Get More Google Reviews Before the Holidays

Most businesses ask for reviews when they remember to, which usually means in bursts: a flurry after someone notices a bad one, then nothing for months. The trouble is that the best time to ask is not whenever you think of it. It is while the customer still remembers the job, and before their attention goes somewhere else.

For a lot of local businesses, that makes the next few weeks the best window of the year. Summer and early fall were busy. The people you served are still close enough to the work to say something specific about it. And in about six weeks, the holidays will take over their inboxes, their calendars and their patience for anything that looks like a request.

Why the timing matters

A review request works best within days of the job, when the customer is still pleased and the details are fresh. A few weeks later it still works, just less often. A few months later, most people will not bother, and the ones who do will write something vague. Anyone you served since June is still in the range where asking is worth it. By January, most of them will not be.

There is also the question of who is reading. Plenty of people choose a business in November and December: someone booking a service before family arrives, buying a gift certificate, or getting a job done before year-end. They look at your reviews first, and they notice the dates. A profile whose newest review is from July looks quieter than it is. Online Reviews 101 explains why recent reviews count for more than the average.

Start with a list, not a blast

Pull every customer you finished work for since June. Take out anyone who has already left a review, and anyone whose job went badly. Those people need a phone call, not a request. What is left is your list. For most small businesses it is a few dozen to a few hundred names, which is small enough to handle properly.

Leaving someone out because the job went badly is not the same as screening out unhappy customers. Google does not allow businesses to ask only the people likely to leave good reviews, and it does not allow offering anything in return for one. The customers you left out still get a chance to tell you what went wrong. Once it is sorted, they can review you like anyone else.

What to send

Send it by text if you have the customer's mobile number, and by email if not. Keep it short and personal, and link straight to the review form so nobody has to search for your business. A good request includes:

• Their name and the job, so it is clearly about them. "Thanks again for having us out to replace your water heater in August" beats "Thanks for choosing us."
• One sentence on why it matters to you. For example, most of your new customers find you on Google, and reviews are how they decide.
• A direct link to leave a review, and nothing else to click.
• A name at the bottom. A request from the person who did the work gets far more replies than one from the business.

Send in small batches over two or three weeks rather than all at once. That way the reviews arrive steadily instead of in a single-day spike, and you have time to reply to each one as it comes in.

The customer who would happily review you in October will have forgotten your name by February.

Answer what comes back

Reply to every new review within a day or two, good or bad. A short, specific thank-you is enough for a good one. For a critical one, acknowledge it, avoid arguing, and offer to fix it offline. The reply is mostly for the next customer reading it, as your review reply is written for the next customer covers.

Then keep it going

A catch-up push fixes this year. It does not stop the same gap reopening next summer. Once the list is done, make the request part of how every job ends: sent the same day, by the same person, every time. Reputation management with Vizible handles the requests from a dashboard, alerts you to every new review and lets you reply in one place. If you would like to see how that would work for your business, ask us for a free proposal.