Most customers who are happy with the job will never think to leave a Google review on their own. The ones who do were mostly asked while the job was fresh, and sent a link that opened the review box straight away. How you ask matters too, because Google deletes reviews it thinks were bought or cherry-picked, and the ACCC has taken a trades marketplace to court over reviews.

Your Google Business Profile has a link that opens the review box with your business already filled in. The customer doesn't have to search for you, and can't end up reviewing a competitor by mistake.

Google's help page on creating a review link or QR code has the current steps. On a computer, open your profile, go to Read reviews, then Get more reviews. Copy the link, or save the QR code to print. You can only get the QR code from the desktop version.

Keep the link where you can paste it from your phone in two seconds, like a text shortcut or a message template in your job software. If you have to dig for it, you'll stop sending it.

Ask straight after the job

Ask while the customer is still standing next to the finished work. By the next day they've moved on to something else.

Mention it in person first ("Would you mind leaving us a Google review? I'll text you the link"), then send the text, so it arrives as something they've already said yes to. Keep it to their name, a thank you for that particular job, and the link:

"Thanks Sarah, glad the switchboard's sorted. If you've got a minute, a Google review helps us a lot: [link]."

If your invoice goes out by text or email, add one line and the link there as well. In ServiceM8, put it in the invoice email template so it goes out with every job. Customers need a Google account to post, which Google mentions on its tips for getting more reviews page, and they can make one with any email address.

Send it to every customer

That includes the customer whose job ran two days over. Asking only the ones you expect to be happy breaks Google's rules (more on that below). And a calm reply to the odd three-star review tells the next customer more about you than a wall of fives does.

Reply to every review

Your replies sit under each review, where your next customer reads them before deciding whether to ring you.

Google's review tips ask owners to keep replies short and polite, avoid pasting the same thank you on every review, and leave offers and promotions out. On a good review, mention the job and the town in your own words.

A bad review needs one calm reply that sticks to the facts. Apologise for anything you got wrong and offer to sort it out over the phone. Leave their address, what they paid and any other private details off the page.

If a review is fake, off-topic or from someone who was never a customer, flag it from your profile. Google removes reviews that break its policies. A genuine bad review stays up, however much you disagree with it.

What Google bans

Google's prohibited and restricted content policy for Maps lists what businesses can't do. These are the ones that catch trades out.

  • Offering anything for a review. A discount on the next job, a gift card or entry into a draw all count, and so does an incentive to change or remove a review.
  • Review gating. You can't ask only the customers you expect to be happy, or send unhappy ones to a private feedback form instead.
  • Discouraging negative reviews.
  • Reviews from current or former staff, contractors or anyone else with a conflict of interest.
  • Setting staff a target number of reviews, or asking customers to name a staff member in the review.
  • Paying for reviews, or buying them from a service.

Google can take down any review that breaks these rules.

What Australian consumer law says

Fake reviews also breach Australian Consumer Law. The ACCC's page on managing online reviews says it's against the law for a business to create fake or misleading reviews or arrange for others to do so. Reviews from employees or people you pay are misleading unless the connection is disclosed. Removing or editing genuine negative reviews can mislead customers too.

The ACCC allows some incentives under consumer law if they're disclosed and given whatever the rating. Google's own rules are stricter and ban incentives outright, so for Google reviews, offer nothing.

Service Seeking, a trades marketplace, let businesses draft reviews of their own jobs, and a review went live if the customer didn't respond within three days. The ACCC took it to the Federal Court, which ordered it to pay penalties.