Getting Google Reviews as a Tradie
For a builder, sparky, chippy or painter, a single job can run to five figures — and it means letting a stranger into the house for a week. Nobody books that on a hunch. They search, they read the Google reviews, and they call whoever looks safest. Good reviews and you can hold your price. No reviews and the cheapest quote in the world still does not get answered.
Why the trades live or die on reviews
Three things about trade work make Google reviews matter more here than almost anywhere else. The job value is high, so customers research properly rather than picking whoever is nearest. The trust barrier is high — you are being let into someone’s home, and reviews are the only evidence a stranger has that this is fine. And the work is relentlessly local: people look for a tradie near them, and local map ranking leans heavily on reviews.
So reviews are not a bonus for a tradie. They are the ticket to being quoted at all.
The right moment, and a routine that survives a busy week
The real problem is never willingness. It is that you are flat out and asking slips your mind, then the job is three weeks gone. The fix is to make it part of the job rather than something you remember to do.
- Ask at handover, on site. You have just walked them through the finished work and they have said they are rapt. That is the window — nothing you send later performs anywhere near as well.
- Carry a QR code or a short link. On the back of the invoice, on a card in the glove box, saved on your phone. One scan lands them on your review page with nothing to search for.
- Send a text the same day. When they get home to a clean site and finished work, a short message with the link converts better than any other follow-up.
- Put it on the close-out list. Alongside clearing the site and issuing the invoice. Every job, every person on the team, no exceptions.
- Reply to each one. Especially reviews that mention the workmanship — a short, knowledgeable reply reinforces exactly the impression you want the next reader to form.
Something like this works on site: “Glad you are happy with how it turned out. If you have got a minute, would you mind leaving us a Google review? We get nearly all our work by word of mouth, so it makes a big difference to a small outfit — just scan this and it takes about a minute.”
Where tradies go wrong
Two mistakes account for most of it. The first is only asking when you are sure the customer loved it — ask selectively and you will never build volume, because most happy customers never say anything unprompted. Ask everyone whose job went properly. The second is buying reviews. Renovation customers are a suspicious audience by nature, the fakes are easy to spot, Google deletes them, and being caught costs you the reputation you were trying to buy. Genuine, continuous, every job — that is the only version that compounds.
Frequently asked questions
The customer says they’ll leave a review, then forgets. What do I do?
Extremely common, and it is a timing problem rather than a goodwill problem. Cover it twice: ask on site at handover with the QR code in your hand, and if that does not land, send the link by text the same day while the job is still fresh. Asking a week later almost never works.
I’m a one-man operation. Is this worth the effort?
More so than for a big firm. You have no brand to trade on, so the reviews are your reputation. Thirty or forty genuine ones will routinely beat a larger company with none, because the searcher has nothing else to go on.
When exactly should I ask?
At handover, once you have walked the customer through the finished work and they have said they are happy. That moment — satisfaction at its peak, the job visibly done — converts better than any message you send later.
Can I offer a discount for a review?
No. Google’s policies prohibit incentivised reviews, and in Australia the ACCC treats incentivised or misleading reviews as a consumer law issue. You can ask everyone, and you can make it easy. You cannot pay for it, in cash or in kind.
Should I buy reviews to get started?
Never, and the trades are the worst category to try it in. Customers are already cautious about who they let into the house, and fake reviews read as fake — vague, no job detail, clustered dates. Google removes them and your listing wears the damage.
What is the best way to hand over the link?
A QR code the customer scans while you are standing there. Put it on the back of the invoice, on a card in the ute, on a sticker on your folder. Second best is a text with a short link. Asking someone to search for your business and find the review button loses most of them.
How do I ask without sounding desperate?
Be plain about why it matters. “We get almost all our work through word of mouth, so a Google review makes a real difference to a small outfit like ours — it takes about a minute if you scan this.” Most people are happy to help a small business when you say that is what it is.
What if the job went badly?
Do not ask. Fix the problem first. Chasing a review from an unhappy customer is how you get the one-star you were worried about. Sort out the defect, and if they are genuinely satisfied afterwards, then ask.
Do reviews mentioning the work type help me get found?
Yes. A review saying “rewired a Federation home in Marrickville” carries the service and the suburb in plain language, which is exactly what Google and AI assistants read when matching a search to a business. Prompting for what the job was produces far more useful reviews than asking for a rating.
How many reviews should I be aiming for?
Look at whoever ranks in the top three for your trade and your area, and use their count as the target. Then keep asking on every job. Trades work in bursts, and a profile that stops receiving reviews for six months looks like a business that has stopped trading.
Let the word of mouth do the quoting
Trade work runs on trust, and trust now gets checked on Google before anyone picks up the phone. AI REVIEW sets Australian tradies up with the whole flow — QR codes, same-day text follow-ups and proper replies — so every finished job turns into the reason someone books the next one. Get in touch.
