Reviews come from asking
Plenty of happy customers never think to leave a review. They got their heat back or their leak fixed, and they've moved on. A steady stream of reviews tends to come from asking every customer, every time, in a way that takes the customer thirty seconds.
This tool writes that ask. Put in your business name, the job and your Google review link, choose how you want to sound, and copy the text or email. Add the customer's and the tech's first names when you have them; a message that mentions the person who came out reads like it came from a person.
How to ask well
- Ask within 24 hours. The same day is better. Many shops send the text as the tech pulls away, or build it into the invoice.
- Link straight to the review form. In your Business Profile, use the "Ask for reviews" option to get a short link that opens the review box. Every extra tap loses people.
- Ask everyone. Asking only the customers you think were happy is called review gating, and Google's policies prohibit it. Screening with a "how did we do?" survey and sending only the fives to Google counts too.
- Offer nothing in return. No discounts, gift cards or prize draws. Google's policies prohibit incentives for reviews, whether or not the review has to be positive.
- Answer every review. A short, specific thank-you to a good review and a calm, factual reply to a bad one both tell the next reader how you treat people.
Texting customers: the basics
In the US, texts from a business are covered by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and by the carriers' own rules. The safe habits are simple: get the customer's agreement to be texted when you book the job, say who the message is from, send during reasonable hours, and stop the moment someone replies STOP. That's why the text option ends with an opt-out line by default. This is general information, not legal advice. If texting is a big part of how you run the business, a short conversation with a lawyer is worth it.
How the character count works
The text version aims to stay under 320 characters, which is two segments of plain text. If your business name or link pushes it over, the tool switches to a shorter version of the same message. The counter shows the encoding too: plain letters, numbers and common punctuation use GSM-7 (160 characters in a single segment), while a single curly quote, emoji or some accented letters switch the whole message to UCS-2 (70 in a single segment, 67 once split). Carriers may bill each segment as a separate message, so it's worth keeping an eye on.
After you send it
Reviews feed your Google Business Profile, and the Google Business Profile checklist covers the rest of it. If you'd like the asking built into how every job closes, with the profile and replies handled month to month, that's part of our SEO management service.