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Written byMark Indelicato, 865 SEO
Roofers, barbers, tree services, plumbers, a dog groomer and a salon. All real local businesses, and most of them good ones. Nearly every listing had at least one problem that was quietly costing it calls.
Half of the 27 businesses had far fewer Google reviews than their competitors or their years in business would suggest. Seven had hours that were wrong or missing. Two had no phone number at all. None of it is hard to fix, but you have to know it's there.
I live in Heiskell, so I started close to home. I looked up local businesses in Heiskell, Powell, Halls, Clinton and the north side of Knoxville on Google Maps and went through each listing the way a customer would. I've left the business names out. Every one of these problems is fixable, and most of the owners have no idea they're there.
14 of 27This was the most common problem by a wide margin. An auto shop with customers going back 30 years had fewer than 30 reviews. A mechanical contractor that has been in business for 50 years had 58, with a harsh one-star review sitting near the top. An owner-run plumber had 58 reviews while the plumber down the road had 322. A tree service that does storm cleanup had 6.
When someone compares two businesses on Google, the review count is usually the first thing they look at, and it's one of the things Google weighs when it decides who shows up in the map. Long-time customers are usually glad to leave a review. In most of these cases, nobody had asked them.
Check yoursSearch your trade and your town, like "plumber Powell TN," and compare your review count with the businesses that show up above you.
7 of 27Five listings said the business was open 24 hours a day, including two roofers, a tree service and a concrete company. They aren't. One landscaper showed open 24 hours on Sundays only. Two more listings had no hours at all, and one of those belongs to a landscaping company with 182 reviews.
Google lets people filter for businesses that are open right now, and it shows your hours right under your name. Wrong hours mean a customer calls at 10 at night and gets voicemail, or never sees you because Google isn't sure when you're open. A barbershop that's open three days a week needs those three days to be exactly right.
Check yoursOpen your listing on Google Maps and read the hours for every day of the week. Then check that holiday hours are set.
4 of 27Two listings had no phone number, so someone searching on their phone couldn't tap to call. One listed a P.O. box as its address. One shared its address and phone number with a different business in the same building, which splits the reviews between the two and leaves Google unsure which one is which.
Google wants to be confident that a business is real and is where it says it is. Anything that makes that unclear tends to push a listing down, and a listing without a phone number loses the easiest call there is.
Check yoursTap the call button on your own listing and make sure it rings the right phone. If you work at customers' homes, set a service area instead of an address.
2 of 27In two cases, customers' reviews called the business by another name. An electrician's reviews kept calling it by an older name. A roofer's reviews mentioned a different company and driveway work, which muddies what the business actually does. If customers and Google can't agree on your name and your trade, both get less sure about sending people your way.
3 of 27Some of the most useful findings were written by customers. One review said it took a long time to hear back about an estimate. Another said walk-ins waited an hour, were turned away, and went to the barbershop down the road. A tree service sat at 3.9 stars, with several reviews about calls and messages that didn't get answered.
These aren't listing problems. They're follow-up problems, and they cost more than anything else on this list. A missed call that gets a text back within a minute has a much better chance of becoming a booked job than one that waits until tomorrow.
If you find something, fix it, or send me your business name and I'll take a look. My $500 Google profile tune-up covers everything in this post, including a simple way to ask happy customers for reviews.
Listings checked on Google Maps on November 4, 2026. Counts are from that day. Some listings had more than one problem.
Send me your website or business name. I'll send back what's wrong in plain English, with a price to fix it.