22 September 2026 · 5 min read · Oscar Markham
How to ask for Google reviews without being awkward about it
Most businesses with few reviews do not have unhappy customers. They have customers nobody asked. It is the cheapest thing on any marketing list and the one most consistently skipped.
Send the short link, never an instruction
Google Business Profile, Read reviews, Get more reviews, and copy the short link. Send that.
Telling somebody to search for you on Google and leave a review loses roughly half of them at each step. The link removes every step but one.
Ask at the moment of relief
Not a week later. The right moment is when the job is finished and the customer is visibly pleased — the leak stopped, the room looks right, the car passed.
For a trade that is standing in the room. For a clinic it is at the desk. For a service business it is the day the thing they were worried about stopped being a worry.
The wording that works
Short, personal, no pressure, and an easy out. 'Would you mind leaving us a quick review? Here is the link — a line or two is perfect, and no bother at all if you would rather not.'
Never offer anything in exchange. It breaches Google's terms, and reviews obtained that way can take the whole profile down with them.
Pace it
Five a week, not thirty at once. A profile that goes from two reviews to forty in a fortnight looks manufactured and Google filters accordingly.
Steady also looks better to a human reading them, because recency is visible on the profile.
What to do about a bad one
Reply, once, calmly, in public. Acknowledge the specific thing, say what you did about it, and offer to take it offline.
You are not writing for the reviewer. You are writing for the next person who reads it, and a measured reply to an unfair review frequently does more good than the review did harm.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.