggestions?

 

[JoyHawkins]

If this is in the HVAC space, they generally don't allow multiple listings. What did the signage at the location look like? Can you clearly see both brands on the exterior signs? Did they have separate entrances? Are both companies registered separately with the BBB?

You are correct that a suite number makes zero difference.

 

[ila_aw]

Thanks Joy. They don't have separate signage at the building, the signs are only for the residential company and the entrance is also the same (customers do not come to them, they go to their customers' locations)

They do have separate BBB accreditation for both businesses.

I can ask them to put up the signage for the commercial company. What else can we do?

Thanks!

 

[JoyHawkins]

Signage is a big one so that should help. Also make sure both listings aren't linking to the same site/page.