How to ask clients for Google reviews at a small firm: when to ask, what to send, and a Slack check that never forgets
At most small service firms the work is good and clients say thanks, and then nobody sends the review link, because asking for reviews belongs to nobody. When someone does remember, they ask five clients in one afternoon and then stop for three months. This guide shows how to ask for Google reviews at a firm of 5 to 100 people: who owns the ask, which event starts it, what to send, the rules from Google and the FTC that a well-meant shortcut can break, and a check in Slack so that no finished job goes unasked.
The short version: ask every client after every finished job, start the ask when the invoice is paid, send one request and one follow-up, offer nothing in return, and keep a person on the send button.
The answer in five steps
- Get your review link once. Google's help page on getting more reviews for a Business Profile says you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code, and that customers must be signed in to a Google Account to leave a review. Save the link where the whole team can find it.
- Pick the trigger: a paid invoice. The job is finished, the client has accepted it, and there is a record of it in QuickBooks, Xero or Stripe.
- Name one owner per client. The person who did the work, or the account lead, sends the request from their own mailbox.
- Send one request, then one follow-up a week later. Nothing more.
- Ask everyone with a finished job, offer nothing for the review, and never filter by mood. The rules table below explains why.
The rest of this article fills in each step.
Why the ask gets forgotten
Two current guides give the same timing advice. YouCanBook.me's guide on how to ask clients for reviews says to ask within 24 to 48 hours of a good interaction and offers five text and four email templates. The Salesforce small business blog on how to ask for and respond to Google reviews says to ask right after a positive moment, such as a strong call or a delivered order.
That advice assumes someone notices the positive moment and acts on it within two days. At a small firm, the person who notices is usually the one doing the work, and their next job has already started. A "positive moment" leaves no record and nothing reminds you of it, so the ask depends on memory, and memory fails exactly when the firm is busy, which is when it is doing the most work worth reviewing.
The second failure comes after a yes. A client says they will leave a review and then never does. One illustrator described it in a comment on a Substack post about winning a large project: "They say they'll do it but never do and I get tired of asking." That is one person's report. The client in that story did not refuse; they forgot, and nobody sent the link a second time.
The fix is an owner, a trigger and one scheduled follow-up. A better template helps less.
Pick the trigger: when to ask for a Google review
The trigger for a review request should be a paid invoice, not someone remembering a good moment, because a paid invoice happens after every finished job and the whole team can see it.
This is a recommendation; Google sets no rule on timing. A paid invoice has three properties that a good moment lacks:
- It always happens. Every finished job ends in an invoice, so every finished job gets a chance at a review.
- It is recorded. It sits in QuickBooks, Xero or Stripe with a client name, a date and an amount, so nobody has to remember it.
- It comes after acceptance. A client who has paid has, in practice, accepted the work. You are not asking mid-project, while a revision is still open.
For a retainer client who pays monthly, a paid invoice every month is too often. Use the end of a project phase, or a quarterly check, for those clients, and keep the paid-invoice trigger for project work.
Two cases call for a pause, not a skip: an invoice paid after a dispute, and a job that ended with a complaint still open. Resolve the complaint first, then ask. The client still gets asked, which is what the rules in the next section require.
The rules for asking for reviews, in one table
Two sets of rules apply to a US business asking for Google reviews: Google's own content policy and the FTC's rule on consumer reviews. Some current guides contradict them.
Asking every client with a finished job, not only the ones who seem happy, is what keeps a small firm inside Google's policy. The Google Maps user contributed content policy says merchants may not "Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers". Sending a "how did we do?" survey first and then sending the Google link only to people who answer five stars is exactly that kind of selective soliciting.
The FTC is less direct on that point. Its questions and answers on the Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule say the rule "went into effect on October 21, 2024", and that on asking only satisfied customers "The rule does not contain a specific prohibition against such conduct", while warning that the practice could still violate the FTC Act. So the FTC rule does not name the practice, but Google's policy does, and for Google reviews Google's policy is the one that decides whether a review stays up.
The second trap is incentives. Some current guides say a discount for a review is fine as long as it is not tied to the rating, but for Google reviews Google's own policy says incentives are strictly prohibited. The Salesforce article above says discounts for feedback are allowed if the reward does not depend on the rating. That matches the FTC rule, which bars "an express or implied requirement that the reviews have to express a particular sentiment". But Google's Business Profile help page says that offering incentives "like free or discounted goods or services" in exchange for reviews is "strictly prohibited", and the content policy bans incentives "in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review". If the review is on Google, follow Google.
| Practice | Google's policy | FTC rule | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ask every client with a finished job | Allowed | Allowed: broad requests to buyers are covered | Do this |
| Send the link only to clients who seem happy | Not allowed: "selectively solicit positive reviews" | Not specifically prohibited, may still break the FTC Act | Never do this |
| Discount or gift for any review, good or bad | Not allowed: "strictly prohibited" | Allowed if not tied to a sentiment | Never do this for Google reviews |
| Reward only for a positive review | Not allowed | Not allowed | Never do this |
| Ask a happy client to post, then ask again once | Allowed | Allowed | One follow-up only |
This table is a summary of the pages linked above, not legal advice. If your firm is in a regulated field, such as health or legal services, check your professional rules as well.
What to send: a review request email template
Keep the request short, personal and from the person the client worked with. Here is a template. The details in brackets are placeholders, and the example names are made up.
Subject: Thanks for working with us on [project name]
> Hi [client first name], > > Thanks again for trusting us with [project name]. [One sentence about something specific: "The new booking page went live on Tuesday and the first enquiries are already in."] > > If you have two minutes, a Google review would help other [type of client] find us. Here is the link: [your Google review link] > > Honest feedback is welcome, good or bad. If anything about the project could have gone better, just reply to this email and tell me. > > [Your name]
And the follow-up, sent once, about a week later, only to clients who have not posted:
> Hi [client first name], a quick nudge in case the last email got buried. Here is the Google review link again: [link]. No worries if now is not a good time. Thanks, [Your name]
Each part of the template has a job:
- One link, no searching. Google's help page says customers can leave a review through a Google link or a QR code, and they need to be signed in. Do not make them look you up.
- A specific detail. It proves a person wrote it and reminds the client what they are reviewing.
- "Good or bad" in writing. It makes clear you are asking everyone, which is the rule from the table above.
- A private route for complaints. Everyone still gets the link. The email route for problems is an extra, and it does not decide who is asked.
A text message works too for clients who prefer it. Use the same three parts: thanks, one detail, the link.
Who owns the ask
At a firm of 5 to 100 people, the sender should be the person the client knows best: the designer, the project lead, the account manager. A request from a named person gets read. A request from a no-reply address looks like marketing.
But the sender should not have to remember. Split the job in two:
- The firm owns the trigger. Every paid invoice starts a request, without anyone having to think of it.
- The person owns the send. They read the draft, adjust the one specific detail, and press send.
This is the part a firm usually hires a virtual assistant for: watching the invoices, drafting the emails, tracking who has had a follow-up. If you are weighing that hire, what a virtual assistant costs covers the numbers. The next section shows how to put the repetitive part in Slack first.
A Slack check that never forgets
If the team already works in Slack, the trigger and the draft can live there. Here is how it works with the Kipwise Agent. The firm, client and project in this example are made up.
- Set up the watch once. In an operations channel, the owner mentions the agent and asks: "When an invoice is paid in QuickBooks, post it here." The Kipwise Agent can act when something happens in a connected tool: "whenever an invoice is created or paid" in Xero or QuickBooks, and "when an invoice is paid" or "whenever a payment comes in" in Stripe. Creating the automation needs approval once, and later runs do not ask again. Each time, it reads the record back with your own access before posting.
- The invoice is paid. The agent posts in the channel: client name, invoice number, amount, date. Say the client is Harbor Dental and the project was a new booking page.
- The project lead replies in that thread. "Draft a review request to Harbor Dental using our template, mention the booking page launch." Plain replies in the same thread continue the work, so nobody has to mention the agent again.
- The agent writes a draft in the lead's Gmail. Before anything is sent, it shows the recipient, subject and message preview on an Approve or Deny card that only the person who asked can use. Nothing goes out unless they approve. Outlook works the same way: sending a draft waits for approval.
- A week later, the follow-up. The lead asks in the same thread for the follow-up draft, or asks the agent to send the approved follow-up later. The agent can send later and cancel a send that is still waiting.
What stays with a person, on purpose:
- Who gets asked. Everyone with a finished job. The agent does not judge whether a client seems happy, and you should not ask it to.
- The send. Every email to a client waits for a human approval.
- Replies to public reviews. Write those yourself on your Business Profile. The agent does not post on Google.
The agent drafts and sends email with your approval and reacts to invoice events. It does not read your Google reviews or answer them, so you check who actually posted by looking at your profile.
If you also chase late payments from the same channel, chasing overdue invoices from Slack uses the same invoice events. For other client emails, see sending weekly client updates from Slack.
What goes wrong, and how to handle it
The client was unhappy. Still ask, once the complaint is resolved. If the review is negative, reply on your profile calmly and specifically. Do not offer a discount to remove it: Google's content policy bans incentives for the "removal of a negative review".
The invoice was paid by a finance contact who never saw the work. Send the request to the person you worked with, not the billing address. Fix the contact in your accounting tool so the next one goes to the right place.
Two people think the other one sent it. This is why each paid invoice gets its own Slack thread. The thread shows whether a draft was approved and sent.
A client reviews the firm and then asks why you emailed again. The follow-up went to someone who had already posted. Before approving a follow-up, check your Business Profile for their name.
Volume is too high for one person to approve. At a firm with dozens of paid invoices a week, split the approvals by project lead, so each person approves only their own clients.
For a wider view of open loops like these, see keeping follow-ups from falling through the cracks in Slack.
How to check it is working
After a month, look at three numbers:
- Paid invoices in the month. From QuickBooks, Xero or Stripe.
- Requests sent. Count the approved request emails in your sent folder.
- New Google reviews in the month. From your Business Profile.
If requests sent is well below paid invoices, the trigger or the approvals are being skipped: look at which threads have no approved draft. If requests are sent but reviews stay flat, look at the email: is the link one tap, is there a specific detail, is the follow-up going out? If reviews rise but all from the same two project leads, the others are not approving their drafts.
Judge it over three months or more. The goal is a steady flow of new reviews each month.
What to do next
Today, copy your Google review link from your Business Profile and paste it, with the email template above, into a pinned message in your operations channel. Then look at last month's paid invoices and send a request to every client on that list who has not been asked. When you want the next one to start by itself, set up the paid-invoice watch in Slack.
