Why do reviews matter beyond looking good?
Because Google says they feed local ranking directly. Prominence is one of the three things local results are based on, and Google describes it as including how many reviews you have and how good the ratings are. Local ranking factors So reviews aren't just social proof sitting next to your
Google Business Profile listing. They're an input into whether the listing turns up at all.
The second reason is recency, and businesses consistently underrate it. A profile with forty five-star reviews that all stopped eighteen months ago reads like a business that stopped. Funnily enough, the businesses with the quietest review pages are usually the busiest ones, because asking is the first thing that falls off the list when you're slammed.
When should you ask?
Right after the moment the customer was happiest, which is almost never the moment you send the invoice. For a trade that's when the job is done and they have walked around and seen it. For a service business it's straight after the thing you promised visibly worked.
Same day ideally, within a couple of hours if you can. The gap between the good feeling and the ask is the single biggest thing determining whether you get the review at all. A week later they still like you, they have just got other things on.
What's the mechanism that actually works?
A text message with a direct link, sent automatically when a job gets marked complete. Not an email. Not a card with a QR code on it. A text, because it gets opened, and a direct link, because every extra tap loses you people. Google gives you a short review link off your profile, Get your review link so use that rather than a link to your listing that makes them go hunting for the button.
The word automatically is doing the heavy lifting in that sentence. Any system that depends on you remembering will run beautifully for three weeks and then stop. Wire it into whatever marks a job done, and then leave it alone.
Can you offer a discount for a review?
No, and I wouldn't go near it. Google's policy prohibits offering payment, discounts or free goods and services in exchange for a review, and classifies it as fake engagement, which can mean removed reviews and restrictions on your profile. Prohibited and restricted content
In Australia it's a legal question as well as a platform one. The ACCC's guidance is that fake or misleading reviews breach consumer law, and that any incentive has to be offered regardless of whether the review comes out positive or negative, and has to be disclosed so readers know it was incentivised. ACCC on online reviews Given how well just asking properly works, the risk makes no sense.
What about filtering out unhappy customers first?
Review gating, where you survey people and only send the happy ones through to Google, is against Google's policies and is exactly the sort of thing the ACCC describes as misleading, because the review profile that results doesn't reflect genuine opinion.
The legitimate version of the same instinct is worth having though. Give people a real complaints path that's easier to find than the review link. If somebody is unhappy, they should have somewhere obvious to tell you before they go looking for somewhere to tell everybody. That isn't gating, that's just answering the phone.
How do you handle a bad one?
Reply publicly, once, without arguing. Acknowledge the specific thing, say what you have done about it, and offer to sort it out offline. You aren't really writing to the reviewer. You're writing to the next person who reads it, and they're working out whether you seem like somebody who handles problems well.
A handful of ordinary reviews sitting among the good ones also makes the good ones believable. A spotless five-star profile with no texture in it reads as bought, and people are getting better at spotting that.
How many reviews do I need?
Fewer than you think, arriving more regularly than you think. A steady trickle beats a big pile that stopped two years ago, because recency is what a reader is actually judging.
Can I ask customers to take down a bad review?
You can ask, but you can't make it conditional on anything, and offering something in exchange for removing a negative review is exactly what the ACCC warns about. ACCC on online reviews Reply well in public instead.
What about reviews on other platforms?
Worth having, but Google is the one feeding the map pack, so if you only have the energy for one ask, make it that one.