How to Get More Google Reviews (What to Actually Say)

Timing beats phrasing. Ask when the customer is happiest — the water heater works, the lawn looks sharp, the crown fits — not three weeks later in a batch email. For most trades that means the ask goes out the same day as the job, ideally within the hour.

Make it effortless: one text, one direct link to your Google review form (get it from your Business Profile), zero steps between tap and stars.

Hi Dana — thanks again for having us out today! If you were happy with the work, a quick Google review genuinely helps a small business like ours more than you'd think: [your review link]

And if anything wasn't right, just reply here and I'll fix it.

That last line matters: inviting unhappy customers to reply to you first isn't just service recovery, it routes complaints to your phone instead of your public profile. You fix the problem, they often review you anyway — and the review mentions how you handled it, which reads better than perfection.

Every one — future customers read your replies as a preview of what hiring you feels like. For praise, two sentences that mention the job specifics. For a bad review: thank them, own what was real, state what changed, take it offline. Never argue publicly; you're not writing to the reviewer, you're writing to the next hundred people who read it.

Never buy reviews, never post fake ones, never review-gate (only asking customers you know are happy while filtering the rest to a feedback form is against Google's policy, and fake or incentivized reviews can draw regulatory fines). Also don't attach discounts to reviews. Ask everyone, honestly — volume of real asks is the whole strategy.