Asking Every Customer for a Google Review

1. Why the Ask Is the Gap

Most trade businesses have fewer reviews than jobs by a wide margin, and the reason is rarely the work. It is that nobody asked. A customer who is pleased with the result will usually leave a review when asked at the right moment, and almost never thinks to do it unprompted.

So the lever is the ask, not the rating. Ask every customer, at the moment the job is finished, with one tap to your Google page, and the count takes care of itself. Do it only on quiet weeks and it never will.

2. How the Ask Works

The system hooks into your job management tool. When a job is marked complete, it waits a short period (typically 2 hours, enough time for the customer to see the result) and then sends one SMS: a thank-you, a quick question about how it went, and your Google review link. The same trigger can schedule the customer’s next service reminder.

If someone replies with a low score, you get a text straight away so you can ring them while it is still fixable. That is good service, not reputation management: the customer still has the same review link as everyone else, and whether they use it is up to them.

3. The Shortcut You Must Not Take

A lot of review software sells a different flow: ask for a score first, send the Google link only to people who answer 4 or 5, and send everyone else to a private form. It is called review gating, and it is the one part of this job you should refuse to build.

• Google prohibits it. Its review policy bars businesses from discouraging negative reviews or selectively asking happy customers for positive ones. Reviews it judges to be filtered can be removed, and so can a profile.
• The ACCC treats it as misleading. Its guidance on online reviews for businesses says a rating built only from the customers you chose misleads the people reading it, and misleading conduct is a matter under the Australian Consumer Law.
• It does not work for long. A profile of uniform five-star reviews reads as curated to the next customer, and the unhappy one you diverted still knows where your Google page is.

Check the current wording of both before you launch, since platform policies change. The test is simple: every customer gets the same chance to review you publicly, whatever they said to you privately. If you buy a review platform, switch off any feature that routes low scores away from the review link.

4. The Flow, Step by Step

The complete flow from job completion to published review.

1. 1Job marked complete in ServiceM8, Simpro, or Jobber
2. 2System waits 2 hours (configurable)
3. 3SMS to every customer: “Thanks for having us, [name]. How did we go, 1 to 5? If you have a minute, a Google review helps a small business a lot: [link]”
4. 4Any reply of 1 to 3: the owner is alerted by SMS to call. The customer’s link is unchanged
5. 5If no reply and no review after 24 hrs → one gentle reminder with the same link, then stop
6. 6Thank-you message sent after a review is posted
7. 7Monthly report: requests sent, reviews received, owner call-backs made

5. What to Measure

We do not quote a review count or a star average you should expect, because both depend on your work and your customers, not on the software. These three numbers tell you whether the system is doing its job.

6. Getting Started

This is one of the simplest automations there is: one trigger, one message, one alert.

1. 1

   Claim and optimise your Google Business Profile

   Ensure your business name, address, phone, hours, and service area are accurate. Add photos of your work.

2. 2

   Connect your job management tool

   Set up the trigger that fires when a job is marked complete. This is the starting point for the entire automation.

3. 3

   Set up one message for everyone

   Thanks, a score, and the review link, to every customer. Wire low scores to an owner alert, not to a different link. Test with a few jobs first.

4. 4

   Monitor and respond weekly

   Reply to every Google review, good and bad (AI-drafted replies speed this up), and log the call-backs to low scores.