How to Get More Online Reviews for Your Contracting Business

Your last customer told you her new kitchen turned out better than she imagined. She shook your hand at the walkthrough and said she’d recommend you to anyone.

Three weeks later, your Google profile still shows the same 14 reviews. The newest one is from last spring.

She meant every word, but like most homeowners, she’s busy. “Going to search for your profile and leave you a review is number 9,041 on their list,” says James Charles, CEO of E-Impact Marketing. The good news is that most of your customers are happy: 94% of homeowners who completed a major renovation say it was worth it compared with moving, according to Acorn Finance’s Stay-and-Renovate report. The work is getting them to say so where the next homeowner is looking.

This guide draws on two perspectives. Charles’s agency helps shed builders, roofers, and general contractors get found online. David Yifrach sees it from the owner’s side. He runs a two-person garage door company in Virginia Beach, and recently decided to make reviews a priority. Since he started focusing on reviews, he’s earned 81 five-star Google reviews since April, often one every day or two. One knows what works across the industry. The other has proven it can work.

Ask every customer, and make it take less than a minute

Most happy customers won’t review you unprompted, but most will if you ask. BrightLocal’s 2026 consumer survey found that 83% of people asked to leave a review went on to write one.

The ask only works if the review is easy to leave. “You want to send people a link that takes them directly to your review form,” Charles says. Your Google Business Profile can generate a direct review link and a QR code you can text, email, or print on a business card.

Yifrach’s pace picked up when he stopped texting links separately and started putting them on every receipt, with options for Google, Facebook, and other platforms. “I hope everyone who didn’t write a review before didn’t skip it because of my work,” he says. “It was because it was too hard, or they didn’t have time. Now it’s easy.”

Your move: Pull your review link and QR code from your Google Business Profile this week and add them to your invoices, receipts, and follow-up texts.

Time the request for the moment customers are happiest

Charles recommends asking at the point in the job when the customer is happiest. For many contractors, that’s the final walkthrough. The crew lead keeps a saved text with the review link on their phone and asks, “Do you mind if I text you a link to leave us a review? It would help us out.”

“That face-to-face interaction is going to boost response rates over just doing it through an automated system,” Charles says. Automated requests do still have a place, since they don’t depend on anyone remembering to ask.

Keep the ask low-pressure. Google’s policy bars businesses from pressuring customers to leave reviews on the spot, so send the link and let them write it on their own time.

Yifrach also tells customers why a review matters to a company his size. “I’m a small business, and I depend on your review,” he tells them. “If you want me to be here for the next several years whenever you need me, the review will help me stay in business.”

Help customers write reviews that say something useful

A blank review box stops people cold. “Experienced writers sit down at a blank page and get writer’s block,” Charles says. “Somebody that doesn’t write for a living feels that even more.”

An open question helps. When Yifrach just asks for a good review, he says customers write two or three words. When he asks them to share what his team did and how it went, they write about the experience. “People like to share their experience,” he says.

Keep that question open-ended. Google’s review policy bars businesses from requesting that specific content be included in a review, so ask about the experience instead of suggesting keywords or details to mention.

Photos also help. Charles suggests sending customers a photo of their finished job along with the request, so it’s ready to attach if they want to add it.

What to do: Write a two-line review request your whole crew can send: a thank-you, the link, and one open question, like “What did we do for you, and how did it go?”

Stay inside Google’s and the FTC’s review rules

Some common review tactics now break the rules. Under Google’s Maps content policy, businesses can’t:

1. Offer discounts, gifts, or other incentives in exchange for a review, or for changing or removing one
2. Ask only the customers they expect to be happy, or discourage negative reviews
3. Set review quotas for their crews
4. Pressure customers to review on-site or ask them to include specific content

The FTC’s rule on fake reviews, in effect since October 2024, also bans rewarding customers for reviews with a particular sentiment and allows civil penalties for violations.

The safest approach is also the simplest one: ask every customer the same way and let them say what they think.

Keep reviews coming at a steady pace

Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. Homeowners also care how recent your reviews are, and 74% of consumers look for reviews from the last three months.

That’s why a one-time review push fades fast. Yifrach competes with local companies that have 700 or more reviews, fleets of trucks, and big marketing budgets. His answer is to ask after every job. “I see every customer as a potential review,” he says, “and a potential friend for life.”

Once you have a handful of reviews, the goal is new ones every month so your profile never looks stale.

Handle imperfect reviews in a way the next customer respects

Look for the lesson, even in good reviews. A bad review at least tells Yifrach what went wrong, so he can fix it. A four-star review makes him dig. “When it’s four stars, there’s something concealed there,” he says. He goes back over the job to figure out what fell short, whether the price felt high or the result wasn’t quite what the customer expected.

Try to make it right. When a customer left him a two-star review after finding the opener he installed for less online, Yifrach reached out to him to make it right and was ready to refund part of the cost. When price is the sticking point, it helps to address it before the job starts. Offering financing through Acorn Finance lets homeowners see a project as a monthly payment instead of a lump sum.

“If it’s a real bad review about something that really bothered the customer, go and fix it,” Yifrach says. “In the end, it’s your name.”

He learned that lesson from a tire shop that put the wrong size tires on his wife’s car, which caused serious damage over the next year. The shop covered the cost of the repairs, a rental car, and towing, and made it easy. Yifrach gave them five stars. “Mistakes can be made, but the way you stand behind your job shows who you are,” Yifrach says.

Remember who’s reading. When he’s the customer, Yifrach reads a business’s lowest reviews first to see “their weakest points or what they do about it.” Google’s own guidance notes that a mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy.

Reply to every review, good or bad. Eight in 10 consumers say they’re likely to use a business that responds to all its reviews, though half are put off by generic, templated replies. Take a few minutes to genuinely respond, especially while you’re still building up your reviews.

Let good reviews work quietly. “Don’t wave it as a diploma,” Yifrach says. When new customers mention his reviews, he tells them he still has to earn theirs.

Your move: Read your five lowest reviews and your replies the way a new homeowner would. Before you post a reply, rewrite any draft that sounds defensive or copied and pasted.

Your review action plan

This week: Get your review link and QR code from your Google Business Profile and add them to invoices, receipts, and follow-up texts.

This month: Write a short review request with one open question, and have crew leads offer it at the final walkthrough without pressure. Reply to every review from the past three months, and drop any review discounts or incentives.

This quarter: Ask after every completed job. Aim for new reviews every month, and check your count at the end of each one.

The bottom line

Most of your customers already liked the work. Reviews come from asking all of them, making it easy, and doing it after every job so your profile always looks current. Handle the occasional bad review the way you’d want a contractor to handle yours, and the next homeowner will notice.

Good reviews bring in bigger jobs. Make those jobs easier to say yes to. Acorn Finance lets your customers compare loan offers in minutes, turning a $30,000 project into a monthly payment of about $483. Offer financing through Acorn Finance.