How to get more Google reviews as a trade business
The short answer
Ask every happy customer for a review at the moment you hand over the finished job, and text them the direct link so leaving one takes under a minute. Most trade businesses have few reviews because they ask nobody, so a habit of asking beats any clever tactic. Ten asks a month typically turns into three or four new reviews.
Reviews decide who gets the call
When a homeowner searches 'electrician near me', they see a map with three names and a star count next to each. A business with 80 reviews at 4.8 stars gets the call over one with 12 reviews at 5.0, almost every time. Volume reads as proof that you are real, busy, and safe to hire.
The gap between you and the top result in your town is rarely quality of work. It is usually that they ask and you do not. At three or four new reviews a month, you can pass most local competitors within a year.
Ask at the handover, not by email next week
The best moment to ask is when the customer is standing in front of the finished work saying thanks. Their goodwill peaks right there and decays fast. An email three days later gets ignored, and a request a month later feels like a favor.
The words are simple: 'Glad you are happy with it. Reviews are how small outfits like mine get found, would you mind leaving one? I will text you the link right now.' Then send the direct link to your Google review form while you are still in the driveway. Every extra tap between the customer and the form costs you reviews.
To get that link once, open your Google Business Profile, find the 'ask for reviews' option, and copy the short URL it gives you. Save it as a text shortcut on your phone so the whole ask takes ten seconds on site.
Track your asks or the habit dies
The reason review counts stall is not customers refusing. It is you finishing a job at 5pm, driving to the next one, and forgetting. Without a record of who you asked, the habit quietly stops within a month.
A simple job tracker fixes this. DeimLead can build you one from a sentence like 'a job tracker with customer, job, status, and a review-asked checkbox'. It lives at a link with a real database, so you can mark 'asked' from the truck and your office help can see who still needs a nudge, no accounts or installs for anyone. Friday afternoon, open it, find the happy customers you never asked, and send three texts.
When a bad review lands
One bad review will not sink you if you have volume, which is another reason to build it. Reply once, publicly and calmly: acknowledge, state what you offered to do, stop typing. Future customers read your reply more carefully than the complaint. Never argue in the thread, and never buy fake reviews, removal there is swift and public.
Send three texts today
Think of your last three happy customers. Text each one the review link with a one-line ask. That single action is most of the strategy.
Build the tool
Build a job tracker with a review-asked column so no happy customer slips by unasked.