Review automation for trades: the exact workflow
Review automation sounds grand. In practice it is one trigger, one delay, two messages and a link. The difficulty is in the details: which event fires it, how long to wait, what the text says, who to exclude and what to do about the hundred past customers you never asked. This guide sets out the workflow we would build, step by step.
The outcome you are building towards
Google ranks businesses in the map pack partly on review count, average rating and how recently reviews arrived. A tradesperson with 15 reviews from 2023 is losing to one with 60 reviews, four of them this month. Reviews also convert: the customer who finds you reads them before they call.
A manual process, asking at the door and hoping, typically produces a review from somewhere between one in ten and one in twenty jobs, in our experience. A text sent at the right moment with a direct link does considerably better, and does it every time without you having to remember.
That is the whole case. Now the wiring.
Step 1: Choose the trigger event
The trigger is the moment your system learns a job is finished and the customer is happy enough to pay. The three realistic candidates are:
Invoice marked paid. The best trigger. The customer has seen the finished work, had time to notice problems, and paid anyway. Most invoicing apps can fire a webhook or an integration event when an invoice status changes to paid. Our guide to connecting your invoicing app to review requests covers the specific apps.
Job marked complete in your CRM. Faster, and fine for call-out trades where payment is on the day. Riskier for project work where the snag list has not been cleared.
Manual tap. You press a button on your phone when you leave. It works, but it reintroduces the human memory you were trying to remove.
Pick one trigger and stick with it. Two triggers means duplicate requests.
Step 2: Set the delay
Do not send the request the instant the invoice is paid. The customer has just parted with money and the feeling is relief, not gratitude. Two to four hours later, or the following morning, works better. If the trigger fires after 7pm, hold the message until 9am.
For project trades where payment comes in stages, trigger on the final payment only.
Step 3: Write the first message
SMS beats email for trades customers. It is read within minutes and it is where the relationship already lives if you confirmed the booking by text.
The message needs five things: the customer's first name, your business name, a reference to the job, a direct review link and a thank you. Keep it under 300 characters so it stays in two SMS segments at most.
- Hi Sarah, it's Mark from Mark Ellis Heating. Thanks for having us out for the boiler service today. If you've got a minute, a quick Google review would really help a small local business: [link]. Cheers, Mark
- Hi Dave, Tom here from TR Electrical. Hope the new consumer unit is behaving itself. Would you mind leaving us a Google review? It takes about a minute: [link]. Thanks a lot.
Step 4: Use the direct review link, not your profile URL
Google provides a short link that opens the review dialogue directly, with the star rating ready to tap. It is available from your Google Business Profile under the option to get more reviews. Sending customers to your profile page instead adds two taps and a scroll, and each tap loses people.
Shorten the link if your SMS tool does not do so automatically, so the message does not look like spam. Use your own domain for the short link if the tool allows, because an unrecognised shortener looks like phishing to a wary customer.
Step 5: One reminder, then stop
If no review has been detected after three days, send one reminder. It should be shorter and lighter than the first: 'Hi Sarah, just a nudge in case it slipped your mind. Review link is here: [link]. No worries if not.'
Then stop. A third message turns a goodwill gesture into a nuisance. Detecting whether a review has been left requires your tool to poll the Google Business Profile API or scrape new reviews and match them to names, which the dedicated review tools do and a basic SMS tool does not. If you cannot detect it, send the reminder regardless and accept that a few customers who already reviewed will get it.
The tools that handle detection, routing and reminders are compared in our review automation tools for tradesmen roundup.
Step 6: Exclusions and edge cases
Not every job should trigger a request. Build in a way to suppress it: a tag in the CRM, a checkbox on the invoice, or a 'do not request' field. Use it for jobs that went badly, for customers who complained during the work, for landlords and letting agents who will not review a job they did not see, and for repeat customers who have already reviewed you.
Do not gate the request behind a 'were you happy?' question that sends only happy customers to Google. Google's policies prohibit selectively soliciting positive reviews, and the practice can get reviews removed. Ask everyone you have not excluded for a legitimate reason.
Step 7: Reactivate past customers
Every trade business has a backlog of customers it never asked. Pull the last 12 to 18 months of paid invoices, remove anyone already on your reviews, anyone excluded and anyone whose number you do not have, and send a single message to the rest over a few days rather than all at once.
The wording changes: 'Hi John, Mark from Mark Ellis Heating. We fitted your boiler last spring and I'm trying to get our Google reviews up to date. If you were happy with the work, a review would mean a lot: [link]. Thanks either way.'
Expect a lower response rate than fresh jobs, but on a list of 150 past customers even a modest rate produces a visible jump in review count and, more importantly, recency. Riley Marketing includes a past-customer reactivation in its fixed-fee system for this reason; LeadFly lists review and referral requests among its workflow automations.
Spread the sends over a week or two. A business that goes from 20 to 50 reviews in one weekend looks odd to Google and to customers.
Step 8: Respond to every review
The workflow does not end when the review lands. Reply to each one within a day or two, by name, mentioning the job. It signals to future customers that you are present, and it is a further activity signal on your profile.
Negative reviews get a calm, factual reply offering to resolve the problem offline. Never argue in public.
The whole workflow on one page
This sits as the final stage in the broader chain described in our anatomy of a trades lead system, and it is the stage with the best ratio of effort to return. Build it first if you build nothing else.
| Step | Trigger or action | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Invoice marked paid (or job complete) | Event |
| 2 | Hold | 2 to 4 hours, never after 7pm |
| 3 | SMS with name, job, direct link | After hold |
| 4 | Check for new review | Daily |
| 5 | Single reminder if none | Day 3 |
| 6 | Stop | After reminder |
| 7 | Reactivation batch to past customers | One-off, spread over 1 to 2 weeks |
| 8 | Reply to each review | Within 48 hours |
Frequently asked questions
Should I send review requests by text or email?
Text. It is read faster and trades customers are already used to hearing from you that way. Email works as a fallback where you have no mobile number.
How long after the job should the request go out?
Two to four hours after the invoice is paid, or the next morning if that falls in the evening. Not instantly.
Is it allowed to ask only happy customers?
Google's policies prohibit selectively soliciting positive reviews. Exclude customers for legitimate reasons such as a complaint, but do not filter by sentiment.
Can I ask past customers for reviews?
Yes. A one-off reactivation run to the last 12 to 18 months of customers, spread over a week or two, usually produces a worthwhile lift in review count and recency.