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How to Get More Google Reviews for Your Trade Business

Geometric illustration of reviews building trust

The most reliable way to get more Google reviews is to ask every happy customer, at the moment they are happiest, with a direct link that takes them straight to your review box. That is the whole system. The rest of this guide covers the detail: when to ask, what to say, where to put the link, how to stay on the right side of UK law, and what to do with the reviews once they arrive.

We build websites and manage Google Business Profiles for UK trades, so we see the same pattern again and again. Good firms with a lot of satisfied customers have a handful of reviews, because nobody has ever made asking part of the job.

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TL;DR

  • Ask every customer, ideally straight after the job or within about a day, using your Google review link or QR code.
  • Never offer money, discounts or gifts for reviews, and never write or commission your own. UK rules ban both.
  • Make it one tap: put the link in a text, email, invoice and van or counter QR code.
  • Reply to every review, good or bad. A mix of honest ratings reads as more believable than a wall of perfect scores.
  • Treat it as a routine, not a campaign. A steady trickle beats a burst followed by silence.

Table of Contents

Why reviews matter more than most trades think

When someone searches “plumber near me” or “roofer Corsham”, they see a handful of businesses on the map before they see a single website. Stars and review counts sit right there. Most people will not ring a firm with three reviews when the next one has sixty.

Reviews also do a different job: they answer the worry every customer has about letting a stranger into their home. Trust is the real product you are selling before the quote is even written, and building trust online is largely about showing other people’s real experiences rather than telling visitors how good you are.

Google’s own help pages say that honest, balanced feedback, including some negative reviews, can help potential customers decide, and they recommend replying to reviews and valuing all of them (Google Business Profile Help). In other words, you do not need a flawless record. You need a real and recent one.

We will not promise that more reviews will lift your ranking or your phone calls by a set amount, because nobody can guarantee that. What we can say is that a profile with few reviews gives customers little to go on, and that is a problem you can fix.

Get your profile ready first

Before you send anyone to your profile, check it is worth visiting. Mailchimp’s guidance recommends an accurate, verified Google Business Profile with current hours, photos and essential details before you start requesting reviews (Mailchimp). A customer who taps your link and lands on a half-finished listing with the wrong phone number is less likely to bother.

A ten-minute check:

  1. Confirm the profile is verified and the business name matches your van and invoices.
  2. Check your phone number, service area and opening hours.
  3. List the services you actually do, and add recent photos of finished work.
  4. Look at any existing reviews you have not replied to and answer them.

If you have not verified your listing or listed your services properly, our guides on Google Business Profile for contractors and five quick profile actions for UK trades walk through it step by step.

Make leaving a review a one-tap job

Friction is the main reason happy customers do not review you. They mean to, then get home, and it slips. Google lets you share a direct review link or a QR code, and says suitable places include receipts, thank-you emails, the end of a chat and an in-store display (Google Business Profile Help).

Four places to share a review link or QR code

One thing to know, and to tell customers if they ask: reviewers must be signed in to a Google Account. That account can use a non-Gmail email address (Google Business Profile Help). So reviews are not anonymous in the sense of being untraceable: the reviewer’s Google name appears with the review. This also answers a question we hear from nervous customers who worry about giving their details.

For a trade business, the best placements are the ones customers already see:

  • A text message sent from your phone as you leave the job. This is the highest-converting route for most trades, because the customer is holding their phone anyway.
  • Your invoice or receipt, as a short link and a QR code.
  • Your van, business cards or leaflets, where a QR code can sit next to your phone number. If you are updating signage anyway, our brand identity work can build the code into the design.
  • Your website, with a clear “Leave us a review” button on the contact or thank-you page.
  • Email signatures for quotes and follow-ups.

Shorten the link if it is long, and test it on your own phone before you print anything.

When to ask

The best moment is when the customer’s satisfaction is at its peak. Constant Contact’s guidance suggests asking immediately after service, within about 24 hours for booked visits, or about a week after delivery when customers have had time to use what they bought (Constant Contact). For trades, that translates into practical moments:

Job type Best moment to ask
Emergency repair (boiler, leak, lock-out) Before you leave, or that evening, once things are working
Day-long installation or repair As you hand over and explain what you have done
Multi-day project (kitchen, roof, extension) On final sign-off, after the customer has walked round the finished job
Maintenance or service contract After the visit, with a text the same day

Mailchimp also lists other natural moments: after a positive interaction, when a customer praises your work, after a referral, or in a thank-you message or follow-up (Mailchimp). If a customer says “that looks brilliant” while you are packing up, that is your cue. Say, “That’s kind of you. Would you mind putting that in a Google review? I’ll text you the link.”

What to say: a message that gets answered

Mailchimp’s guidance suggests a request is more likely to get a response when it is relevant, brief, personal and low-friction (Mailchimp). That fits what we see with trades. A message that starts with the customer’s name, mentions the job and gives one link does better than a generic block of text.

Here is a template you can adapt:

Hi Sarah, thanks for having us in to fit the new bathroom today. If you were happy with the work, a short Google review would really help a small local firm. It takes under a minute: [link]. Thanks again, Dave

Notice what it does not do. It does not tell the customer to give five stars. It does not offer a reward. It asks for an honest review from someone who was happy.

Do not ask only the happy ones

It is tempting to screen customers first and only send the link to those who say they are pleased. The CMA’s guidance for review sites says they should not collect reviews only from customers they know are satisfied, unless these are clearly labelled as testimonials (CMA). That guidance is aimed at review platforms, but the principle is a good one for you: ask everyone, and let the ratings fall where they fall. In practice, if you do good work, the large majority of the replies will be positive anyway.

Stay on the right side of UK law and Google’s rules

This is where well-meaning trades get into trouble, so it is worth reading carefully.

What you must not do

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says businesses must not pretend to be customers or commission someone else to write fake reviews, and must not offer inducements such as money or gifts for positive reviews. It also says a business can be liable for fake-review activity arranged by third parties (CMA guidance on GOV.UK).

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 makes this law: it prohibits submitting or commissioning fake consumer reviews, and reviews that conceal incentives (legislation.gov.uk). The CMA’s fake reviews guidance defines a fake review as one that purports to be based on a person’s genuine experience but is not, and the rule covers both positive and negative reviews (CMA208).

In plain terms, for a tradesperson:

  • Do not write reviews yourself, or have a friend, family member or employee post them as if they were customers.
  • Do not buy reviews from an agency or “review service”.
  • Do not offer a discount, prize draw or free gift in exchange for a review. Google’s own advice is not to offer incentives, and says reviews must reflect a genuine experience (Google Business Profile Help).
  • Do not post negative reviews about competitors.

Can Google detect fake reviews?

Google is under pressure to. In January 2025 the CMA announced undertakings from Google to detect and remove fake reviews, ban repeat fake reviewers and let consumers report concerning reviews. The CMA said the measures can place warning alerts on UK business profiles, deactivate their review function and, for repeat offenders, delete reviews for six months or more (CMA). The risk of cheating is not only a legal one: a warning on your profile does more damage than a thin review count ever did.

Check before you text or email

A review request sent by text or email is arguably a marketing message, and the rules on electronic marketing apply. The ICO says direct marketing sent to particular individuals by electronic mail, including social media direct messages, generally needs consent unless a soft opt-in applies, and the message must identify the sender and give an opt-out (ICO). Check your approach against the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations and the soft opt-in conditions before you set up automated messages. If you are unsure, ask the ICO or a data protection adviser. Asking face to face, or putting the QR code on an invoice, avoids the question entirely.

What about the cost?

Collecting genuine reviews costs you very little: the link and QR code come from your own Google Business Profile, and the main cost is a minute of your time per job. What you should not pay for is the reviews themselves, because buying or commissioning them is banned, as above.

Where money does come in is the time. If you are on the tools all day, the admin of sending requests, replying to reviews and keeping the profile current is what gets dropped. We offer monthly Google Business Profile management from £20 per month, which is there for exactly that.

Build it into the job, not into a campaign

Most firms try a review drive once, get six reviews in a fortnight, and never do it again. A better approach is a small routine:

  1. Add it to your job checklist. The last step before leaving is “ask for review”.
  2. Send the link the same day. Keep your template saved on your phone.
  3. Put the QR code on paperwork. Invoices and quotes work while you are busy.
  4. Set a weekly reminder. Five minutes on Friday to check new reviews and reply.
  5. Follow up once, gently. If a customer said yes but has not done it after a few days, one polite nudge is plenty. Do not chase.

A steady stream of recent reviews looks more natural and more credible than a cluster all dated the same week.

Reply to every review

Google recommends replying to reviews (Google Business Profile Help), and customers read the replies as a sample of how you treat people.

For positive reviews: thank them by name, mention the job, keep it short. Avoid copying the same line onto every review.

For negative reviews: stay calm and factual. Acknowledge the problem, say what you will do, and offer to talk offline. Do not argue the details in public and do not reveal personal information about the customer. Future customers are reading your reply, not the original complaint, to judge you.

For reviews that look fake or abusive: you can report them through your profile. Do not retaliate.

An honest mix helps. A profile of all five-star reviews can look suspicious, and Google itself says some negative reviews can help people decide.

Put your reviews to work

Once you have them, use them. Show a few of your best on your website, next to your phone number and quote form. Mention them in your Google Business Profile posts, which we cover in our guide to Google Business Profile posts for UK trades. Our 90-day profile audit guide also includes the CMA checks, so you can review your own profile for anything that could fall foul of the rules.

If you are tracking whether it is working, do not rely on one map search from your own phone. Our piece on tracking local SEO for UK trades explains how to get a fairer picture.

Our view: reviews are a habit, not a hack

We work with trades every day, and the pattern is consistent. The firms that end up with strong profiles are not cleverer or luckier. They are the ones who treat a review request like handing over an invoice: it just happens, every job.

Our view: reviews are a habit, not a hack — overview diagram

We also see the opposite temptation. When a profile has three reviews and a competitor has eighty, shortcuts look appealing. They are not worth it. The rules are clear, Google has committed to acting on fake reviews, and a profile with a warning on it costs far more than a slow start. Genuine reviews from real customers are also better sales material, because they mention the details that matter: turned up on time, tidied up, explained the price.

A good profile is only half the picture. When someone taps through from the map, they land on your website, and it has to carry that trust on and make it easy to call. That is why we build trade websites around the phone number, and why we pair them with monthly management so nothing goes stale.

— Trey

How we can help

If you would rather spend your time on the tools than on your online presence, we build fast, conversion-focused websites for UK trades, with a typical build taking 10 to 14 days, written content supplied and monthly management for updates, hosting and security checks. Our Shopfront plan is £39 per month plus a £299 one-off setup, and you can see every plan on our pricing page.

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If your main gap is the Google profile itself, our Google Business Profile service covers audits and ongoing management, and you can read more about our website design and monthly management for trades. We cannot promise a particular number of reviews or calls, but we can make sure your profile and site are set up properly to earn them.

FAQ

Are Google reviews anonymous?

No. A customer must be signed in to a Google Account to leave a review, though they can create that account with a non-Gmail email address (Google Business Profile Help). Their Google profile name is shown with the review.

Can I offer a discount for a Google review?

No. Google advises against incentives, and the CMA says businesses must not offer inducements such as money or gifts for positive reviews. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 also covers reviews that conceal incentives. Ask honestly and thank people instead.

How many reviews do I need?

There is no official number to reach, and we would not trust anyone who gives you one. Focus on a steady flow of recent, genuine reviews from real jobs, and compare your profile with the other local firms customers see beside you.

What should I do about a bad review?

Reply politely, acknowledge the issue and offer to put it right offline. Google says honest, balanced feedback, including some negative reviews, can help potential customers decide. Report a review only if it breaks Google’s rules, for example if it is fake or abusive.

Sources

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