Strangers trust you before they call.
How should we handle reviews, and what’s a waste of time?
Ask every customer, at the moment the job is done well, with a direct link to the right location's profile. Answer every review within a few days, briefly, by name. Never buy, trade or script them, and never argue in a reply. The steady arrival of real reviews, answered, is what strangers and search engines both read as trust.
Reviews are the one part of your online presence that your customers write. They are also the part most businesses leave to chance.
Asking
The best moment is when the customer is pleased: the unit arrived on time, the furnace is running, the event went well. Ask then, in person or by text within the hour, with a link that goes straight to the review form for the right location. Make it one tap. Asking a week later by email gets a fraction of the response.
Ask everyone, not just the happy ones you’re sure of. A steady flow of honest reviews, including the occasional four-star, is more believable than a wall of five-star raves.
Answering
Every review, within a few days. Two or three sentences, by name, specific to what they said. Thank the good ones without gushing. For the bad ones: acknowledge, don’t argue, say what you’ve done or offer to make it right offline, and stop. Strangers read your replies to bad reviews more carefully than anything else on the profile; a calm, specific reply to an unfair review wins more trust than ten five-stars.
Where
Google first, because it’s where people look and it feeds the map results. Then whatever matters in your trade: HomeStars for trades in Ontario, industry directories, Facebook if your customers live there. Don’t spread thin; a strong Google profile and one trade site beats a presence everywhere.
Waste of time
Buying reviews; platforms detect them and the penalty is severe. Review-gating (only asking the happy ones via a filter); against Google’s rules. Scripted replies pasted under every review. Review widgets that slow the site to show stars nobody reads. Arguing. Chasing a specific star average.
On your website
Show a few real ones, with names and dates, marked up so machines know they’re reviews. Don’t fabricate testimonials, and don’t show a rating you can’t back with the actual reviews.