- Owner
- Front desk or service manager
- Cadence
- After every completed job or visit
- Time box
- Ten minutes a day
- Output
- Request log and reply log
Why the words in reviews matter
A review that says "great service, five stars" tells an assistant almost nothing it can repeat. A review that says "they replaced our water heater the same afternoon in Castro Valley and cleaned up afterward" gives it a service, a place, a speed and a detail. Bay Area AEO's review process is designed to get customers describing what the business does best, in their own words, because AI repeats those specifics when it explains why it recommends someone.
The dentist signal on the agency's niche page puts it directly: review requests should invite patients to mention comfort, specific treatments and staff by name. The same idea applies to every trade.
The rules that keep the process clean
Bay Area AEO never uses fake reviews, spam or tactics that could backfire, and this procedure follows the same line. Every customer gets the same request, whatever the business expects them to say. Nobody on staff writes reviews, and no discount or gift is tied to a review. The Federal Trade Commission's 2024 rule on consumer reviews bans fake reviews and incentives tied to positive ones, and Google's policies prohibit asking only happy customers. Yelp asks businesses not to solicit reviews at all, so requests point to Google.
| Trade | Prompt line in the request |
|---|---|
| Dental practice | Which treatment you had, how comfortable the visit was, and who looked after you |
| Plumber or HVAC | What we fixed or installed, how quickly we arrived, and your neighborhood |
| Restaurant | The dish you would order again and the occasion you came in for |
| Law firm | The kind of matter we helped with and how we communicated (no confidential details) |
| Med spa | The treatment, your provider and how the consultation went |
Procedure
- Write the request
Two or three sentences: thanks, the direct review link for Google, and one line inviting the customer to mention the specifics for the trade.
- Send it at the right moment
Send within a day of the completed job or visit, by text or email, from a named person.
- Log every request
Date, customer reference, channel. The log proves every customer was asked.
- Reply to every review
Within three business days, thank the customer and restate the specific service in the reply. For negative reviews, acknowledge and offer an offline contact.
- Collect the language
Each month, copy the specific phrases from new reviews into a list for the service page and FAQ writers.
- Check the effect
In the monthly re-test, note whether answers repeat review phrases about the business.
SAMPLE REQUEST
Thanks for choosing us for your water heater replacement today. If you have a minute, a Google review helps neighbors find us: [link]. It is most useful when it mentions the job we did and your part of town. Thank you, [name].
What a good reply adds
Owner replies are part of the page assistants read. A reply that names the service and the place ("glad the tankless install in Fremont went smoothly") adds one more clear statement of what the business does and where. Keep replies short and specific, and never include private details about the customer or the job.
Done when
Pace over bursts
A steady flow of reviews reads more naturally than a burst after a campaign, and it keeps the newest reviews current, which matters for questions about recent experience. The procedure asks every customer after every job, so the pace follows the business's own volume. A plumber completing twenty jobs a week will see a different pace from a law firm closing a few matters a month; both are fine as long as every customer is asked.
Turning reviews into themes
Once a quarter, read the last ninety days of reviews and tally the themes: which services customers name, which neighborhoods, which staff, which qualities. Compare the tally with the services list on the fact sheet. A service the business wants to grow that customers never mention in reviews is a gap; the fix is to make sure customers who use that service get the request with the matching prompt line. A theme customers mention often but the website never states is a gift to the content writers, who can add it to the relevant service page.
Other review platforms
Some niches have their own review homes: Healthgrades and Zocdoc for practices, Avvo for lawyers, reservation platforms for restaurants. Rotate the request link among them when the business needs depth there, and log which link each customer received.
Training the people who ask
The request works best when the person who did the job mentions it in person first: "you'll get a short text from us; if you leave a review, mentioning the repair helps other people in the neighborhood find us." Spend ten minutes at a team meeting rehearsing that line, and add it to the job close-out checklist so it happens on every visit.