How does the six-step review system work?
1. Trigger the ask from job completion, not from memory
The single biggest reason local businesses have few reviews is that nobody asks, and the single biggest reason nobody asks is that asking is a manual job at the busiest moment of the day. Connect the request to the event that already happens: the invoice is marked paid, the job is closed in your job-management app, the appointment is marked complete in your calendar. From that trigger, the request sends itself every time, with no one having to remember.
2. Ask the same day, while the experience is fresh
A customer whose boiler was fixed this morning is far more likely to write three sentences about it tonight than next week. Send the request within hours of the job finishing. One polite follow-up a few days later to non-responders is reasonable; a barrage is not, and repeated chasing starts to look like pressure.
3. Send it by text first, with a direct link to your review form
SMS gets seen; email gets filed. The message should be short, personal, and contain one tap-able link that opens your Google review box directly (Google gives every Business Profile a shareable review link under "Ask for reviews"). Every extra step, searching for your business, finding the right button, costs you a meaningful share of would-be reviewers.
4. Ask every customer, and run service recovery in parallel
Google's rules prohibit "review gating": selectively inviting only the customers you think will be positive, or discouraging negative reviews. The compliant pattern is to send the review invitation to everyone, and separately give unhappy customers a fast private channel to reach you, so problems get fixed quickly because that is good business, not as a filter on who gets asked. A visible mix that includes the occasional imperfect review with a professional owner response reads as more trustworthy than a wall of five stars anyway.
5. Never attach an incentive to the review
No discounts, no prize draws, no loyalty points, nothing of value in exchange for a Google review. Google's content policy bans it, and in the UK the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (in force for fake and misleading reviews since April 2025) bans publishing incentivised reviews that are not clearly disclosed, with the CMA able to fine businesses directly. If you want to reward customers for spreading the word, attach the reward to referrals instead; a referral is a private recommendation, not a public review, and can carry an incentive.
6. Reply to every review, good and bad
Owner responses are visible to every future customer reading your profile, and profiles that respond signal an attentive business. Thank the positive ones in a sentence or two; answer critical ones calmly, factually, and with a route to resolution. Never argue in public, and never reveal customer details in a reply.
None of this requires exotic software. It requires the pieces to be wired together, job-completion trigger, message templates, direct review link, private feedback route, response habit, and then left running. That wiring is what businesses usually pay for, whether they build it on their own CRM or hire it done. If you want to see where the review engine sits in what I sell, the reviews and referrals engine page shows exactly what is included.
