5-Star or Bust: Protect Your Business Reputation

A 3.8 rating can quietly kill your phone before you ever know why. When people search for a pool service, they do what we all do with restaurants and hotels: they sort by stars, skim a few reviews, and move on fast. That’s why your online reputation is not a vanity metric, it’s a lead generator or a lead blocker. 

We walk through the real-world choices customers make on Google and Yelp, and how a pool service business can earn trust before the first appointment. I share practical ways to get review momentum, including building a simple web presence, using Google Ads to create early visibility, and asking for reviews at the right moment after a win like a green to clean or a new weekly start. We also talk honestly about Yelp, how it can drive serious growth for some service companies, and why you should understand the paid options and the platform’s review flow before going all in. 

Then we get into what actually protects five-star reviews: returning calls quickly, preventing the “they never answered” one-star complaints, and showing up like a pro. Your uniform, your truck, and your attitude during a bid can shape the review you get later. I also explain a simple way to decline messy jobs without offending anyone, plus why staying neutral and avoiding criticism keeps you out of unnecessary review drama. 

If you want more calls and better clients, start treating reviews like part of your weekly route. Subscribe, share this with a pool pro who needs it, and leave a review letting me know what most improved your customer ratings.

• why low star ratings get ignored in fast search decisions
• how “anomaly” one-star reviews happen and how to prevent them
• using a website and Google Ads to generate leads that become reviews
• setting up Google and Yelp listings and understanding Yelp’s paid options
• asking customers for a five-star review while inviting feedback early
• calling back missed leads quickly to avoid “never answered” complaints
• using uniforms and a clean truck to signal professionalism
• bidding high to walk away without insu

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Transcript

Protecting Your Reputation From Anomalies

Getting Found With Google And Reviews

Yelp Listings Paid Options And Risks

How To Earn Five Star Reviews

Phone Response And Professional Appearance

Bids Boundaries And Neutral Talk

Podcasts Coaching Links And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hey, welcome to the Pooh Guy Podcast Show. The question today is would you hire a company if they had a one or two-star review? Would you eat at a restaurant that had a three-star review? And the answer probably is no, you wouldn't. And so today I'm going to talk to you about your reputation and why it's a bad idea to ignore potential negative reviews. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. Whenever I look to get a new vendor for something, like recently I was looking for a new pest control company because the current one that I've been using, for some reason, I don't know if it's the new management, it just makes it really hard to schedule anything. They ask a ton of questions and it just becomes more of a gauntlet than anything to get anything done with that company. So I went to go look for a new company, and the first thing I look for, and this is what you probably do as well, are the reviews. And anyone, of course, under like 4.5 or 4.8, I usually ignore because they if with the bad reviews, I don't even read that company's profile. The reviews just tell me enough. We're in an age where people want things fast and everything you do is done fast. And so there's no time to go through a Yelp page where someone has a 3.8 rating when there's other people that have a 4.8 or 5.0 rating. You're gonna gravitate towards those that have the good reviews already because you don't want to waste time with a company that has bad reviews. Same thing with a restaurant. If you're in an area where you're not familiar with, you go on Google and you say food near me, and it brings up a map with all these restaurants and all the reviews are there. You certainly, if you're hungry at that time, you don't waste time reading the 3.4 star review or the 2.8 star review. You look for the 4.3, 4.5 star review, you read about that restaurant, and then you make your decision. So those restaurants with the lower reviews don't even get looked at, at least by me or by I think most people don't even look at them. So the reviews online, of course, are extremely critical because in this fast-paced decision-making time we live in, there's really no time to vent everything, and there's so many different businesses out there anyway, that you just want to go for what are the good reviews. And I also believe that companies with the good reviews, like for instance, the pest control company that I called, you actually had five-star reviews across the board. Someone like that is really hungry for business, they really want your business, and it'll do things to get your business, whether it's giving you a better rate, giving you the best service. But someone who really watches their reviews and wants to make sure their online reputation is stellar, is making an effort, and I respect that effort, and therefore I call those that have the good reviews because I know how hard it is to maintain that in your business. It's really hard to avoid those weird anomalies, people that are gonna leave you a one-star review for not answering your phone. And believe me, I've seen these on the sites Yelp and Google Reviews where someone leaves a one-star review saying, I called this place three times, they never answer their phone, they're a terrible company. You can't avoid that. That's unavoidable in most situations. So, of course, to avoid that, answer your phone, return the calls, do whatever you can to avoid those anomaly type reviews. Now, there are services that will kind of clean up your online reputation. I never use any of those. I don't know if I'm sure some pool pros out there have used them before and companies use them. I think what you really need to focus on is making your business to that extent where you're not gonna get those anomaly reviews, nor are you gonna get bad reviews for the service you provide, and that really protects your reputation when you can provide service where you know you're not gonna get a bad review. And I'll go over some tips there in a second, but really the biggest thing you can focus on is avoiding your reputation online dropping with lower reviews because businesses that have good reviews are the ones that people look at and the ones that people are gonna call for service, those with bad reviews are not really gonna be looked at, and if you fall into that category, it may affect the amount of calls you get and leads you get in your business. So, how do you get started with getting your business out there and getting reviews? Well, the first thing you can do is have a website, and with that website, you can draw people to your site using services like Google Ads, would be a pretty good service, and that way you can generate some leads for your business by advertising and paying for that ad on Google. This draws people to your company, and then of course, you're gonna once you're up there on Google with your website, you have some Google Ads. Now you can set the budget for any amount with Google Ads, and maybe you want to start off with$500 a month and it'll start advertising you out there, and then you would start to get reviews from customers whenever you do a service, you know, an acid wash or green to clean, or if you have a new service client, ask them to leave a review on Google for you. And of course, you can get yourself on Yelp. Now Yelp has different levels of listings, and there's a paid part of Yelp that some people like, some people don't like it, and Yelp can be very successful for you, but there is a paid portion of Yelp, and I've heard stories where if people stop paying, they take all the good reviews or they move you down. So that's something that you may want to consider. Really do the research on how you can put your business on Yelp. Basically, you just go to their site and you create your business page on Yelp, address, website, detailed description, and then of course, you're gonna encourage customers to leave an honest review. I think a lot of the algorithms online are set up so that they have to go to you on Yelp first, and then call you, and then once they go to the Yelp and call you, then they can of course leave a review after a couple days. I think there's some kind of algorithm to where you can't just send everyone a link to your Yelp page and tell them to leave a review. They actually have to go to the Yelp page, and then there's tracking, and they'll they'll be able to see that the person actually looked you up and then they'll leave you a review. Now there's a paid feature, also you they you know advertise and enhance your page. This increases your exposure. I have a window company that I've known for years, and he uses Yelp exclusively. He has locations all over the area, and he said Yelp has really helped him grow his business tremendously. I've had carpet cleaners also tell me that Yelp has been really successful for them and helpful in growing their business. So there is a basic free listing, which may not get much traction, by the way, unless you start paying for the service, and then you have to keep paying for the service, which would not be a bad thing if it's really helping your business and you're getting these five-star reviews. So don't discount Yelp because of the paid portion. And there are, of course, some bad stories about that, but there's also good stories about how it's effective. I actually use Yelp a lot when I'm looking for service providers. I use Google also. The Google reviews seem to be very honest, and you know, they're they're also a good way to lead people to your business. But Yelp primarily is what I use when I'm looking for a provider, and a lot of people do use Yelp. So I would say do your research on it and maybe get your business listed there and find a way to do the paid service to get, of course, more exposure and then more five-star reviews on Yelp. Wouldn't worry too much beyond Yelp and Google at first if you're starting out getting online traction and reviews. You can, of course, do other services like home advisors and I think Angie's list, all these things are out there as well to get your business out there. And I've used Angie's list for service providers as well, it's pretty good as well. But primarily Google and Yelp would be where I would focus on this. One way to encourage the five-star reviews is actually just tell customers that you encounter either on a phone call or in person when you do the job or do the bid that you know if they liked your services, please leave a five-star review. And you know, if you didn't like the service, what can I do to help you? I just I want to provide the best service possible. So I'll go above and beyond whatever to get that five-star review, just let me know. And that kind of attitude is really important because you don't want to ignore the review aspect of something. I think you leave yourself open to a bad review or maybe even a negative review if you don't address the fact that you are desiring highly to get those five-star reviews, and if the customer has a problem or an issue, you're going to address it immediately so that you can maintain your five-star review status with them and with future clients. You want to also promote the fact that you are a five-star company. And there's nothing wrong with doing that or saying that. A lot of vendors that I use tell me that they're like, if you can leave me a five-star review, I'd appreciate it. If you can't, let me know how I can make that a five-star review. And this is really an important psychological thing because you're basically telling the customer that you are the type of business that is going to provide that service that they're going to appreciate. And it goes a long way with your reputation as well. You know, when you when you personally interact with people, when they see that you're driven to be providing this great service, they're going to, of course, like you and like your business, like your service. And if you do have a problem at any point with that person, you can work it out. You know, I've had vendors that they get sick and they can't go do something very understandable, and they'll reach out to me and say, you know, I was not feeling good this week. I missed the appointment. I reset it. And then I really appreciate that because I know that that particular person wants to maintain that five-star status. If they didn't, they would not even bother to call me and tell me that they were sick all week and they're going to reschedule things, they would just let things drop, which does happen with a lot of people. Answering your phones is another big thing. I mentioned earlier about those one-star reviews from people that say, I tried calling, I never got a call back. This is really important. Calling people back is like key in this era that we're in. It's not like when I was a kid, there were no cell phones, there were these tape answering machines. And if your friend wasn't home, you would leave leave a note on their door saying, you know, I was here at one o'clock, come by my house, whatever. Or you would tell the parents, you know, you're looking for Jimmy. You would leave a message on these machines, and then maybe someone would call you back six hours later. It was a different era. Now, if you don't pick up the phone, they're gonna call someone else immediately, they're not gonna wait for you to call them back. And if they do call you back, you don't pick up the phone again, you open yourself up for a bad review. I'm gonna be honest with you. I've seen them and it does happen. So call people back. Let's say that even if you even if they say they call someone else, I would suggest calling them back anyway. So try to be proactive there. You can't answer every call every time, but there is a way to capture those people and call them back, and just don't never not call them back because that doesn't look good for your business uh in any shape or form. The other thing that you can do is when you do meet the customer, your professional attitude and your appearance are really important. I'm a big fan of uniforms, having a professional uniform, being out there and showing that you are professional. You know, if you show up at a bid in shorts and a t-shirt and flip-flops, that's that could be your personality, but that may not win you that bid, and that may not be the five-star kind of service company that you appear to be based on that. The plumber that I use always wears a button-up shirt uniform with his name on it, his company, of course, his truck is wrapped. That's really important to have the appearance of being a five-star company when you show up at the at the bid or when you show up at your service accounts, you have that appearance of looking like a professional company. I'll tell you right now that when I go to restaurants, my biggest pet peeve is the restrooms. If the restrooms don't have paper towels or soap, they look really bad, they're not clean, you know, it looks like they're they're tiled from the 1960s, the sink only has cold water, that really affects my attitude towards that business, and it makes me think that if they don't care about the their bathrooms and how they look and updating them and keeping them stocked up, then they don't really care about the customer. And it's a true thing. It's just weird that those restaurants with nice bathrooms, like Cain's, for instance, has really great one-stall bathrooms, they're always clean. You know, it's it's a great appearance. In a not burger, they try their best with all the volume they have to keep the bathrooms clean. But if you go to a mom and pop restaurant and the bathroom looks like it hasn't been cleaned in a week and there's no supplies in there, that has an effect on your thinking about the food quality and the restaurant quality. I went to this restaurant in Pasadena, California. It was a Chinese restaurant, and they probably spent, I'm gonna say they spent about a hundred thousand dollars or more on the bathroom. They had little tiles everywhere, they had granite counters, it was the most beautiful bathroom I've ever seen, and I respected that restaurant. And no question, this was a great restaurant because the bathroom was like spectacular. So, how does a customer gauge the pool service provider coming for the first time they give a bid? Well, they gauge it based on how your truck looks. You know, it doesn't have to be wrapped necessarily, but it should be a newer model truck that's fairly clean, and how you appear to them, your appearance is everything, your first impression. And don't discount that first impression because put yourselves in their shoes. You call for three bids, two guys show up wearing t-shirts with holes in it and bleach stains, one guy shows up in a nice uniform, slacks, and he's got a clipboard and he's ready to do the bid and do the business. Which of those three would you hire? And it's no different. And I'm not saying that the person that's looking disheveled isn't as good as the person that's dressed nicely. I'm just saying that the impression that they see, just like the bathrooms I talked about, it's kind of the first impression of your business, and you are your business basically at that point. They haven't seen you clean pools or seen any of your work, and so you have to project that image that you are professional, and the only way they're gonna know this is by seeing you for the first time and talking to you the first time. So that is really a critical thing about maintaining those five-star reviews is how you appear to the customer the first time you see them, how you talk to them. Now, even if your bid is not acceptable, you know, if you're bidding something and you're bidding an acid wash and everyone else is bidding 600, you're bidding 800, I don't think that's going to cause them to leave you a bad review either. It's mainly about how you're providing the service. There are a few weird reviews, reviewers out there, but I don't think you're gonna have that problem. And you also want to make sure that you let down the customers properly if you really don't want to do the job, which sometimes happens out there, where you get to the pool and you're like, Wow, this is a total disaster. Look at all these trees and leaves. I would just bid them high. You know, normally if you bid them 250 when normally the pool would be 180 or 190, they'll just move on to the next person. And you don't want to tell the customer, well, yeah, man, your pool is a dump. Look at this, look at all these trees. You gotta trim these more often. Like all of that is going to rub the person the wrong way when you start criticizing their yard or their pool. I would just simply say, Yeah, here's my bid for this account. It's gonna be a little extra work because of the the leaf debris, and I'm bidding you this price. And let me know if you want to go forward with service and you know, just call me anytime and I can start next week or whatever. But bidding high makes it so that you can walk away from this pool without offending the customer in any way. And if they accept the bid, which may happen, you've you're gonna be compensated for the extra work because you bid the pool high, and that may happen. I mentioned my this builder all the time that when he's doing a job and he's really busy, he'll build he'll he'll bid the customer three times his normal cost for a pool just to kind of get rid of them because he's way too busy, doesn't have time for him. And one time he did this, and the customer's like, Okay, when can you start? So that can happen, they may accept the high bid, but again, you want to do things to where you're not going to offend the customer in any way while you're doing the bid, because that could lead to one of those weird negative reviews. You know, if they hear you cursing, I've seen a review before for an asphalt company, and I think there was like two people that reviewed him, and they both said the same thing. Like the guy had the foulest mouth I've ever heard, he was cursing when he was talking to me, my kids were there. That could lead to a negative review. So anything you can do to avoid kind of those weird one-star reviews, do those things because you never know what's gonna happen or who's gonna do that. So keep everything business and formal, don't criticize anything, don't overdo it, don't over-talk, and just give the bid and get out of there basically without triggering anything weird with the person. And of course, if you're gonna dump an account because you no longer want the pool, this does happen, where maybe you took on the pool, it's a heavy use pool, or maybe the pool has problems and they're not addressing it. Simply tell the customer that you're overbooked on your service accounts and you're consolidating, and unfortunately, you're going to have to stop service next month on their pool. You don't want to again be brutally honest with them and say, Well, I mean your pool is terrible. You know, the kids are using it all the time, and it's so hard to keep up with it. The dogs are in the pool. I just don't want to do this pool anymore. You find someone else. Again, it's an that's an extreme example, but that can generate a negative review from that customer saying your pool service is no good. So let the customers down very generally without any kind of notification or pointing out anything about their pool. Just try to keep things as neutral as possible when you talk to people. You know, never talk politics, never talk religion. Neutrality is the key to maintaining that five-star review, in my opinion. And if you can be as neutral, kind of like in the middle, where you can reach both sides, kind of, you know, pretend you're a moderate and you're working with people on the left and right, you want to do that with your business so that you just kind of walk that narrow path down the middle so that you avoid any kind of weird negative reviews, and you can capture those really good five-star reviews. And this is really something in this day and age that's really important. I mentioned at the beginning, would you go to a two-star restaurant or a restaurant or a would you hire a business that has like two or three stars? You wouldn't. You wouldn't stay in a hotel that has two stars, you would look for a four or five-star hotel. And this is really something that you have to get your head around as a pool service provider that people do look at the reviews, and capturing those good reviews is really critical to the success and future success of your business. Looking for other podcasts, you can find those on my website, so manypoolearning.com. If you click on the podcast on the banner, that will give you a drop down menu of 1900 podcasts there. And if you're interested in the coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a great rest of your week and God bless.