How to Get More Google Reviews for Your Business

The short answer

To get more Google reviews, ask more of your real customers, and make it easy for each one. In practice that means three habits: get the review link Google gives every verified Business Profile, send it to every customer soon after the job, and reply to the reviews that come in. The habit matters more than any single message: when asking depends on someone remembering, it slips on busy days.

Reviews also feed how you show up in local search. Google’s own guide to local ranking lists prominence as one of three factors and says it is based partly on how many reviews a business has, adding that more reviews and positive ratings can help a business’s local ranking.

This guide covers the whole routine. For the exact wording of the text itself, our guide to the review request text message goes line by line.

Get your review link and QR code

Google’s help page on review requests describes the official way to get a link. Open your Business Profile, select Read reviews, then Get more reviews. From there you can copy the link or save a QR code image. Google notes that review QR codes can currently be generated only in a computer browser, not on a phone, so do this step at a desk.

Use that link everywhere you ask. It opens the review form for your business directly, so the customer never has to search for you or pick the right listing.

Two more things from Google’s help pages are worth knowing before you start. Customers need a Google Account to leave a review, though they can create one with an email address that is not Gmail. And before you can reply to reviews, your business has to be verified.

Where and when to ask

Google suggests putting the link on receipts, in thank-you emails, at the end of a chat conversation, and printing the QR code for display in your store. Each place works best at a different moment in the visit.

Of these, the text reaches the most people at the right moment. The customer has just seen the result, the phone is in their hand, and the link opens in one tap. An in-person ask is warm, but it relies on the customer remembering later.

Hold the ask while a job is still open: a return visit booked, a part on order, a bill in dispute.

Ask every customer, the same way

The most common mistake is asking only the customers who seemed happy. It feels sensible, and the rules point against it.

• Google. The Maps user content policy says businesses may not discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively ask for positive ones.
• The FTC guide for marketers. It tells businesses not to ask for reviews only from customers they think will leave positive ones.
• The FTC rule. The Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule took effect on October 21, 2024. Its questions and answers page says the rule has no specific ban on asking only happy customers, but that the practice could violate the FTC Act.

Asking everyone is also the simplest system to run: a rule that says "send the link when a job closes" needs no judgment call from a busy tech. Google's tips page adds that honest and balanced reviews help people decide.

Rules on incentives, staff and family

Discounts for reviews come up in almost every conversation about getting more of them. On Google, the answer is plain. Google’s tips page calls offering incentives, such as free or discounted goods or services, in exchange for reviews strictly prohibited, and its content policy lists paid reviews, directly or in kind, as fake engagement that will be removed.

Federal rules add their own limits. The FTC rule bans offering an incentive on the condition that a review say something positive or negative, whether that condition is stated or implied. Since Google bans review incentives of any kind, the clean choice for a Google review request is to offer nothing.

• Staff. The FTC guide says not to ask your staff to write reviews of your business unless they disclose that you employ them and asked them to. Google’s policy counts current or former employment as a conflict of interest.
• Family and friends. The FTC guide says not to ask family and friends for reviews unless they disclose their personal connection.
• People who never bought. The FTC guide also says not to ask for reviews from people who have not used your product or service.

Make the ask automatic

A request that depends on someone remembering gets skipped on the busiest days, which are the days with the most customers to ask. Tie the request to the moment your business already records a finished job.

• Pick the trigger. A work order marked done, a checkout at the front desk, an invoice paid. Use whichever one your team already does every time.
• Get consent at booking. The wireless industry’s messaging principles say a customer should agree to texts for a specific informational purpose when they give a business their mobile number. Ask then, and record the answer.
• Write one message. Name the business, name the job or the person, include the link, and end with how to opt out.
• Set hold rules. Skip open jobs, disputed bills and customers already asked for that job.
• Ask once. One request per job. A chain of reminders reads as pressure and invites opt-outs.

The number needs carrier registration, covered in 10DLC registration explained, and the same industry principles say a sender should honor STOP and plain requests such as "please opt me out", send one confirmation and then nothing more.

A review request, start to finish

Here is how one request runs for a home services company once the routine is set up. The names are invented for this guide.

Nobody on the team stopped to send the request, the customer's question became a booking the way our AI appointment booking guide describes, and nobody asked twice. A complaint would have been thanked and handed to a person with the job notes attached.

Reply to the reviews you get

Replies are the second half of the routine. Google’s review management page says the person who wrote the review is notified when you reply, and that helpful replies can show you are responsive. Its local ranking guide says replying shows you value customer feedback.

Google’s tips for replies are practical:

• Keep replies polite, short and specific to what the customer said, rather than the same thank you on every review.
• Be conversational, and leave deals and promotions out of replies.
• Use the reviewer’s name and acknowledge their specific feedback.
• On a critical review, apologize where it fits, never share the customer’s private details and never attack the reviewer.
• Reply promptly.

A fair answer can change the review itself: Google notes a reviewer can edit their review after reading your reply. Google also lets you flag a review you believe breaks its policies, but the FTC guide warns against misusing that tool to remove honest negative reviews, and the FTC rule bans threats or intimidation to get one taken down.

What managed includes

Most of the work in getting more Google reviews is setup someone has to own: the trigger, the wording, the consent line, the hold rules and the replies. At Sales Secret that setup is part of a managed suite we build and run for each client: an AI receptionist, a text agent on your business number, website chat and one inbox where every conversation sits on the same customer record.

The review request fires when a job closes, replies land on the customer’s record, and complaints go to a person on your team with the job attached. The customer who first reached you through a missed call text back and booked by text gets the review request on the same number. See the pieces on our platform overview.

Where to start this week

Get your review link and QR code from your Business Profile at a computer. Print the QR code for the counter. Write one short request in your own voice, add a consent line to how you take mobile numbers at booking, and send the request to every customer whose job closes from today on. Then set aside time each week to reply to what comes in.

Frequently asked questions

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