How to get more Google reviews without breaking the rules.

If you run an HVAC, plumbing, roofing or cleaning company, you already do the hard part. The work is good and most customers are happy. The problem is that happy customers rarely think to say so, and unhappy ones almost always do. Leave that alone for a couple of years and a company with a hundred satisfied customers ends up with a Google rating that says otherwise.

The fix isn’t clever. It’s asking every customer, every time, in a way that is easy to say yes to. Here’s how to do it well.

1. Ask everyone, not just the customers you think liked you

It is tempting to only send the review link to the customers who seemed thrilled. Don’t. Google’s review policy prohibits selectively soliciting positive reviews, and the FTC’s 2024 rule on consumer reviews treats suppressing negative ones as a violation too. Beyond the rules, cherry-picking also doesn’t scale: you will forget, get busy, or guess wrong.

Ask every customer after every completed job. The math takes care of the rest, because most of your customers are happy.

2. Time the ask for when the goodwill is highest

The best moment is shortly after the job closes: the work is done, the problem is solved, and the customer still remembers your tech’s name. A couple of hours after close works well for most trades. Waiting a week means you are competing with everything else in their inbox.

3. Send it by text, signed by a real person

Most homeowners will read a text within minutes. Keep it short, sign it with your name or the tech’s, and include one link that goes straight to your Google review box. For example:

Use a link on your own domain rather than a public link shortener. Carriers filter shortened links heavily, which is one of the reasons review texts go out but never arrive. We wrote up the other reasons in why your review texts aren’t arriving.

4. Follow up twice, then stop

One reminder a few days later and a final one about a week later catches most of the people who meant to and forgot. After that, stop. The person on the other end is someone you want to call you again next season, and a fourth text costs more goodwill than the review is worth.

5. Set honest expectations

Roughly a fifth to a third of people asked will actually post. Fifty requests will not turn into fifty reviews, and anyone promising a guaranteed number is either buying reviews or gating them. Both can get reviews stripped from your profile.

6. Reply to every review

Prospects read your replies, especially to the one- and two-star reviews. A calm, specific reply to a bad review often does more for you than another five-star review. See how to respond to a negative Google review for examples.

What not to do

These are the shortcuts that look like they work until a policy sweep removes months of reviews:

• Offering discounts, gift cards or entries in exchange for a review.
• Sending only happy customers to Google and routing everyone else to a private form.
• Asking customers to mention a specific tech, service or star rating in what they write.
• Setting review quotas for your crew or asking on a tablet at the counter.
• Buying reviews, or trading reviews with other businesses.

Google tightened several of these rules this year. The full list is in Google changed the review rules in April.

How many do you actually need?

Fewer than most owners think. What matters is the gap between you and the companies ranking just above you, especially recent reviews. We walk through the ten-minute version in how many reviews you need to beat the company above you.