Google reviews for home service companies, asked for at the end of every job

• The same review request to every customer, sent from your business on the day the job is finished
• A link that opens straight to your review page on Google, so leaving a review takes a few seconds
• A short line your techs can say at the door, so the request doesn't come out of nowhere
• A reply to every review, good or bad, written the way your company talks
• Reports to Google on fake reviews and reviews that break its rules
• Recent reviews on your website, linked to your Google profile
• A monthly look at new reviews, your rating and what customers keep mentioning

A job is finished when the work is done, the site is clean, the invoice is paid and the customer has been asked how it went. The review request belongs in that list. Your tech can mention it at the door, because the tech is the person the customer just watched do the work. The link itself comes from your business that same day, so the request no longer depends on a tired tech remembering at the end of a long shift.

If something went wrong, the job isn't finished until you have made it right, and the request goes out when it is. It doesn't get skipped. Once the request has gone out, follow-up after the job takes over with check-ins, service reminders and staying in touch through the year.

We don't ask only the customers we expect to be happy, and we don't send unhappy customers to a private form while the happy ones go to Google. Google's review policy rules out choosing which customers to ask in the hope of collecting only good reviews, and it rules out offering anything in return for a review, such as a discount or a gift card. Reviews gathered either way can be taken down.

Asking everyone also helps you. Homeowners know every company has a bad day now and then, and a profile full of recent reviews from ordinary customers reads as real. The habit itself is covered in how to get more Google reviews without being pushy.

A good review gets a short, personal thank you that mentions the job, never the same line pasted under every review. The customer sees that you noticed, and the next homeowner sees that a real person runs the business.

A complaint gets a calm, public answer that owns what went wrong and offers to fix it, with the details taken to a phone call. We never argue with a customer in public, and we never post anything about their home or their invoice. Replies to complaints come to you before they go up, because you know the job and we don't. The person you are really writing to is the next homeowner reading before she calls, and a fair reply tells her more than the complaint does. A reviewer can also update a review at any time, so a problem you fix can still show on the profile.

Google removes reviews that break its policies. That includes fake reviews, reviews from someone with a conflict of interest such as a competitor or a former employee, reviews about a different business, and reviews with offensive or off-topic content. Google doesn't remove a review because it is negative or because you remember the job differently.

When a review breaks a rule, we report it from your profile, note which rule it breaks, and use Google's tools to check where the report stands and ask for a second look if it stays up. Google makes the decision, so no one can honestly promise you a review will come down, and you should be wary of anyone who does. While Google decides, a short reply saying you have no record of the customer, with an invitation to call the office, shows the next homeowner that you pay attention.

A homeowner who finds you on the map often visits your website before calling, and she wants to see the same proof there. We put recent Google reviews on the pages people read before they call, near your phone number, in the customer's own words and with a link to the full set on Google. We never rewrite or trim a review to make it sound better.

We don't add code meant to put review stars beside your own pages in Google search, because Google doesn't show those stars for reviews a business displays about itself. The reviews still do their work on the page, where the homeowner reads them. Website design for contractors covers how the rest of the site is built.

Google says its local results depend mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that your number of reviews and your rating count toward prominence. Your rating and review count also count toward where your Local Services Ads show.

Google doesn't say how much the age of a review weighs, but homeowners notice the dates. A profile whose newest review is two years old makes people wonder whether the company is still busy, or still in business. A request after every job keeps new reviews arriving through the year, in slow months as well as busy ones. Reviews are one part of the listing, and Google Business Profile management covers the rest of it.

Each month you get the new reviews, your rating, the replies we posted and the reports we sent to Google with where each one stands. We also pull out what customers keep mentioning. When three reviews in a month name the same tech, that tech should hear about it. When customers keep mentioning a late arrival, that is worth knowing before it shows up in a one-star review.

The reviews sit on a Google Business Profile in your company's name, so they stay with your business. The rest of what we do is on all our services.