Reviews and reputation for plumbing companies, done the honest way

Who it's for

This is for companies with happy customers and too few reviews to prove it, or with plenty of old reviews and nothing recent. It also helps where nobody answers reviews, or where the owner answers angry ones at midnight.

The rules we work by

Google's content policy for Maps prohibits offering incentives for reviews, such as payment, discounts or free services. It also prohibits soliciting reviews that don't reflect a genuine experience. Those rules shape everything we do:

• Ask every customer the same way. No filtering step that sends unhappy customers to a private form while happy ones get the review link.
• No rewards. No gift cards, no draw entries, no discount on the next visit.
• No writing, buying or swapping reviews. Not from staff, family, suppliers or another business.
• Consent for texts and emails. Review requests sent by text or email are electronic messages, so we write them to identify your business and handle opt-outs. Canada's anti-spam legislation is enforced federally. Your lawyer has the final word on your consent wording.

What's included

1. Timing plan. The strongest moment to ask is usually within an hour of the job closing, while the tech's name and the fixed problem are fresh. We match the timing to how your office closes out jobs.
2. Request templates for text, email and a printed leave-behind card. They use placeholders such as [Customer first name], [Tech name] and [Job type], and you approve the wording.
3. Short review link placed in invoices, the job-complete text, your email signature and the site footer.
4. Tech talking points, two sentences a tech can say at the door without feeling like a salesperson.
5. Reply guidelines for five-star, mixed and angry reviews, with drafts written in your voice, no customer details and no arguing in public.
6. Monthly reporting and a review of themes, such as "on time" or "explained the price", that are worth using in ads.

Timeline

• Week 1: templates, review link and tech talking points approved.
• Week 2: routine live on every completed job.
• Month 2 onward: replies within a target window you set, and monthly theme reports.

Most companies see the monthly count rise within the first 30 to 60 days. That's a pattern, not a promise; volume depends on how many jobs you close and how consistently the office sends requests.

How we measure it

• New reviews per month, against completed jobs, which gives your ask-to-review rate.
• Average rating trend over 90 days.
• Share of reviews answered, and average time to reply.
• Review count and recency compared with the three companies you most often lose to.

Our proof comes from HVAC: across 26+ BC communities, GasBoilers.ca has earned 5.0★ from 76+ Google reviews. It's one of the results from our HVAC work that shows what a consistent routine can build.

Mistakes to avoid

• Asking in bulk once a year. A sudden spike looks odd and fades fast. Steady beats lumpy.
• Replying with the customer's address or job details. Keep it general and take specifics offline.
• Arguing in public. Future customers read your reply more closely than the complaint.
• Copy-paste replies on every five-star review. Mention the job or the tech.
• Ignoring the unhappy customer's point. Sometimes the review is right, and fixing the process is worth more than the star.
• Letting the routine depend on one person. If only the office manager sends requests, reviews stop the week that person goes on holiday. We build the request into the job-close step itself, so it happens no matter who is working.