Here's an example from inside of Google My Business, where they have a link that you can send to your customers.
Use A Review Tool
There are many different types of tools, softwares or CRMs that have review features for helping you get reviews. Tools like Podium or Reputation stacker will let you enter your customers info into their system and then it will text and email the customers for you.
These tools can save you time because after you enter the customer information in, it will send the request again if the customer doesn’t leave a review. You can also give the customer options for where to leave the review.
Ask The Same Day
The longer you wait to ask for a review, the less likely they are to leave one. You want to catch the customer while their experience is fresh in their mind. Meeting the customer at their house and asking them as soon as the job is complete is a great idea.
If you’re not able to meet them the same day the job is complete, text them a link and ask them for a review. But if you are able to meet them, you might want to help them leave the review, especially if they are not as tech savvy as you.
Asking someone to leave a review and then walking away doesn’t always work because people are busy and forget. Try handing them your tablet, opened to the review page while you walk around the house and finish your final inspection.
Incentivize Your Team To Get Reviews
Offer some sort of reward for any team member that gets a customer to leave a review. Have a parameter that the customer needs to mention the name of your employee to win the reward.
The reward can be a gift card, extra PTO or whatever helps motivate the employee. Remember, whatever you celebrate gets repeated and whatever is repeated becomes company culture. So celebrate the team when they get reviews.
Have A Backup Plan
Since not everyone has a gmail account, it can be difficult to leave a google review. So have a backup location for people to leave a review such as BBB or Facebook. Again, these platforms will have a link that you can send the customer and it will take them directly to the review site.
Some Final Thoughts
Where you direct customers to leave a review matters. Having Google reviews should be the highest priority because of how it positively affects your ranking on Google. Once you have a lot of reviews on there, Try the BBB since they have a solid reputation for consumers.
I would caution you when it comes to Yelp reviews because Yelp will hide reviews even when they are positive. They only like to show reviews from people who regularly post reviews on their platform. So if a random customer leaves you a review on Yelp, it might not show.
Platforms like Facebook can be good but Facebook might not always be around, just like MySpace no longer exists. So keep this one lower on the list.
