Google continue to reject my "service area business"

[deanduke]

Hello,
I have an issue with a GMB verification.

My customer's profile is a "service area business", he's a Personal Trainer that serve his customer on a rented gym (not walk-in). For this reason, we created a GMB profile using "service area business", so without declaring any address on his GMB profile.

Now, Google continue to reject the profile. Last answer they gave to us was:

Please be informed that, as per our guidelines, businesses are required to have proper signage at their business address if they allow customers to walk in or if the business address is updated on the profile. Since you confirmed that you do not have signage, as the space is rented and your business does not allow customers to walk in at your address, it is not permitted to add the address to your profile according to our guidelines. Also, as mentioned in the previous email, since your business is a service area business, you need to have all the required documents in order to proceed with the verification. Unfortunately, we cannot manually change the requirements for you.

Please keep all the items listed below ready before you initiate the live video call verification:

• Tools, Equipment
• Business registration
• Business card
• Invoice
• Business vehicles

Once you have all these items, please initiate the live video call to verify your profile.

Among the 5 requirements:

Tools, Equipment - my customer use those at the gym (but I can ask to bring some home for sake of showing)
Business registration - he has it
Business card - he has it
Invoice - he has it
Business vehicles - he does not have one as he move around using public transports.

The latter is the most tricky one, I suppose.

Seems we are stuck... any idea on how to resolve this issue? anyone experiences the same issue before?

Asking before other colleagues of our customer (they also rent the same gym) has their GMB approved.

Thanks!

 

[keyserholiday]

Did you use his home address or the gym’s address?

 

[deanduke]

Did you use his home address or the gym’s address?

Home address on here -> Screenshot-2024-12-12-alle-17-36-29 hosted at ImgBB

 

[JoyHawkins]

I'm thinking Google support must have been confused about the address. I would tell him to make it clear that this a practitioner listing and that he doesn't service people at his home, which is why the address is hidden. I wouldn't mention the gym - I'd just say he meets his customers to do training.

 

[deanduke]

@JoyHawkins thanks for your reply.

unfortunately, we already mentioned gym, so it's too late from that side.

We told them he meets his customer to do training, but they say that in this case our client's GMB is a "service area business" and, because of that, they require to have all of the following:

Tools, Equipment
Business registration
Business card
Invoice
Business vehicles

Now, for the first four not a big problem, the biggest issue is on the vehicle: he lives in London and moves using the tube... seems like in Google they don't understand that.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah so he will need something with his branding on it to qualify. He doesn't need ALL those things so if he has some of them you should be okay.

 

[deanduke]

Thanks for confirming. At Google they were pushing strong on business cards... the only real thing our customer cannot have is the business vehicle...

But, at the end, what do they mean by business vehicle? Necessarily a car? Or even a bike can be considered business vehicle?

 

[deanduke]

What is the best thing to tell for our customer during his next call? (he's already been refused during his last call few days ago):

as he travels for work and he does not allow walk in at his home address, should he tell Google that? And then he could clarify that he travels by tube carrying on some equipments (which he can shows).

Do you think this should be enough?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yes, show as much from that list as possible. You should be fine without a company vehicle.

 

[deanduke]

Thanks for reply and for confirming he doesn't need all of those things to qualify. We'll tell him to prepare as much things as possible and to attempt another call with Google. Keep you in the loop.