There was a time when the only thing that mattered about reviews was the count and the average. Get to a hundred, keep it above 4.5, done. That is still true as far as it goes. But something has changed in how reviews are read, and it changes how you should ask for them.
Google and the AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Google's own AI Overviews) now read the text of your reviews to decide what you're good at. When someone asks "who does same-day furnace repair in Grimsby and doesn't overcharge," the model looks for a business whose reviews actually say those things. "Great service, five stars" doesn't help it. "Came the same afternoon, found the cracked igniter, fair price, no upsell" does.
What a useful review contains
The job: what was actually done. The place: your town or neighbourhood. The outcome: how it went, how fast, what it was like. Ideally a specific detail that only a real customer would know. "They replaced the thermopane in our kitchen window and matched the grille pattern" is worth more than a handful of vague ones.
You can't write the review for the customer, and you shouldn't try. But you can shape it by how you ask.
How to ask
Ask in person at the end of the job, when the result is right in front of them. Then send the direct link by text within the hour, while it is fresh. In the message, give them a nudge toward specifics:
"Thanks again for having us out today. If you have a minute, a quick Google review would mean a lot. It really helps if you mention what we did and how it went."
That one sentence, "mention what we did and how it went", changes what people write. They stop reaching for "great service" and start describing the job.
Respond to all of them
Replies are read by customers and by machines. A reply that repeats the specifics ("Glad the new tankless unit is working well, enjoy the hot water") reinforces what you do. A calm reply to a bad review, stating what happened and what you did about it, often earns more trust than the good reviews around it.
Don't do these
Don't buy reviews, trade reviews with other businesses or have staff write them. Google is good at spotting it and the penalty is losing the lot. Don't gate reviews by asking only the happy customers through a filter; it is against Google's rules and it looks exactly like what it is. Don't ignore reviews for months and then ask twenty people in one week. Steady is better.
The payoff
A profile with recent, specific, replied-to reviews tends to rank better in the map pack, converts better when someone reads it, and is far more likely to be named in AI answers when the question matches what your customers said about you. It is the same work it always was. The words just matter more now.