The Google Reviews playbook — how to compound your local rank.

1 · Why review velocity matters more than star average

Google's local ranking algorithm weighs review velocity (reviews per week) and recency more heavily than raw count. A business at 4.8 with 10 reviews in the last 60 days outranks a 4.9 with 3. The compounding effect is the point: every review nudges rank, every rank improvement drives more impressions, every impression drives more calls, every happy call drives more reviews.

2 · The timing question (biggest driver)

Response rate drops off a cliff after 24 hours and is 4× higher at 90 minutes post-job than at 24 hours. Fire the request when the customer is still in the “ah, good, that's fixed” window. Earlier than 30 minutes is too pushy; later than 6 hours loses most of the response lift.

Trigger off the dispatch system's job-status change to “complete” (ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber all emit this event). Don't rely on the tech to remember to send it manually.

3 · The message itself

Personalize three things — it moves response rate from ~10% to ~30–34%:

1. Their first name.
2. The tech's first name who just did the job.
3. A one-tap link (don't ask them to copy-paste anything).

Hi {{first_name}} — hope {{tech_name}} took good care of you today.
If you have 20 seconds, a quick review on Google would mean the
world to us: {{google_link}}
Not the experience you expected? Hit reply and let me know —
{{owner_first_name}}

4 · The routing question (happy vs unhappy)

This is where most shops trip over Google's TOS. Google prohibits “review gating” — asking happy customers to leave public reviews while routing unhappy ones to private feedback without giving everyone the choice. The legal version:

• Every customer gets the option to leave a public review.That's non-negotiable.
• Use a two-step flow.First message asks “how was it? ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ (tap to rate).” Four or five stars → “great, here's the Google link.” One to three stars → “sorry about that — can we make it right? Reply to this and the owner will call you.” But the follow-up to the 1–3 stars also says “if you'd rather, the Google link is here too.” That gives them a public option — making you compliant.

5 · Responding to every review

Respond to 100% of reviews, every star level. Google counts owner-responses as an engagement signal. Templates are fine for 4–5 stars. Never template a 1- or 2-star — write something specific, within 24 hours, inviting them to talk privately. The public response is as much for future customers reading the thread as it is for the reviewer.

6 · SMS compliance (because this is SMS)

Review requests are transactional, not marketing — but you still need:

• A2P 10DLC registration (required for any business-to-consumer SMS in the US).
• STOP / HELP handling on every send.
• Consent captured at booking — the call record / job record becomes the paper trail.
• Throttling. Don't send 500 requests the first day you turn this on. Ramp.

7 · What to measure

• Review velocity (reviews per week, not total count).
• Response rate on the review-request SMS (healthy: 28–34%).
• Public:private ratio (goal: ~80:20).
• Star distribution over time.
• Google Business Profile impressions (from GBP insights) — leading indicator of rank movement.