You Have 6 Reviews. Your Competitor Has 60. Guess Who Gets the Call.

I pulled up Google Maps for "electrician Saint John" last week. The business in position 1 had 94 reviews, 4.8 stars. Position 2 had 67 reviews, 4.7 stars. Position 3 had 52 reviews, 4.9 stars.

Then I scrolled down. Position 7 had 6 reviews. Position 8 had 4. Position 12 had 2.

The top three aren't necessarily better electricians. They just asked more customers to leave a review. That's the whole difference. They asked and the others didn't.

Why this is the #1 thing to fix

Reviews affect everything. They're a ranking factor for Maps (Google confirmed this). They're the first thing potential customers look at. They're a signal that AI tools use when deciding who to recommend. They build trust instantly with strangers.

And getting them is free. It costs you nothing except the 15 seconds it takes to send a text after a job.

The system that works

Make it automatic. Part of your job completion routine. You finish the work. You clean up. You collect payment. You send the review text. Every time. No exceptions.

"Hey [name], thanks for choosing us for your [project]. If you're happy with the work, a quick Google review would really help us out. Takes 30 seconds: [link]"

That's it. Send it within 24 hours while the experience is fresh. You'll get a review from roughly 1 in 3 asks. So if you do 10 jobs a month, that's 3 new reviews a month. 36 a year. In two years you have 72 reviews. Now you're the one in the Map Pack.

What I see go wrong

People ask once, get 3 reviews, then stop. Or they make it complicated with QR codes on business cards that nobody keeps. Or they wait too long and ask weeks after the job when the customer has moved on mentally.

Text. Same day or next morning. Direct link. Simple ask. Consistent. That's the whole strategy.