How to Check a Roofer’s Reviews Without Falling for the Star Rating Trick

You, sitting at the kitchen table with three Minneapolis roofing estimates: one company has 4.9 stars across 312 reviews, one has 4.7 across 180, one has 5.0 across 22. Which one’s actually the best bet?

Trick question. The star rating is probably not the answer. The pattern of the reviews is. That’s what we’re going to fix in this article — because how to check a roofer’s reviews is a skill most homeowners never learn, and it’s the cheapest, fastest way to avoid a five-figure mistake.

Let’s walk through the review sites that actually matter, the five questions to hold in your head while reading, and the shortcut filtering sequence that gets you to a smart decision in under 30 minutes.

Where to actually look: how to check a roofer’s reviews on the sites that count

Not every review platform weighs the same. Here’s the hierarchy that consistently gives the clearest picture:

1. Google Business Profile — the highest-volume source and the hardest to fake at scale. Start here.
2. Better Business Bureau (BBB) — less volume, but complaint resolution is tracked. Worth reading closed complaints specifically.
3. Angi (formerly Angie’s List) — strong for home-services vertical; fewer reviews but more detailed.
4. Facebook recommendations — useful for seeing how the company engages locally.
5. Yelp — lower signal-to-noise for Minneapolis roofing; read skeptically.
6. Nextdoor — the best unfiltered read you’ll get on what neighbors actually think.

Also ignored too often: negative search. Type the contractor’s legal name plus “complaint,” “lawsuit,” “scam,” or “sued” into Google. Read the second page of results if there is one.

What to actually read: how to check a roofer’s reviews for real signal

This is where most homeowners stop at the star rating and miss the whole point. When you know how to check a roofer’s reviews like a pro, you read with four specific questions in mind:

1. What are the worst 10 reviews saying? Sort by lowest rating. Read all of them. Look for repeat failure modes — three reviews describing the same problem is a pattern.
2. How is the company responding? Defensive, generic, silent, or thoughtful? Responses to criticism reveal company character faster than any 5-star could.
3. Are the 5-stars specific? “Great job!” is low signal. “Installed 30 squares of Timberline HDZ in Prospect Park in two days, cleaned up perfectly, answered my warranty email in 48 hours” is high signal.
4. Is there review velocity without delivery scale? 200 reviews in 60 days on a small company suggests a push (possibly incentivized) rather than organic growth.
5. Do any review authors appear elsewhere in the contractor’s reviews? Repeat authors with different names can indicate fake reviews.

If a contractor has 4.9 stars and 312 reviews but the worst 10 all describe the same pattern of poor communication or unresolved warranty issues, you’ve learned more than the star rating could ever tell you.

The 30-minute review-check routine for Minneapolis homeowners

Here’s the compressed sequence we use when we’re helping a family member choose between two or three Twin Cities crews. Allocate about ten minutes per contractor:

1. Google the legal business name. Open the Google Business Profile reviews.
2. Sort by lowest rating. Read all 1-star, 2-star, and 3-star reviews.
3. Read the company’s replies to those reviews.
4. Scan the company’s BBB profile for closed complaints.
5. Google “[company name] complaint” and “[company name] scam.” Read the first page.
6. Check Nextdoor if you’re a member — search the contractor’s name in your neighborhood’s feed.
7. Note three red flags (if any) and three green flags (if any) per contractor.

After 30 minutes across two or three contractors, you’ll have patterns. One company’s reviews keep mentioning a specific project manager by name with glowing praise. Another company’s worst reviews all describe the same ice-dam callback that was never resolved. That’s your decision.

For more on using review patterns as part of the larger vetting process, see how to vet a Minneapolis roofing company and the full Minneapolis roofing companies pillar.

The predictive power of a contractor’s response to a bad review is larger than the predictive power of their star rating. How they handle a dissatisfied customer in public is how they’ll handle yours in private.

— Paraphrased from Harvard Business School research on service-industry reputation

Review red flags worth taking seriously

A few patterns that should weight heavily against a contractor, even if their average is strong:

• Large review spikes after hailstorms. Out-of-state crews and storm chasers generate inorganic review bursts — see our local vs storm chaser guide.
• Multiple 1-star reviews mentioning the same installer or PM. That’s a specific person you may get on your job.
• Generic 5-star reviews without project details. Often paid or incentivized.
• “Updated my review” patterns where a 5-star became a 1-star after the warranty kicked in. Service experience is the true test.
• Company responses that blame the customer. Predicts exactly how your dispute will be handled.
• Multiple complaint records on BBB with no resolution. Stronger signal than star averages.

See these stacked with any of the patterns in our roofing contractor red flags and the decision gets easier. For a broader external perspective, the Consumer Reports home improvement contractor guide is a solid neutral reference, and the BBB directory is worth five minutes in any serious vetting.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check a roofer’s reviews if they have very few?

Low-volume reviews aren’t automatically bad — new or small companies may have dozens of satisfied customers who never wrote reviews. Shift weight to direct references (ask for three), MN DLI license history, manufacturer certifications, and years in business under the same legal name.

Are Google reviews more reliable than BBB reviews?

Higher volume, yes. More context, no. Both matter. Google gives you the pattern across many customers; BBB gives you insight into how unresolved disputes play out. Use both, and read the responses more than the ratings.

How can I tell if reviews are fake?

Look for: generic language, short length, no project specifics, no photos, clusters of reviews posted within days, reviewer profiles with one review total, and repeated phrasing across multiple reviews. One or two of these isn’t definitive; several is.

What’s the single most important thing to look at in roofing reviews?

The company’s replies to negative reviews. That single behavior predicts more about your future experience than anything else on the profile — including the star average, which many homeowners over-weight.

Should I call reviewers directly?

You can’t on most platforms, but you can (and should) ask the contractor directly for two references from jobs in your zip code in the last 12 months, and then call those. See our full question list.

Third-party contractor research

• Angi home services reviews — Minneapolis roofers — a second review surface worth cross-checking