Your customers like you. They just don't think about Google reviews on their way out the door. Your job is to make leaving one easy, and to ask at the right moment.
Ask at the happy moment
The best time is right after the good bit. The haircut looks great. The boiler works. The flat white was perfect. Not three weeks later in an email they'll never open.
Something like: "Glad you liked it. If you've got a minute, a Google review really helps a small business like us." That's it. People say yes to that more often than you'd think.
Make it one tap
In your Google Business Profile there's a "Ask for reviews" button that gives you a short link. Use it everywhere:
- A QR code by the till, on the table, or on the back of the receipt.
- The text or email you already send after a job.
- Your email signature.
- A thank-you card in the bag.
Every extra tap loses people. The link goes straight to the review box. Use it.
Reply to every review
Thank the good ones by name and mention something specific. For the bad ones: stay calm, say sorry where it's fair, and offer to sort it. Future customers read your replies more closely than the review.
What not to do
- Don't buy reviews or post fake ones. In the UK, fake reviews are now illegal under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, and Google removes them anyway.
- Don't offer a discount or freebie in exchange for a review. It breaks Google's rules and it can get your reviews wiped.
- Don't only ask the people you know are happy. Google calls that review gating. Ask everyone.
- Don't write reviews for your mates' businesses, and don't ask them to write yours.
How many do you need?
Look at the three businesses in the map box for your main search. That's your target. In most Newcastle neighbourhoods, a steady few new reviews a month will overtake a competitor who got 40 in 2021 and then stopped. Recent beats old.
Pair this with a properly filled-in profile (here's our Google Business Profile guide) and you're doing more than most of your street.
Want a review system that runs itself?
We set up review requests that go out automatically after each job as part of our Google Maps fix-up. £195, once, profile tidy-up included. Run a trade or a salon? See marketing for trades or barbers and salons. Ask us how.
Rather we just did it? That's literally the job. See our seo service or the prices.
