What to Say When You Ask for a Google Review (Texts and Emails That Work)
The exact wording for review requests by text, email, and in person, the phrasings that quietly break Google's rules, and why the words matter less than whether the request gets sent at all.
Most businesses that are unhappy with their review count are asking. They are just asking in a way that is easy to ignore.
Timing and channel matter, and we have separate guides for both. This one is about the words: what to put in the text, what to put in the email, what to say at the counter, and which common phrasings quietly break Google's rules or kill the response rate.
Five rules that decide whether anyone taps
Ask for a review, not for five stars. "If you were happy, would you leave us a 5-star review?" asks for a rating rather than an opinion. Google's guidance to businesses at https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474122 prohibits attempting to influence the rating, and the phrasing is the tell. Ask for the review and let the customer choose the number.
Never attach anything of value. No discount, no gift card, no raffle entry, no free add-on, in either direction. Google's policy at https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114 bans incentives for posting, revising, or removing reviews, and since October 2024 an FTC rule adds civil penalty exposure when the reward is tied to the review being positive.
Make it one tap. The single biggest cause of a low response rate is a request that asks someone to search for your business. Send the direct review link. If you do not have one, our review link guide walks through generating it.
Say who you are. A text from an unknown number saying "how did we do?" reads as spam. Name the business and the job.
Ask once, then remind once. One follow-up a few days later recovers a meaningful share of people who meant to and got distracted. Two follow-ups annoy people.
Text message templates
Texts get read. That is the whole advantage, and it comes with an obligation to be brief. Keep requests to roughly 160 characters where you can, put the business name early, and put the link at the end.
Standard, after a completed job:
Shorter, for repeat customers:
Same-day, service call:
Retail or counter:
Reminder, three days later:
After a repair that took longer than promised:
That last one matters more than it looks. Acknowledging the friction before asking is the difference between a request that lands and one that provokes.
Email templates
Email gives you room for context, which is useful when the job was large or the customer is a business. It is still read in a preview pane, so the first line does the work.
Standard, after a completed job:
Larger project, commercial customer:
Reminder email, a few days later:
Note what none of these say: no "5-star", no discount, no "we're trying to hit a target this month". The last one shows up often and it puts your goal in front of the customer's experience.
In person, at the counter, and on the truck
Verbal asks convert better than anything else, and are the hardest to do consistently.
At handover, after visible satisfaction:
Say it, then send it. The verbal ask sets expectation, the text delivers the link, and the two together outperform either alone.
At the counter:
On an invoice or receipt line:
What not to print: any sign or card offering something in exchange. "Leave us a 5-star review and get 10% off" breaks Google's policy and the FTC rule at the same time, and it does it in a format you have paid to laminate.
The phrasings that quietly cost you responses
| Instead of this | Say this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "Leave us a 5-star review" | "Leave us a review" | Asking for a rating rather than an opinion, and against Google's guidance |
| "Please review us on Google, Yelp, and Facebook" | One platform, one link | Choice creates delay, and delay means nobody posts |
| "Search for us on Google and leave a review" | A direct review link | Every extra step loses people |
| "We need reviews to keep the business going" | "It helps people in [area] find us" | Guilt converts once and reads badly in a screenshot |
| "How did we do?" from an unknown number | Name the business and the tech | Anonymous asks read as phishing |
| "Let us know if you'd give us less than 5 stars first" | Ask everyone the same way | This is review gating, and it is explicitly banned |
That last row is worth dwelling on, because it is the mistake well-meaning owners make most. Screening people by their likely rating and only sending the happy ones to Google is prohibited. Asking every customer how the job went, and giving unhappy ones a private channel as well as the public one, is not the same thing, provided nobody is prevented from posting publicly. Our guide to Google's review rules covers exactly where that line sits.
The wording matters less than the fact that it happens
You can optimise a text message for weeks and still collect nothing, because the actual failure is that nobody sends it on a busy Thursday.
BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found 74% of consumers look for reviews from the last three months, so the goal is not a burst of requests after a good week. It is a request going out after every single job, forever, without depending on anyone remembering.
Grade your Google profile free, no sign-up, in about 30 secondsGrade my profile freeThat is the part ReputeLoop automates. The request goes out when a job is completed or a payment clears, texts are held to between 8am and 9pm in the customer's local time so nothing lands at midnight, one automatic reminder follows about three days later by email, with SMS reminders on Growth and Pro, and the same contact is never asked twice within 30 days. Plans start at $49 a month with a 14-day free trial and no credit card, and native integrations with Jobber, Square, Workiz, and ServiceM8, which fire the ask when a visit is marked complete, are included on Starter Plus at $89 a month and up.
The message templates above are the defaults you would edit once and then stop thinking about, which is the point.
The short version
Ask for a review, never for a rating, and never with anything attached to it. Name your business, reference the actual job, send a direct link, and keep the text under two lines.
Ask once at the moment the work is fresh, remind once a few days later, and then stop. Then make it automatic, because the wording only matters on the requests that actually get sent.