3 min read
Reviews are the closest thing to word of mouth that works while you sleep. Someone comparing three plumbers on Google Maps will almost always pick on rating and recency before they pick on price.
Timing beats persuasion
The best moment to ask is when the job is finished, the customer can see the work, and you are still standing there. A day later you are competing with the rest of their life. Trade Foundation sends the request automatically once you mark a job complete, which is exactly this moment without you having to remember it.
Make it one tap
Every extra step loses people. Send a direct link to your Google review form rather than asking them to search for you. In your Google Business Profile you can generate a short review link: that is the only thing that should be in the message.
Ask properly
- Keep it short and in your own voice, not a corporate template
- Say why it helps: it is how people find a small local business
- Ask once, and once more a few days later if nothing comes back
- Never offer anything in return, which is covered below
Do not pay for reviews
Since 6 April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has banned writing fake reviews, commissioning someone else to write them, and offering an incentive for a review without saying so. The Competition and Markets Authority can decide a business has broken these rules without going to court, and fine up to 10 percent of global turnover.
Incentivised reviews are not banned outright: they are allowed if the incentive is prominently and unambiguously disclosed and the review is still genuine. In practice that disclosure undoes most of the benefit, and it breaches Google's own policies regardless. A handful of real reviews is worth more than a page that all read the same.
Reply to all of them, especially the bad ones
A calm, specific reply to a one star review does more for the next reader than the review costs you. Do not argue the detail in public. Acknowledge it, say what you have done, and offer to pick it up directly. People read the reply as evidence of how you behave when something goes wrong, which is the thing they are actually worried about.