DEEP DIVE: REVIEWS
The review request that does not get you banned: timing, wording, language, and the reply
Reviews are the part of getting found that a contractor can move in a month. They are also the part with the most ways to get it wrong: asking at the wrong moment, asking only the happy customers, paying for them, or arguing with a bad one in public. Here is the whole practice, from the text that goes out to the reply that goes back.
A note on what this is. Nothing here promises a number of reviews or a star rating. It describes a habit that, kept for a year, gives you a review profile machines and customers trust.
THE SHORT ANSWER
When should you ask a customer for a Google review?
The right moment is the one when the customer feels the result. For AC, the evening the house is cool again. For plumbing, the day the water runs. For electrical, the day the inspection passes. For roofing, the day after the final and the tarp is gone. Not the day you invoice, and not two weeks later. The next morning at 10 AM is the best hour: the job is fresh, and nobody is asleep.
What does the review request text say?
One text, in the language the customer used with you. It names your company, thanks them, asks plainly, and gives one link. No forms, no survey first, no "if you were happy." Here is the shape, in both languages:
THE REQUEST
One reminder, three days later, if nothing came in. Then stop. A third message is a nuisance, and the platforms count nuisances.
Why ask every customer, not just the happy ones?
Asking only the customers you think are happy is called review gating. Google's rules prohibit it, and it shows in the profile: a company with fifty reviews and no complaints looks bought. Ask every finished job. The unhappy customer usually does not write anything. The one who does gives you the chance to write the reply that every future customer reads.
- Never pay for a review, trade a discount for one, or ask an employee or a relative.
- Never send the request to a customer who told you not to text them.
- Never write a review of yourself or a competitor.
- Never ask a customer to change or remove a review. Reply instead.
The link
Google gives every business profile a short link that opens the review box directly. Use that one, not the link to your profile page, and not a link to your site. Every extra tap loses half the people who were going to do it.
How do you reply to a bad review?
Reply to every review within a day or two, in its language. For a good one, one sentence of thanks with the customer's first name. For a bad one, three sentences: thank them for telling you, say what you will do, and give them a way to reach you directly. No excuses, no argument, no details about the job. The reply is not for the reviewer; it is for the next hundred people who read it.
A REPLY TO A TWO-STAR REVIEW
Held for your okay
The system can draft the reply, in the customer's language, and hold it until you read it. Nothing is posted that you did not approve. It also sends the request on its own the day after a job moves to done, with the reminder, and never to a number that opted out. The habit becomes a setting.
What the profile does for you
A year of asking every customer gives you a review profile that is real, recent, in both languages, and answered. Machines read that as a company that exists and is trusted. Customers read it as the reason to call you instead of the next name. And the call that comes from it lands on the same phone as every other call, where the next sixty seconds decide.
Related
Want to see the request go to your own phone?
Bring your Google review link to a 30-minute call. We send the request to you in both languages and show you the reply that waits for your okay.
