Getting more reviews with one well-timed text

The goodwill window after good service is measured in hours. A customer who just watched you fix something properly is, right then, as positively disposed toward you as they will ever be. By the evening it has faded. By the next day the email you sent is in a promotions tab. The timing shifts by trade — a salon asks the same afternoon, a photographer waits until the gallery has landed.

The timing rule

Send within two to four hours of the service completing, during daytime hours. If the job finished at 7pm, send at 9am the next morning rather than at night — a review request on a lock screen at 9:30pm is an intrusion.

The template

export const reviewRequest = (c: Ctx) =>
  `Hi ${c.firstName} — ${c.staffName} here from ${c.business}. ` +
  `Thanks for coming in today. If we did a good job, a quick ` +
  `review really helps a small shop like ours: ${c.reviewLink}`;
 
// The link, tagged so you can prove this campaign works.
const reviewLink = tagged("https://g.page/r/acme/review", {
  campaign: "review_request",
  content: "post_service_2h",
  term: c.serviceType,
});

Why it is worded like that

• A named person asks. 'Dave here from Acme' converts far better than a faceless business. People do favours for people.
• It says why it matters. 'Helps a small shop like ours' is true and it is the actual reason someone bothers.
• It is conditional. 'If we did a good job' gives an unhappy customer a graceful exit, and it is honest.
• One link, no instructions. Do not explain how to leave a review. Link straight to the review form.

Handle the replies you will get

Roughly a fifth of people reply to a review request instead of clicking. Most say thanks. Some tell you about a problem you did not know you had — which is more valuable than the review would have been. Someone needs to be reading those: two-way texting. And if the reply is warm, that is your opening for a referral ask later in the year.

Frequency discipline

• One ask per visit. Never a follow-up 'just checking' — that is where a positive interaction turns into an annoyance.
• Do not ask the same customer more than a couple of times a year, however often they visit.
• Skip anyone who has left a review already. Track it.

Tag the review link and you can answer the only question that matters: how many reviews came from the text, and what did each one cost. See measuring ROI.