How to ask for reviews honestly
Ask every customer, the same way, when the job is complete, with one link and nothing attached. That is the whole method. Here is each part, the sentence from Google or the FTC it comes from, and what to do when one comes back rough.
Ask when the work is finished, not while you are standing in it.
The moment is the final walkthrough done and the invoice settled. The place is not the customer's kitchen.
The right time is the same for every job: the work is complete, the customer has seen it, and the invoice is settled. Before that, the customer does not yet have the experience the review is about. Long after it, the job has faded into the month and the ask lands cold. The day the job closes, or the day after, is when the experience is whole and still vivid.
The place matters as much as the time. Google's policy says: "When soliciting reviews, merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, nor should they request that specific content be included." So the ask is a message, sent after you have left, not a phone held out at the door while the crew loads the van. Nobody feels pressured by a text they can answer tomorrow or ignore.
None of this is difficult. It is the thing that gets dropped at the end of a long day, every day, which is why it needs to be a system rather than a resolution.
Ask every customer, including the one you would rather not.
The only honest list is the whole list.
Every completed job gets the ask. The one that went perfectly, the one that ran two days long, and the one where the customer and the foreman stopped speaking on day three. Not because the rough ones will write something kind, but because deciding who gets asked based on what you expect them to say is the thing both sources name.
Google lists "Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers" among the things it does not allow merchants to do. The FTC's questions and answers page asks "Can my business ask for reviews only from customers whom we think are happy with our services?" and answers: "The rule does not contain a specific prohibition against such conduct. But this practice could violate the FTC Act." Both are quoted in full, both are linked below, and neither needs us to add anything. The gating question has a guide of its own.
What asking everyone does to the profile is simple. It becomes a record of the jobs you actually did. The rough review, when it comes, sits among the honest ones and gets an honest reply, and a homeowner reading the page sees a business rather than a brochure.
If you would take the customer's money for the job, you send the customer the ask. Same message, same link, no exceptions, because the exceptions are the sort.
The same words every time, and nothing attached.
Five parts to the ask, and a sentence from the sources behind each.
- The same words, every time. One message you would be happy to have every customer compare notes on. No warm version and cool version.
- One link. Straight to your Google Business Profile's review form. No survey first, no landing page that sorts.
- No incentive. Google does not allow incentives "in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review." Nothing is offered.
- No steering. The permitted sentence allows asking "without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review." The ask names no rating and suggests no words.
- Nothing written for them. The policy names requests "that specific content be included." A draft you hand the customer is exactly that.
Thank you for having us out for the water heater last week. If you have a minute, an honest review on Google would mean a lot to us. Here is the link. Then the link, and nothing else.
Read the message for what it lacks. No rating, no suggested wording, no gift, no survey, no name to mention, no different version for the customer you liked best. It is polite, it is short, and it is the same on the best day of the year and the worst. Google's permitted sentence allows a merchant to "Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review," and that message contains nothing the sentence draws a line at.
Both sources are short and public. Read them yourself at Google's user contributed content policy for Maps and at the FTC's questions and answers on the rule. We are not lawyers, and none of this is legal advice.
Let it stand, and reply like the owner.
Asking everyone means some reviews will be hard to read. Here is what the FTC says you can do, and what it names as off limits.
It stands. The FTC's questions and answers page says: "Yes, you can respond publicly to the review, and yes, you should watch what you say. The rule prohibits making a false accusation about the reviewer if you know that the accusation is false or make it with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity. Your response also shouldn't use physical threats or intimidation to get the review (or a portion of it) removed or changed."
So the reply is short, factual and calm. Thank them for the feedback, say what happened in a sentence, say what you would do to make it right, and give them a way to reach you. Then stop. A reply written for the next homeowner reading it, rather than for the customer who wrote the review, is the one that ages well.
You can also pick up the phone. Asked whether the rule prohibits a company from contacting customers who post negative reviews to resolve the reported issues, the FTC answers: "No. It also does not prohibit simply asking satisfied customers to update their reviews." Fix the job because it needs fixing. If the customer chooses to change what they wrote afterwards, that is theirs to do, and it is not something you pay for.
- Never offer anything to take it down. Asked whether the rule bars offering incentives for removing negative reviews, the FTC answers: "No, but offering such incentives could be an unfair practice in violation of the FTC Act." Google bars incentives for a "revision or removal of a negative review."
- Never threaten. The FTC says intimidation "is not limited to physical threats and can include abusive communications, stalking, character assassination, and sexual harassment when those things are used to intimidate."
- Never send a lawyer letter you cannot back. The rule names an "unfounded or groundless legal threat" used to prevent a review or to get one removed.
- Never call them a fake. A false accusation made knowingly, or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity, is what the rule names in a reply.
- Never bury it. Three quick reviews from the crew and a cousin are insider reviews under the FTC's rule and a conflict of interest under Google's policy.
- Never gate the next one. The instinct after a bad review is to start sorting. That is the practice both sources name.
Making it happen without you.
The method fits on an index card. Doing it on job four hundred is the hard part.
Nobody disagrees with any of the above. The reason it stops happening is that the ask is the last thing in the day, and the last thing in the day is the thing that does not happen. A resolution to ask every customer lasts about as long as any other resolution.
That is what the AI Office Manager is for. It asks every completed job for an honest Google review, in the same words, and never filters. There is no version of it with a filter. It does not promise you a count or a rating, because what your customers write is theirs. It is the optional service described on our reviews page, and the asking is one part of it.
More on reviews: Is review gating illegal? · What Google lets you ask for in a review · The FTC reviews rule, for contractors
Every guide on this site, the cost pages and the rules for asking for reviews, in one place: see the guides →
Questions about the asking.
How soon after the job should the ask go out?
When the job is complete: the work finished, the customer has seen it, and the invoice is settled. The day it closes or the day after is when the experience is whole and still vivid. What the sources fix is the place rather than the hour. Google's policy says merchants "should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises," so the ask is a message that arrives after you have left, not a phone held out at the door.
What should the message actually say?
Something like: thank you for having us out for the water heater last week, and if you have a minute, an honest review on Google would mean a lot to us, then the link. Read it for what it lacks. No rating asked for, no wording suggested, no gift, no survey first, no name to mention, and no different version for the customer you liked best. Google's permitted sentence allows asking "without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review," and that message contains neither.
Can I add a small thank you, like a discount on the next job?
Google does not allow merchants to offer incentives "in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review," and its own examples are payment, discounts, and free goods and services. The FTC's page says the rule "does not prohibit giving incentives for reviews, as long as there isn't an express or implied requirement that the reviews have to express a particular sentiment." A Google review has to sit inside both, and offering nothing sits inside both. Say thank you in the message. Attach nothing to it.
What if I already know the customer was unhappy?
Send the same ask. Deciding who gets asked based on what you expect them to write is the practice both sources name: Google lists "selectively solicit positive reviews from customers" among the things it does not allow, and the FTC's page, asked whether a business can ask only customers it thinks are happy, answers that the rule "does not contain a specific prohibition against such conduct. But this practice could violate the FTC Act." Separately, fix the job. The FTC's page says the rule does not prohibit contacting customers who post negative reviews to resolve the reported issues.
After I have fixed the problem, can I ask them to update the review?
You can ask. The FTC's page says the rule does not prohibit contacting customers who post negative reviews to resolve the reported issues, and adds: "It also does not prohibit simply asking satisfied customers to update their reviews." What you cannot do is pay for the change. Asked about offering compensation to remove or change a review, the page answers: "No, but paying consumers to change or remove truthful negative reviews may violate the FTC Act as an unfair or deceptive act or practice." Fix it, ask once, and leave the rest to them.
That is how to ask.
Every customer, the same words, when the job is complete, with nothing attached, and a calm reply when one comes back rough. If you would rather that simply happened on every finished job, a short call is where it starts.