Why Google specifically, and not Trustpilot or Facebook?
When someone in Deal searches "plumber near me" or "cake maker Sandwich", Google Business Profile reviews are what appears directly in the results. Not your Trustpilot score. Not your Facebook rating. Google owns that panel on the right-hand side of the results page, and the number of reviews — and how recent they are — influences where you rank in that local pack.
Trustpilot makes sense if you are an e-commerce brand shipping nationally. For a window fitter in Faversham or a beauty salon in Herne Bay, it is noise. Put your energy where the search actually happens. That is Google.
The single biggest mistake people make when asking.
Sending the message too late. By the time you follow up three weeks after finishing a job, the customer has mentally moved on. The emotional high — the moment they saw the finished kitchen, the moment the new website went live, the day they picked up the repaired van — that is the moment to ask. Not next month.
The second biggest mistake is making the customer work for it. "Just search for us on Google and leave a review" sounds simple, but in practice half of them will give up when they cannot immediately find the right button. People are not being unhelpful; the Google interface for leaving a review is genuinely confusing unless you have done it before. Cut the friction entirely: give them a direct link.
How to get your Google review link.
Open Google Business Profile (business.google.com), go to your profile, and look for the option that says "Get more reviews" or "Share review form". Google generates a short link — something like g.page/r/yourbusiness/review — that drops the customer directly into the review box, already signed into their Google account, with the star rating front and centre.
Copy that link. Shorten it with something like Bitly if you are going to say it out loud or put it on a card, because the raw version is unwieldy. Then save it somewhere you can paste it in under five seconds. You will use it repeatedly.
What to actually say — the message that works.
The key is that it has to sound like you, not a template. That said, there is a structure that tends to work well:
First, reference the specific job or interaction. Not "thanks for your custom" — something that shows you remember them. Then make a direct, honest ask that does not over-explain itself. Then give the link immediately, on the same line, so there is zero ambiguity about what to do next.
Here is roughly what that looks like in a WhatsApp message: "Really glad the tiling is finished and you're happy with it — it came out well! If you have two minutes, a Google review would mean a lot. Here's the direct link so it's quick: [your link]. No obligation at all, but it genuinely helps. Thanks again."
Short. Personal. One specific ask. One link. That is it. Anything longer starts to feel like a corporate survey and people stop reading.
The right channel for the ask.
Match the channel to how you normally communicate with that customer. If you do everything by WhatsApp, send it on WhatsApp. If you are a more formal operation where email is the norm, send it by email. Do not switch channels just for the review request — it adds a small friction of its own and can feel slightly odd.
For trade businesses where you hand over an invoice in person, a small printed card with the QR code for your review link works well. QR codes are genuinely mainstream now; people use them without thinking. Print a run of 100 on a decent card stock (Moo.com does these for around £25), and hand one over with every completed job. Some operators I have spoken to put them on the back of their business card so the ask is built into every handshake.
Email can work, but it is the weakest channel for this specific ask because open rates for one-off transactional emails from a small business are variable, and Gmail sometimes catches them in Promotions. If you are going to use email, keep the subject line plain: "Your [job type] — one small favour" tends to get opened; "We'd love your feedback!" tends not to.
What to do with a bad review when it arrives.
At some point, if you ask enough people, someone will leave a review that is unfair, inaccurate, or just unkind. Do not ignore it and do not delete it (you cannot, anyway). Reply, calmly and briefly, within a day or two. Acknowledge what went wrong if anything genuinely did. If it is factually wrong, correct it politely. Future customers read your replies as much as they read the reviews themselves, and a measured, professional response to a one-star review often does more good for your reputation than five five-star reviews.
Google does allow you to flag reviews that violate their policies — fake reviews from people who were never customers, reviews that contain hate speech, and so on. The process is not fast, but it does work for clear-cut cases. Worth doing if it applies.
Building the habit so it is not a chore.
The businesses I have seen with consistently strong Google profiles are not the ones who did one big push and got 40 reviews in a fortnight. They are the ones who ask every single time, as a natural part of closing out a job. It takes perhaps thirty seconds. Over a year, that compounds.
If you want to make it slightly more systematic, add a review request step to whatever you already do to close a job. If you use something like GoCardless or Stripe to send the final invoice, add the review link to the email that accompanies it. If you use a WhatsApp Business account, you can save a message template with the link already in it, so the ask takes five seconds to send. The point is that it should not require a decision every time — it should just happen.
Aim for a rough cadence of one new review every couple of weeks. That keeps the profile looking active. Google's local ranking algorithm pays attention to recency; a business with 80 reviews where the last one was eighteen months ago looks less alive than one with 25 reviews where three came in this month.
One thing not to do.
Do not offer an incentive. "Leave us a review and get 10% off your next order" is against Google's review policies and can get your listing penalised or suspended. Beyond the policy risk, it also tends to produce reviews that feel transactional rather than genuine, and most readers can sense that. The honest ask — because you did good work and you would appreciate it — is both safer and more persuasive.