When a homeowner searches “electrician near me”, the tradies with the most (and most recent) Google reviews get the calls. You know this — it’s how you choose a restaurant. The problem is that happy customers rarely leave reviews on their own, and asking feels weird, so weeks go by and the five-star moments evaporate.
The timing problem
There’s a golden window for review requests: right after the job’s finished, while the customer is standing in front of the work, impressed. Ask then and they’ll happily tap five stars. Ask a fortnight later in a batch email and you’re background noise. The trouble is, at job’s end you’re packing the ute and thinking about the next site — not marketing.
The automation that fixes it
A review-request automation watches your job management software. When a job is marked complete, the customer gets a short text a couple of hours later:
“Thanks for having us out today, Lisa! If you were happy with the work, a quick Google review means the world to a small business — here’s the link. Cheers, the team.”
- One tap takes them straight to your Google review box — no searching, no friction.
- A single gentle follow-up a few days later if they haven’t reviewed (then it stops — nobody gets pestered).
- Repeat customers and commercial clients can be excluded automatically.
- Every new review lands in your inbox so you can reply — replies matter for local SEO too.
Why steady reviews beat a big batch
Google’s local results favour businesses whose reviews arrive steadily over time — it signals a business that’s consistently doing good work, not one that begged its mates in a weekend. An automation produces exactly that pattern: a trickle of genuine reviews, week in, week out, tied to real completed jobs.
A quick word on ethics: ask everyone, never pay for reviews, and never gate (“only ask happy customers to post publicly”) — that violates Google’s rules. An honest ask after honest work is all it takes.
Set and forget
This is the lowest-effort, highest-compounding automation a trade business can run. Every review makes the next customer’s decision easier, and the system never forgets to ask. On the Pro plan we connect it to ServiceM8, Tradify, simPRO or whatever you run jobs on, match the message to how you actually talk, and it quietly builds your reputation from there.
Want the rest of the boring bits handled too? Start with quote follow-up and missed-call text-back — the three together cover the whole customer journey.