GOOGLE REVIEWS
Ask every customer, not just the happy ones
A Westchester company has 31 reviews, all five stars, all from 2023. A competitor has 140, averaging 4.6, with new ones every week. The homeowner reading both trusts the second one. Perfect and old reads like something was filtered. Steady and honest reads like a real company.
A note on what this is. It is not a promise of a rating. Nobody can promise that, and anyone who does is breaking Google's rules on your behalf.
What gating is
Asking "were you happy?" first, and only sending the Google link to the ones who say yes. Google forbids it. Customers can feel it. And it produces exactly the profile above: a small pile of perfect reviews with no recent dates.
Ask everyone, the same way
- The job is marked done on the board. A few hours later, a text: "Thanks for having us out today. If you have a minute, a Google review helps a small company a lot." With the link.
- In Spanish if the customer speaks Spanish. Westchester is mostly Spanish at home.
- One reminder, three days later, if nothing. Then it stops.
- No "were you happy?" first. No coupon for a review. No asking for five stars.
THE NUMBER THAT MATTERS
When the review is bad
A three-star review comes in. The system drafts a reply, in the customer's language, plain and short, and holds it. You read it, change it, and approve it, or you write your own. Nothing is posted until you say so. A calm reply to a bad review is read by every future customer, and it does more for you than the review does against you.
What you see
New reviews land in the inbox like a text. The report shows requests sent, reviews received, and the average, by month and by tech. If one tech's customers never leave reviews, that is a conversation.
The request goes only to customers who had a finished job. Never to a list, never to a quote that did not close.
Questions we get asked about this
Does it post replies on its own?
No. Every reply is a draft held for you. Nothing goes to Google until you approve it.
What if I do not want to ask a particular customer?
Turn it off on that job card before marking it done. It is one switch.
Can it get bad reviews removed?
No. Nobody can, except Google, and only when a review breaks Google's rules. You can flag one from the inbox; the decision is Google's.
Related
Look at your newest review
Find the date of your newest Google review. If it is more than a month old, book a 30-minute call. We set the request up in both languages.