How to ask a customer for a review without it feeling like a form letter
Ask once, by text, within two days of the final payment, with one link. The words are below.
Reviews are the cheapest marketing a contractor has, and the ask is the part most people skip. Not because they are shy. Because by the time they think of it, the job is two weeks gone. Here is the timing and the words.
When
Within two days of the final payment, while the new water heater or the finished deck is still the thing they tell people about. After a week the moment is gone. Before the final payment is too early, because the review would be about a job that is not done.
How
By text if you can, from you, one at a time. A message from the person who did the work gets answered. A scheduled blast from a platform gets ignored, and on some review sites it is against the rules. Send it yourself, or with a tool that sends it in your name only when you tap.
The text
"Hi Sara, glad the water heater is in and working. If you have two minutes, a Google review would mean a lot to a small company like mine. Here is the link. Thanks again for the work. Mike."
One link. Google for most trades, because that is where the next customer looks. If you ask for Google, Yelp, and Facebook in one text, you get none of them.
Make the link direct
Google gives every business a short link that opens the review box directly. Find it in your Google Business Profile under "Ask for reviews". Use that, not a link to your listing, which makes them hunt for the button.
What not to do
- Do not offer a discount or a gift for a review. Google prohibits it and customers can tell.
- Do not ask only the happy ones and skip the rest. Ask everyone you finished a job for; a run of five-star reviews with no texture reads as bought.
- Do not send it twice. One ask. If they do not, they do not.
- Do not write the review for them or send them a draft.
If they leave one
Reply on Google within a day, one line, by name. "Thanks Sara, glad it is working well." The reply is for the next reader as much as for her.
In BidWriter Pro, a job that has been paid in full for two days shows an Ask for review button. It emails a short note like the one above from your name, with your Google link, when you tap it. Never on its own. How it works.
Free, no account: job price calculator, markup vs margin, hourly rate, and 84 sample estimates.
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