Review Request Text Message: Asking for Reviews After a Job

What a review request text message is

A review request text message is a short text a business sends after finishing a job, asking the customer to leave a review and giving them a link that opens the review form directly. It goes from the business number the customer already knows, it names the job, and it asks once.

Texting suits the ask because the moment is short. The customer has just watched the furnace start or walked out of the cleaning. A text lands on the phone in their hand and takes a minute to answer. An email sent next week competes with everything else, and the visit has faded.

At Sales Secret, the review request is one rule inside a managed setup: an AI receptionist, a text agent on the business number, and one inbox where every call, text and chat lands on the same customer record. The request fires when the job is marked done, and replies come back to that record.

When to send it

The best time is soon after the work is visibly finished, while the customer still remembers who did it, at an hour when a text is welcome.

Two rules hold everywhere. Send during normal waking hours, and hold the request while the job is still open: a return visit booked, a part on order, an invoice in dispute. Ask once per job; reminder chains turn a polite ask into pressure.

What the text should say

The message has one job: make leaving a review easy for someone willing. Two or three sentences, in your team's voice.

• Name the business first. The customer may not have saved your number.
• Name the job or the person. "Thanks for having Marcus out today to fix the water heater" reads like a person wrote it.
• Ask plainly, once, with one link that opens the review form directly, never a search page.
• Leave out offers. No coupon or discount. An offer changes what the message is and brings platform rules into play.
• Leave the words to them. Suggesting what to write crosses the platform rules covered below.
• End with how to stop. "Reply STOP to opt out" on the first automated text in a new thread.

A version that works across most service businesses: "Hi Dana, this is Northside Heating. Thanks for having Marcus out today. If you have a minute, a quick review helps other neighbors find us: [link]. Reply STOP to opt out." Every name in that message is invented for this guide; yours come from the job record.

A review request, step by step

Here is one request for a home services company, where the customer has a complaint the office has not heard yet.

The agent did not argue, ask again or hide the complaint. It thanked the customer and handed the thread to a person with the context attached. Whether Dana reviews later, and what she says, is up to her.

Ask everyone, and keep incentives clean

Some review tools first ask the customer to rate the visit, then send happy customers to a public review page and unhappy ones to a private form. This is called review gating, and the rules point against it.

• Federal guidance. The FTC guide on soliciting reviews tells businesses not to ask for reviews only from customers they think will leave positive ones, and not to ask people who never used the product or service.
• The federal rule. The FTC rule on consumer reviews and testimonials took effect on October 21, 2024. Its own questions and answers page says the rule has no specific ban on gating, but that the practice could still violate the FTC Act. The rule does ban offering an incentive on the condition that a review express a particular sentiment.
• Platform policy. Google's contributor content policy bars businesses from discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews and from selectively asking for positive ones. The same policy bars offering incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods or services for reviews.

The FTC guide adds that some platforms ban incentivized reviews while others allow them with disclosure, and that staff, family and friends must disclose their connection if they review you. The setup that clears all of it: the same text to every customer whose job closed, with no offer and no filter in front of the link. Our setup and compliance guides cover the texting side.

Consent, opt-out and the number

A review request is a business text and follows the same carrier rules as any other. The wireless industry's messaging principles describe three kinds of business texts, each with its own level of permission.

• Conversational. The customer texts first and the business answers. No additional permission is expected for the reply.
• Informational. The customer gives their number and agrees to texts for a specific purpose, such as appointment reminders or updates about their job.
• Promotional. A message that promotes a brand, product or service. The customer should agree in writing first, and adding a call to action such as a coupon code to an informational text may move it into this category.

The practical step is to ask at booking. When the customer gives a mobile number, ask whether they agree to texts about their appointment, including a follow-up after the job, and record the answer with the date and how it was given.

Opt-out is the other half. The same principles say senders should state how to opt out, use standard STOP wording, act on plain-language requests such as "stop" or "please opt me out", send one confirmation and then send nothing further. The number itself needs carrier registration; business text messaging explained covers what that involves.

Who handles the replies

Some customers answer a review text with words instead of a tap on the link. Those replies are conversations and get handled like any other text.

• Thanks and "done." The text agent replies with a short thank you, notes on the record that the customer reviewed or said they would, and never sends a second ask.
• A complaint or a question. The agent acknowledges it, says who will follow up and hands the thread to a person in the inbox, with the job notes attached. No review link goes out in that reply.
• A booking request. "Can you also look at the upstairs unit?" becomes a booking from the live calendar, the way our AI appointment booking guide describes.
• STOP. The number is opted out, one confirmation goes back, and nothing else is sent to it.

Because the request, the reply and the job sit on one customer record, whoever picks up a complaint sees the work order and the tech's notes without asking the customer to explain twice.

What managed includes

Sending a text is the easy part. What decides whether review requests help is the setup around it.

• The trigger tied to how your jobs close: a work order marked done, a checkout, a paid invoice.
• Hold rules for open jobs, disputed invoices and customers already asked.
• Wording in your voice, naming the person who did the work.
• Consent at booking on the receptionist script, web form and front desk.
• Reply handling by the text agent, with every complaint handed to a person.
• Monitoring of the threads, with timing and wording adjusted as you go.

That is the managed suite described on our platform page: receptionist, text agent, chat and one inbox, set up and run for the client.

Where to start

Write down the moment a job is truly finished in your business, then add a consent line to how you collect mobile numbers at booking. Write one short request in your own voice and send it to every customer whose job closes.

Then connect it to the rest of your texting. The customer who first reached you through a missed call text back, booked by text and got a reminder is the same customer who gets the review request, on the same number and record.

Frequently asked questions

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Where this fits in what we build: Unified Inbox in what we build