How to ask for reviews on Google: contractor texts

What should a contractor text to ask for a Google review?

Keep it short, from a real name, with one link and no steer on what to say. Google says customers can leave a review through a Google link or QR code, so copy your link from your Business Profile first. Then send the same wording to everyone, swapping only the name and the link.

Leave out “five stars,” “if you were happy” and “mention the crew.” Each one trips a rule below. Customers also need to be signed into a Google Account to leave a review, so a homeowner without one may take a little longer.

• After a service call: Hi [first name], it’s [your name] at [company]. Thanks for having us out today. If you have a minute, we’d appreciate an honest Google review of the visit: [review link]
• After a reroof, install or remodel: Hi [first name], your job is wrapped up. Thanks for trusting us with it. We ask every customer for an honest review on Google, good or bad. It takes a couple of minutes: [review link]
• One reminder a few days later: Hi [first name], [your name] from [company] again. In case the last text got buried, here’s that review link: [review link]. No need to reply.

What does Google’s review policy allow?

Google lets you ask for a genuine review as long as you don’t try to influence the rating or the contents. The Maps content policy spells out the line, and this table puts it in trade terms.

Two of those rows matter for how you run a crew. A target of ten reviews a month for a tech sits inside Google’s wording on staff soliciting “a certain number of reviews.” So does a script asking customers to name the tech. The word “premises” fits a shop better than a customer’s home, so the safe reading for field work is to send the text after you’ve left.

Software that asks for a rating first and sends only happy customers to Google is the pattern to avoid. Google bars merchants from discouraging negative reviews or selectively soliciting positive ones.

What does the FTC rule say about reviews?

The FTC’s rule targets fake, bought and suppressed reviews, and it went into effect on October 21, 2024. The FTC’s summary bars compensation conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, positive or negative. It also bars using groundless legal threats or intimidation to stop or remove a negative review, and claiming the reviews on your site are all or most of those submitted when you’ve suppressed some for being negative.

FTC staff’s Q&A adds two points where federal law and Google part ways. The rule doesn’t prohibit incentives for reviews as long as no particular sentiment is required, and it has no specific ban on asking only happy customers, though staff warn that practice could violate the FTC Act. Google’s policy is stricter on both, so write to Google’s standard.

The rule authorizes courts to impose civil penalties for knowing violations. For anything beyond a plain ask, talk to your attorney.

When should you ask for the review?

Send it the day the job closes, then keep doing it after every job. Recency is the reason. BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of 1,002 US adults found 74% only care about reviews from the last three months. It also found 78% were asked to write a review in the past year, and 28% say they will always write one if asked. Those figures cover all local businesses, not only the trades.

A steady ask beats a once-a-year blast. It also suits seasonal work, because HVAC’s slow season and a roofer’s winter leave you with fewer jobs to draw on. Texting has its own rules: use the number the customer gave you for the job, stop if they say stop, and read the consent rules for business texts.

How do more reviews help you on Google?

They feed prominence, one of the three things Google says local results mainly rest on. Google’s ranking page says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking, and that there’s no way to request or pay for a better one. Relevance and distance still count, so reviews won’t carry you across a metro on their own.

They count in paid results too, since rating and review count are part of Local Services Ads profile quality. Reply when you have something useful to add, keep promotions out of replies, and never post a reviewer’s private details. Google gives all of that advice in its own tips.

GHOBZ builds the ask after every job into its local SEO for contractors, part of its wider home service marketing.