The Agency Playbook, Part 3: The Rules. How Agencies Get Clients Suspended, and How You Won't.

It's the week-three check-in call, and the owner has an idea. "What if we give everyone twenty-five bucks off their next service for a five-star review? And I'll put a whiteboard in the break room. Whoever gets the most reviews with their name in them wins a gift card."

That's three policy violations in two sentences, delivered with total enthusiasm. Your job, as the agency, is to say no without killing the enthusiasm, because the enthusiasm is the part you need.

This is Part 3 of The Agency Playbook, a seven-part series for people new to running reviews and local listings for local service businesses. Part 1 covered what the job actually is, and Part 2 walked through onboarding your first client. This part is the rulebook: what gets a client's profile restricted or suspended, what gets you locked out, and what's actually allowed. It's laid out like a traffic light, because the owner on the other end of the call will read it faster that way.

Why the rules are your problem, not just the client's

When a solo shop breaks a rule, one profile gets hurt. When an agency breaks one, it tends to break it the same way for every client at once, because it's the same playbook, the same scripts, and the same review-request template.

Google knows this. Its Business Profile third-party policies say that for serious violations Google may suspend a Business Profile "and/or the Google Account you use to manage the Business Profile," that in repeated or grave cases you "may no longer be able to manage a Business Profile," and that Google may contact your customers to tell them. That's the agency equivalent of the health inspector calling all your regulars.

There are two rulebooks to keep in your head:

• Google's. The Maps user-generated content policy covers reviews, and the guidelines for representing your business cover the listing itself. Break these and the profile pays.
• The FTC's (for US clients). The Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule took effect October 21, 2024. In December 2025 the FTC sent warning letters to 10 companies reminding them that violations can bring civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation. Break these and the business owner pays, sometimes alongside whoever ran the program.

Where the two disagree, follow the stricter one. That's almost always Google.

Red lights: never, for any client, no matter how they ask

1. Any incentive for a review. Google bans offering "payment, discounts, free goods and/or services" in exchange for posting any review, positive or not. The FTC rule specifically bans incentives conditioned on a particular sentiment, like a discount only for five stars. Notice the gap: "ten percent off for an honest review" might squeak past the FTC and still break Google's policy. No raffles, no coupons, no free filter change. The twenty-five bucks is out.

2. Review gating. The classic setup: a "How did we do?" text, happy customers get the Google link, unhappy ones get a private feedback form. Google's policy says merchants may not "selectively solicit positive reviews from customers." The FTC's warning-letter template calls the same idea "gatekeeping" when it hides negative reviews on a business's own site, and says the rule applies "whether the business itself is performing the gatekeeping or whether the business has contracted with a third-party" to do it. That third party is you. Asking for private feedback is fine. Sending only the happy customers to Google, or leaving the unhappy ones no way to get there, is not. When you take over a client's review tool, check what it does with a two-star rating, because "the software did it" won't carry much weight in an appeal.

3. Staff quotas and name-drop asks. Google spells this one out: merchants can't ask "staff solicit a certain number of reviews" or request reviews "that include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member." It also says not to pressure people into reviewing "while on the premises." So the break-room whiteboard goes too. (Here's a longer take on why the whiteboard backfires.)

4. Insider reviews, including yours. Google treats reviews based on a conflict of interest as manipulation, and its list includes current or former employees, family, and "a contractual or consultory relationship." Read that last one again. You have a contract with the client. Your team doesn't review clients, and neither does the owner's cousin who "basically works there on Saturdays."

5. Bought reviews, swaps, and sock puppets. Paid reviews "directly or in kind," review-swap groups, and "content that has been posted from multiple accounts by or at the request of one person" are all named in Google's fake engagement policy. The FTC rule bans buying fake reviews or procuring them from insiders. If a vendor emails you a package of 50 five-star reviews for $199, the only correct reply is the delete key.

6. Threats to get a review removed. The FTC rule (16 CFR 465.7) prohibits groundless legal threats, physical threats, intimidation, and knowingly false public accusations aimed at getting a review removed. Google separately bans offering incentives to revise or remove a negative review. Write the calm reply. Don't write the cease-and-desist.

Yellow lights: listing habits that quietly get profiles suspended

Reviews get the headlines, but plenty of suspensions start in the listing itself. Check these during every new client's audit, and before every edit.

• Keyword-stuffed names. Google's guidelines say the name should match the real-world name "as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery," and that unnecessary information "could result in the suspension of your Business Profile." "Ace Electric" is fine. "Ace Electric – 24/7 Emergency Electrician Near Me" is a ticket.
• Virtual offices and mailboxes. P.O. boxes and remote mailboxes aren't acceptable addresses, virtual offices aren't eligible, and a coworking desk only counts if it has signage, receives customers, and is staffed during business hours.
• Duplicates and city pages. One profile per real location. Google says service-area businesses get one profile for the central office with a service area, not a profile per town they'd like to rank in.
• Auto-rejecting Google's suggested edits. The third-party policy says that discarding suggested updates with automated actions "without consulting the merchant" violates Google's terms. If your tool reverts everything on sight, turn that off and ask the client instead.
• Replying without written approval. The same policy says that to respond to reviews on a client's behalf "you must have an explicit approval. Verbal consent isn't sufficient." If it isn't in the contract from Part 2, add a line now.

Agency-only rules: how you get yourself locked out

These come straight from Google's third-party policy and apply to you, not the client:

• Don't promise top placement or that a profile will show up "at all times." The sales deck that says "guaranteed #1 on Maps" is a policy violation in a nice font.
• Don't claim a profile without the owner's express consent, and never claim one preemptively to pressure a business into signing.
• Don't hold a profile hostage for an unpaid invoice. You have 7 business days after a client leaves to hand back control.
• Don't name your organization account anything that sounds like Google. "Google Certified Listings Team" is how you end up explaining yourself to the actual Google.

Green lights: what you can do all day long

The good news is that the allowed list is enough to run a great program.

• Ask every customer. Google allows merchants to solicit reviews that reflect a genuine experience, as long as there's no incentive and no attempt to steer the rating or content. Same ask for the delighted customer and the one who sighed at the invoice.
• Ask at a steady pace. One request per completed job looks like the business's actual calendar. A blast to the whole list looks like a spike, and Google can pause new reviews when it sees one.
• Follow up with unhappy reviewers. The FTC's own Q&A says the rule doesn't stop a business from contacting customers who left negative reviews to resolve the issue. Fix the problem. Just don't offer a credit in exchange for a deleted review.
• Reply to everything. Publicly, calmly, and specifically. Part 5 covers reply scripts for the reviews nobody wants to answer.

If a client gets flagged anyway

Two things are different right now. First, read the email carefully: a protective spam-spike pause and a fake-engagement restriction look alike but mean very different things, and Google's restrictions page describes the penalty version, including unpublishing existing reviews for a set period and showing shoppers a warning. Second, expect to wait. On October 20, Search Engine Land reported that Google said review-related appeals have extended processing times with no specific timeframe, and asked businesses not to create duplicate appeals. File once, keep your screenshots, and tell the client the timeline honestly before they ask a third time.

The one-page rules sheet for every client kickoff

Most violations start with an owner who didn't know. Send this with your onboarding packet so the "twenty-five bucks off" idea dies before the check-in call:

• We ask every customer for an honest review. We never filter out unhappy ones.
• No discounts, gifts, or contests for reviews, ever.
• No review counts or name-in-the-review goals for staff.
• No reviews from staff, family, or us.
• The business name on Google matches the sign. No extra keywords.
• We reply to reviews with your written okay, and we never threaten a reviewer.

Credit for the techs who earn great reviews still matters, just keep it out of the review itself. More Good Reviews asks every customer once after the job, and out of the box its review page keeps a path to Google open for every rating, two-stars included. Tags on a tech's QR code or customer record tie a review back to them behind the scenes, so nobody has to ask a customer to write a name. That's the motivation the whiteboard was going for, without the policy problem.

One note for agencies: MGR also has a few optional settings, like hiding the public review link from low ratings, that don't fit Google's policies. They're off by default, and turning them on is the business owner's call. For any client who wants to stay inside Google's rules, leave them off. That's the setup the rules sheet above assumes.

Next in the series

Next Monday, Nov. 9, Part 4 gets to the fun part: getting reviews flowing for every client. Ask systems, timing, and the actual words to use after the job, all inside the green lights above.

The bottom line

An agency's mistakes scale, so its rules have to be tighter than any single owner's. Never trade anything for a review, never filter who gets asked, keep staff quotas and insider reviews out, keep the listing honest, and get written approval before you reply. Hand every client the one-page rules sheet on day one. It's a lot cheaper than an appeal queue with no end date.