There are two kinds of tradie on this. The first has eight reviews, four of them from 2022, and a genuine belief that their customers just aren’t review people. The second has a hundred and forty, and does exactly the same work.
The difference is almost never the work. It’s that one of them asks every single time and the other asks when they remember, which is never, because the weeks you’d remember are the quiet ones and the quiet ones are the weeks you’re worrying about something else.
We’ve written the copy-paste wording separately. This is the other half: when to ask, why asking doesn’t feel like begging once you get the timing right, and how to make it keep happening when you’re flat out.
Start with the maths, because it explains everything
Here’s the thing that stops people giving up in week three.
Even a well-timed, well-worded ask converts somewhere around one in four. A link buried in an emailed invoice converts far worse than that, often one in twenty. Neither number is a failure. That’s just what asking a busy adult to open an app and type something looks like.
So work backwards. Forty reviews is not forty asks. At a realistic rate it’s a hundred and sixty asks, which for most one-van operations is close to a year of jobs. Treat it as a rate, not an event.
The practical upshot: the only variable that really matters is how many customers get asked. Not the wording, not the day of the week. If you do 12 jobs a week and ask 2 people, no amount of clever phrasing fixes that. Ask all 12 and even a mediocre ask outperforms a perfect one you send occasionally.
Why it feels like begging, and the reframe that fixes it
Asking feels bad when it feels like a favour: you’re taking something from someone who already paid you.
Flip it. A customer who’s genuinely pleased with a job has no way to say so. They said “thanks, great job” at the door and it evaporated. The review link is you handing them the means to do the thing they already wanted to do. That’s not a favour, it’s the last step of the job.
The tell is in the phrasing. Begging sounds like “if you get a chance, it would really help us out, no pressure at all, totally understand if not”. Not begging sounds like:
“Glad you’re happy with it. If you’ve got two minutes, a Google review makes a big difference to us. I’ll text you the link now.”
That’s it. One line, said while you’re standing there, then you send the link before you get in the van. No apology, no build-up, no three sentences of hedging that signal you think you’re imposing.
Timing beats wording, every time
Five moments convert far better than the rest. All of them are moments the customer is already feeling something.
- At handover, while you’re still there. You’re a person they just talked to, not a notification. This is the highest converting moment there is and it costs nothing.
- Immediately after they compliment you. They text “looks amazing, thank you!” You reply within the minute. The willingness is already on the table.
- When you’ve saved them. The after-hours callout, the leak found in ten minutes, the job someone else botched. Ask that one for certain.
- The moment they pay. Attach it to the paid receipt, not the invoice. Paid means done and happy. Unpaid means you’re asking a favour off someone who owes you money.
- After a warranty callback you handled well. Counterintuitive, but a problem fixed without a fight generates some of the warmest reviews you’ll ever get.
The moment that almost never works is a bulk email to everyone you’ve ever invoiced. Low conversion, and a sudden spike of reviews after years of silence is exactly the pattern that gets a profile looked at.
Cut the friction to near zero
Every extra step loses people. Assume the customer is standing in a hallway holding a phone in one hand.
- Use the short link, straight to the review box. Not “search us on Google”.
- Send it, don’t tell it. Text or email the link then and there. Never ask someone to find you later.
- Put a QR code on the invoice, the van and your business card. For the customers who are happier scanning than tapping a link.
- Pre-type the message in your phone as a keyboard shortcut or saved reply. If it takes 90 seconds to compose, it won’t happen on a bad day.
Our review templates piece walks through finding the short link and making the QR code if you haven’t got them yet.
Who asks matters more than you’d think
The person who did the work should do the asking. Not the office, not an admin email from an address nobody recognises.
The customer had a good experience with a human being, and that human is who they want to please. A request from “accounts@” gets read as a marketing message, because it is one.
If you’ve got a team, this is the bit worth building into the job. Not a policy nobody reads. A line on the job sheet: asked for review, link sent. Ten seconds, and it makes the ask visible enough to be a habit rather than an intention.
One nudge, then let it go
Around 5 to 7 days later, one short follow-up to the people who didn’t leave one. That’s it.
The nudge is worth doing because most non-reviews aren’t refusals, they’re people who meant to and got distracted by their actual life. A single reminder recovers a meaningful chunk of them.
Two nudges is where it turns into begging, and where you start irritating a customer you’d rather have back next year. One, then stop, then get on with it.
Make it survive being busy
Everything above works, right up until the week you’re doing 14 jobs and someone’s off sick. That’s the week the asking stops, and it’s the week you had the most customers to ask.
Two ways to fix that permanently.
If you use job management software, it’s already built in. Tradify, ServiceM8 and Fergus can all fire a review request when a job is marked complete, so it happens whether anyone remembers or not. Our comparison of the three covers how they differ.
If you don’t, use the Friday ten minutes. Open this week’s completed jobs, send the ask to every one of them, send the nudge to last week’s. Same time every week, in the van before you drive home. It’s not as good as asking at handover, but it’s infinitely better than intending to.
For our clients we wire this into the same system that answers enquiries and chases quotes, so the request goes automatically on job completion and the nudge goes a week later without anyone touching it. That’s the automation side of it, and it exists because willpower loses to a busy October every time.
The customers you can’t ask the normal way
Not every job ends with a delighted homeowner at the door.
- Property managers and commercial clients. The company won’t review you. The maintenance coordinator who deals with you might, and they’re often the person most relieved by a tradie who turns up. Ask the human, not the entity.
- Work for other trades or main contractors. Ask the site manager or the builder you subbed to. A review from another trade reads as strong proof to a homeowner.
- Insurance and remediation work. The customer is having a bad month, so the timing is everything. Ask once, at the end, when their house is back.
The things that will get your reviews wiped
Worth being blunt, because this is the one area where trying too hard makes you worse off than doing nothing.
- No incentives. No discount, no free filter, no draw for a $100 voucher. It’s against Google’s policy and removal takes the genuine reviews with the rest.
- No gating. Asking only the customers you’re confident are happy is a policy breach. Ask everyone, and give unhappy ones a direct line back to you in the same message.
- Never ask for five stars. Ask for a review. The moment you specify a rating, you’ve crossed into soliciting a result rather than an opinion.
- No mates, no staff, no bought reviews. Google is markedly better at spotting these than it was, and one flagged batch can take the profile down.
How many is enough?
Enough is more than the businesses sitting in the map pack beside you, and then a steady trickle forever after that.
Go and look at the three above you for your main service. Count their reviews and check the date on the most recent one. That’s your target and your pace, both. Recency counts as well as volume, so a business adding two a month is in better shape than one that hit sixty in 2023 and stopped. There’s more on how that feeds ranking in our guide to the map pack.
Getting more Google reviews FAQ
How many customers actually leave a review when asked?
Roughly one in four for an ask made in person with the link sent on the spot, and a lot fewer for an emailed link on its own. Plan on the rate rather than expecting individuals.
When is the best time to ask?
At handover while you’re still on site, or straight after a customer says something nice. Both beat any message sent days later.
Can I offer a discount for a review?
No. Any incentive is against Google’s policy, and enforcement usually removes the whole run of reviews rather than the paid ones. It’s the fastest way to undo two years of work.
What if a customer says yes and never does it?
Send one reminder about a week later, then leave it. Most people meant to and forgot, and one nudge recovers a good share of them without annoying anyone.
Should I ask customers from years ago?
Sparingly. A mass email to an old list converts poorly and a sudden spike after years of nothing is the kind of pattern that draws attention. Better to ask everyone from here on.
Can I automate review requests?
Yes, and you should. Tradify, ServiceM8 and Fergus can all trigger one on job completion, which is the only version of this that survives a busy month.
Want the asking, the nudge and the follow-up running without anyone having to remember? Get a free game plan: 20 minutes, real numbers, no obligation.