Google review management, run every week.
Sundayable sets up Google review requests for small businesses as an Automation build: $1,500 to build, then $500 a month. We can’t make a customer leave a review, and we won’t pay one to. What we can do is ask every customer at the right moment. Replies to reviews we take on when you ask, priced at the consultation.
Anything we draft comes to your phone, and nothing goes out until you approve it.
Reviews are the last thing a customer reads before they call you. Google names prominence as one of the three things behind a local result, alongside relevance and distance, and your review page is part of what prominence is made of. Most owners know this. What they don’t have is the ten seconds after every job to ask, and the twenty minutes on a bad day to write a reply they won’t regret.
That gap is what review management services are for. Ours comes in two parts. Requests go out on a schedule after the work is done, from an Automation build at $1,500 and then $500 a month. Replies aren’t in any of our lines: we take them on when you ask, and set the price at the consultation.
What we handle
- A review link you can text or print on a card, pointing straight at the write-a-review box
- Requests sent after each job, at the hour people are still holding their phone — the Automation build, $1,500 and then $500 a month
- Replies drafted in your voice, one star to five, when you ask us to take them on — not part of any line, priced at the consultation
- A monthly report showing new reviews, your rating, and how many got a reply
- The wording of the ask rewritten when a month comes back thin
Asking without bribing
Google’s policy is short on this: no discounts, gift cards, free upgrades or draw entries in exchange for a review. It also covers the quieter version — sending the review link only to the customers you think are happy. That is called review gating, and it breaks the same rule as paying.
Neither one is worth it. Incentivized reviews get stripped when Google catches them, and a wall of five-star posts written the same week reads as bought to any customer who scrolls. What works is boring: ask everyone, ask once, ask right after the thing you did well. The longer version of that ask is how to get more Google reviews.
One sentence, a link, no form in between. “If today went well, would you mind leaving us a Google review? Takes about a minute.” Then stop. You can put the same link on the receipt, in the appointment confirmation and on a card at the counter. The ask converts on timing more than wording, which is why we automate the timing and leave the wording plain.
Reply to every one of them
Five stars, thirty words
Name what they came in for so the reply says something. Reviews are read in a stack, and a page of identical thank-yous tells the next reader nobody is home.
One star, no argument
Acknowledge, correct anything factually wrong in one line, and move it off the page: a phone number and a name. You are not writing to the reviewer. You are writing to the person reading it next month. The reply rules are also in how to reply.
Same week, every time
When we’re taking replies on for you, drafts come back in 1–2 business days and you approve them from your phone. A reply on a nine-month-old complaint looks worse than no reply at all.
Unfair reviews, and what Google will actually do
Google removes reviews that break a content policy, not reviews that hurt. In practice it will take down:
- Fake or spam reviews, including ones posted in bulk from the same source
- Reviews from a competitor, a former employee, or anyone with a stake in your business
- Off-topic posts — a rant about the neighbourhood, a political argument, the wrong business entirely
- Harassment, slurs, threats, or a customer’s full name and phone number posted in the text
- Reviews for a location you never operated, usually after a listing merge went wrong
It will not remove a review because it is unfair. A one-star with no text stays. A complaint about your prices stays. A customer describing a bad day accurately, in language you would dispute, stays. That is the part most owners are surprised by, and it is worth knowing before you spend a week on it.
So flag it, appeal once if the flag is refused, and then do the thing that actually works: bury it under recent ones. A single one-star sitting three reviews down from the top is a different page than a one-star sitting at the top of a profile that stopped collecting reviews in March.
Velocity beats count
Four hundred reviews with the newest one from 2024 tells a customer the business used to be busy. Sixty reviews with eight from this month tells them it is busy now. That is the reason we run review requests as a habit rather than a launch push — not a promise about where you rank, which is not ours to make.
Steady also protects you. When reviews arrive every week, one bad month is a dip in the average instead of the whole story. When they arrive in bursts, every complaint sits at the top for a season.
The limit on all of this: reviews reflect the service, they don’t improve it. If the same complaint shows up three times, the fix is in the shop, not in the reply. We will tell you when we see the pattern, and that conversation is usually more useful than any reply. Review requests are the same Automation build we set up for dentist marketing and med spa marketing.
Can I offer a discount for a review?
No. Google prohibits incentives of any kind in exchange for reviews, and reviews collected that way get removed when they are caught. You can ask everyone, as often as a new job gives you a reason to.
Can I send the link only to happy customers?
That is review gating and it breaks the same policy. It also skews what you learn. Send it to everyone and reply well to the ones that sting.
How many reviews do I need?
Fewer than you think, arriving more often than you think. Look at the three businesses above you in the map pack, count their reviews from the last 90 days, and beat that number. That is a target you can act on.
Will you write the replies as me?
If you ask us to take replies on, yes: in your voice, and you approve every one before it posts. Replies aren’t part of any line, so we price them at the consultation. Nothing goes onto your profile without your sign-off.
What does it cost?
Review requests are an Automation build: $1,500 to build, then $500 a month, and the monthly buys changes, not just repairs. Replies to reviews aren’t in any line; we take them on when you ask, and price them on the free consultation along with whatever else your business needs.
See how your reviews stack up against the shop down the street.
Book a free consultation. We’ll pull your profile and your closest competitors’, count the last 90 days, and show you the gap.
Book a Free ConsultationIf your reviews are already ahead, we’ll point you at what isn’t.