Get More Reviews

Your prospects read reviews before they call

According to a BrightLocal study, 87% of consumers consider reviews when selecting a local provider. Quantity, recency, and rating decide who gets picked — and who gets skipped. A prospect who likes your website will still call someone else if your reviews look thin, stale, or worse than the company down the street.

Reviews also feed map-pack rankings. Google lists reviews and ratings among the prominence factors for local results: more reviews and positive ratings can improve your local ranking. Local Services Ads show star ratings too, so the same reputation work shows up in paid results.

You cannot opt out. Review sites are allowed to list your business from public data whether you claim the listing or not. They will not honor a request to take you down. The work is to earn a steady stream of real reviews, claim the listings that already rank for your name, and keep each profile current.

A polished website and a well-run ad campaign still lose the job if a prospect checks reviews and finds a thin or angry first page. The inverse is also true: a stack of recent, specific five-stars is often the tie-breaker between two similar companies.

The review link

Google Business Profile gives you a direct review link. From the profile, use Share Review Form under Get More Reviews and copy the unique URL. Google documents the steps in its help article on asking for reviews.

The most reliable ask is a text with that link, sent right after the job or visit while satisfaction is highest. Ask in person first — “Would you be willing to leave a Google review?” — then send the link before you leave or as soon as you get back to the truck. The work is still fresh, the customer is still standing there, and a tap on a phone is easier than logging into Google later.

Email works as a backup, but it lands later, can hit spam, and converts worse than a text. By the time they open it, the job is days old and the prompt is easier to ignore. Use email for customers who prefer it, not as the default.

You can run the texts yourself or use reputation software that fires the same link by SMS after the invoice. The tool is optional. The timing and the Google link are not.

Make the ask part of close-out, every customer, every time. It is not a campaign you run when reviews dip. It is a step in the job, like the invoice. Skip a week and the volume drops; skip a month and the recent-review count that map-pack prospects scan starts to look stale.

Don’t buy, don’t incentivize

Do not pay for reviews, offer discounts, run a contest, or give a prize in exchange for a review. The FTC treats incentivized and fake reviews as deceptive, and platforms remove them — sometimes along with legitimate reviews on the same profile.

Do not ask family, friends, or people who were never customers to write reviews. Do not hire a service that “seeds” five-star ratings. False endorsements — including paying for a Facebook “like” that implies an opinion — sit in the same category. A slower pile of real reviews beats a fast pile that gets wiped.

Ask for the review. Do not script a five-star rating, and do not only ask the customers you already know were happy. Platform rules allow you to ask; they do not allow you to buy the outcome. If the work was good, the review will usually be good. If it wasn’t, you needed to hear that anyway.

Fake and malicious reviews

Fake reviews happen: competitors, bots, and people your business never served. If you are sure a review is not from a customer, flag it with the platform and say so in a factual public reply — this person was not a customer, here is how real customers can reach you if something went wrong.

That does not always work. Some platforms barely respond. Still reply in public so prospects see you noticed, then keep collecting legitimate reviews. Volume is what buries a fake one-star, not an argument in the thread.

The same FTC rules that ban you from buying positives apply to anyone writing fakes about you. Document the job, the dates, and the customer record so you can show the platform the review does not match anyone you served.

Monitor and respond to everything

Set up alerts so you know when a review lands — Google, Facebook, and any industry site that already ranks for your business name. Respond at least weekly; faster is better. Software can notify you, but the reply still has to sound like a person.

Responses are marketing. Prospects read them as a preview of what you are like to deal with. Thank people. Fix what you can. Do not argue.

Responding to positive reviews

Keep it short. Thank them, mention the work if it is specific, and invite them back. It does not have to be the owner — train whoever handles the inbox, as long as the voice stays consistent and human.

Responding to negative reviews

Negative reviews are inevitable, even when the work was good. A profile with nothing but five stars can look fake. Search Engine Land has reported that most people do not overweight a negative review when the business addresses it promptly.

Write for the prospect reading over the reviewer’s shoulder, not for the argument. Be calm, factual, and brief. If you made a mistake, say so, apologize, and say how you will fix it — then actually fix it, and use the complaint to change the process so it does not happen again. If you did the job well and the customer is still unhappy, thank them, offer to take it offline, and stop. Some customers will never be satisfied. Do not litigate the job in public.

If a review is fake, say that clearly and invite a real customer with a problem to contact you directly. If the platform lets you, note that you have no record of serving that person.

The platforms that matter

Google first. Claim the Google Business Profile, collect reviews there, and respond to every one. That is the listing people see in Maps, in the map pack, and when they search your name.

Facebook recommendations show star ratings in search results. Claim the page and reply.

The Better Business Bureau still carries weight with a lot of local customers — BrightLocal has found BBB reviews trusted as much as or more than Google in some surveys. Spell it correctly, claim it, and respond. If you are a member, the badge on the website can help conversions; the reviews on the Bureau profile help either way.

Industry directories matter where your customers actually look: Angi and HomeAdvisor for home services, Houzz for design and outdoor work, and health-care directories for practices. You will also find listings on Thumbtack, Yellow Pages, and smaller sites you have never heard of. Search “[your business name] reviews” and claim everything that already appears on page one. Ignore the long tail of directories nobody clicks.

Review sites you do not control are still advertising. A complete profile and a professional reply beat an empty, unclaimed listing with one unanswered complaint.

Yelp exists, and it often ranks. Claim the page and respond to reviews that land there. Yelp prohibits soliciting reviews — do not ask customers for Yelp reviews.

Local Services Ads reviews count separately. Google asks LSA customers for a rating inside that flow. Those stars show on the LSA, not as a substitute for Google Business Profile reviews, which you still have to collect yourself.

Review collection is part of local marketing — the same work as citations, the map pack, and keeping the Google Business Profile complete. Build the ask into the job, keep the reviews real, and answer everything.