What to do when you have no reviews yet
Start with the customers you already have, not the ones you are chasing. Make a list of every job from the last six months, send each one a short personal text with your review link, and space them out over a fortnight so the profile fills gradually. A handful of recent, specific reviews beats a long wait for them to arrive on their own.
Reviews do not arrive on their own
Almost every business with an empty profile is waiting for the same thing: for happy customers to go and write something unprompted. A few will. Nowhere near enough to matter, and the ones who do it without being asked are often the ones who were unhappy.
Meanwhile the empty profile is doing damage every day. A potential customer comparing three local businesses does not think "they must be new". They think "no reviews" and ring one of the other two. That is the real cost, and it is why this is worth a fortnight of deliberate effort rather than another six months of hoping.
Do it in this order
- Get your Google review link first, so the ask and the link go out together
- Write down every customer from the last six months, oldest last. A phone, a diary and a bank statement will get you most of the way
- Cross off anyone the job did not go well for. You are asking your best customers, not everyone
- Text five or six a day for a fortnight, not fifty in one afternoon
- Ask the next customer in person, on the day, and keep doing that from now on
The order matters more than the wording. Sending the ask without the link is the most common way this fails, and how to get your Google review link takes about two minutes to sort.
The first ask, for a customer from a while back
"Hi {name}, {your name} here from {business}. We did {the job} back in {month}. We are trying to build up our Google reviews and I wondered if you would mind leaving us one. Takes a minute, link is here: {link}. No problem at all if not."
"Hi {name}, thanks again for Tuesday. If you were happy with it, would you leave us a quick Google review? It genuinely helps a business our size. {link}"
"Hello {name}, thank you again for the {job} in {month}. We are a small business and Google reviews are how most people find us, so if you had a minute to leave one it would mean a lot. The link is here: {link}. Either way, thanks for your custom."
Naming the actual job is what makes an old customer remember you and write something specific. "We did your bathroom in March" gets a better review than "we did some work for you". More wording for later on sits in review request templates.
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Send me the free BlueprintThe mistakes that make an empty profile worse
Five things not to do
- Asking friends and family. Reviewers with no history, all posting in one week, is the pattern Google filters for, and a fake looking profile is worse than an empty one
- Buying reviews. They get removed, and Google can put a public warning on the profile
- Offering a prize draw or a discount, which breaks the review policy on every major platform
- Sending all fifty texts on the same afternoon, so twenty reviews land in two days and none ever again
- Asking customers to review you from your own office wifi, because a run of reviews from one location looks exactly like what it is
Slow and real beats fast and suspicious. Five honest reviews spread over a fortnight will do more for you than thirty that Google does not trust.
How many you actually need before it stops hurting
There is no magic number, but the useful way to think about it is this: enough that a reader stops noticing the count and starts reading the words. One review looks like an accident. A handful of recent, specific ones, each mentioning a different job, reads like a normal business. That is the bar, and it is much lower than most owners assume.
It also matters that they keep coming. A profile whose newest review is from two years ago raises the same doubt as an empty one, which is the argument for a system rather than a one off push.
Then stop doing it by hand
The fortnight of texts fixes the cold start. What stops you being back here in a year is asking every customer automatically from now on. GoHighLevel can send the review request text a set time after a job is marked done, chase once if there is no reply, and stop the moment they leave one, so nobody gets pestered.
That is covered properly in review request automation and how to automate review requests. If you would rather compare the tools first, best review request software for small business puts the prices side by side, and how to ask for a review in person covers the version that costs nothing at all.
Want to see it running?
GoHighLevel is the tool we use for all of this in our own business. You can try everything on the 14-day free trial and judge it on results.
See how GoHighLevel worksThat button uses our referral link: we earn a commission if you sign up, it never costs you extra, and we say so right here because trust matters more.
Common questions
How far back can I go when asking old customers?
Six months is comfortable and a year is fine if you name the job. Beyond that people struggle to remember enough to write anything specific, and a vague review does less for you than no review.
Is it against the rules to ask customers for reviews?
No. Asking is allowed and encouraged. What is against the rules is paying for reviews, offering anything in return, or filtering so that only happy customers get asked.
Can I ask friends and family to get started?
Do not. Reviews from people who were never customers are the easiest kind to spot, they tend to be vague, and a batch of them from new accounts is exactly the pattern that gets a profile filtered.
What if a customer leaves a bad one first?
Keep going. One poor review sitting alone is a problem only while it is the only review. Once it sits among newer honest ones with a sensible reply underneath, it reads as a business that answers people rather than a business with a problem.
Should I ask for Google or Facebook reviews?
Google first, because that is where people compare local businesses before ringing. Take a Facebook review gladly if that is where the customer offers, but do not split the ask, or you end up with two thin profiles instead of one solid one.