I’ve dealt with this headache so you don’t have to. Signing up for an agency account is great, because it gives you some new tools to take the confusion out for your customers when it comes time to help them with their Google Business profile. However, an agency account comes with some caveats. That is, the agency cannot own profiles on its own (it can never be an owner), so having a backup Gmail or Google account to be an owner is key. Ideally, the client becomes the owner, but that doesn’t always work out.
Another issue with Google Business profiles and agency accounts is that service area businesses (that is, businesses that do not have a physical address where customers can visit) are basically impossible to get access to manage. You cannot send a request to manage the profile, and Google’s own help files say essentially to just remake the listing and then hope Google’s own system flags it as a duplicate. When that doesn’t happen, you end up in a cycle with support where they tell you to simply invite yourself, and you tell them you can’t accept the invite, and then they tell you to send it from the agency account, and you tell them you don’t show up…
Well, having been in the support cycle myself I figured out the workaround. Here it is, it’s super simple. You need to convert your service area business to a brick-and-mortar. You can use basically any address (though some may require verification) to do this step as you won’t be leaving it like this for long. You can convert it by toggling this switch:
Then plug in an address. Once you save it, as long as it doesn’t need verification, you can let it sit with Google for about a day. After that, head over to your agency account and you’ll see you can now locate it when typing in the name of the business and actually send an invite. Send the invite, accept the request, and then convert it back to a service area business (SAB) with the toggle.
Hope this helps you save some time and frustration!