A practical guide for tradespeople and small service businesses. No marketing jargon. Just what works.
90% of customers read reviews before choosing a local business. A business with 50 reviews at 4.5 stars gets chosen over one with 3 reviews at 5 stars. Volume matters as much as rating.
For tradespeople, reviews are your storefront. You don't have a shop window. You have a Google Business Profile. The more reviews you have, the higher you rank in local search, the more calls you get.
Ask immediately after the job, within 24 hours. The customer just watched you solve their problem. They're grateful. That window closes fast. By day 3, they've moved on.
Text messages have a 98% open rate. Send a short, personal message with a direct link to your Google review page. Keep it under 160 characters.
Hi [Name], thanks for choosing [Business]. A quick Google review would really help: [link], Thank you!
FiveStarPing automates this: enter the customer's name and number, pick their language, tap send. The SMS goes out with your review link. More SMS templates here.
Print a QR code on your invoices, business cards, and van. Customers scan it on their own time. No awkward asking required.
FiveStarPing generates a smart QR code that shows a branded review page in the customer's language, and offers a private feedback channel alongside the public review option. Full QR code guide here.
Email has a 20% open rate, lower than SMS, but it's free. Best used as a backup for customers who didn't respond to the text.
The fear of a 1-star review stops most tradespeople from asking. But not asking means you only get reviews from angry customers, the ones motivated enough to find your Google page on their own.
The solution: a private feedback channel. FiveStarPing asks the customer to rate their experience first. Everyone is then offered the option to leave a public review, and unhappy customers can also send you private feedback so you can make things right. No one is blocked from reviewing publicly.
You can do all of this manually, copy-paste SMS templates, generate QR codes, track who you've asked. Or automate it for $15/month with FiveStarPing. For context, enterprise tools like Podium, Birdeye and Broadly run from several hundred dollars a month. Full comparison here.
Free plan available, no credit card required.