How to get more Google reviews for an appliance repair company
The kitchen ask, the exact words, when to send the link, and what a healthy review pace looks like for an appliance repair shop running one to five vans.
An appliance repair tech is in the customer's kitchen for 45 minutes, fixes the thing that was ruining their week, and leaves. That is the best review moment in any home service trade, and most shops waste it. They email a link three days later, when the dryer is already forgotten.
The median appliance repair company on Google has 22 reviews. 35.3% have fewer than 10. The shops holding the map pack in a real metro are usually past 100, and only 22.4% of the trade is there. Closing that gap is not a marketing project. It is a habit, installed on every tech, repeated on every completed job.
Ask in the kitchen, not from the office
The ask happens while the tech is packing the tool bag and the washer is running its first test cycle. Not on the invoice, not from the office the next morning. The tech says it, out loud, and the customer has their phone in their hand before the van leaves.
The words matter less than the timing, but here is a version that works:
"Glad that is sorted. One favor. Reviews on Google are how people find us instead of the big warranty companies. I am going to text you a link right now. If you have 30 seconds while I load up, it helps more than you would think."
Then the tech sends the text from the shop number, standing there. The link is a direct review link, not the company's Google page. Google publishes how to get that link in its Business Profile help. The customer taps, picks stars, types one line. Done before the van door closes.
Do not say "if you were happy with the service". It plants the idea that they might not have been. Do not ask for "five stars". Google's policy prohibits soliciting a specific rating, and it reads as desperate.
What a healthy pace looks like
Count completed jobs per week, not reviews. A two-van shop finishing 50 jobs a week should see 8 to 15 new reviews a week once the kitchen ask is a habit. That is a 15% to 30% conversion. Under 10% means the techs are skipping the ask or sending the link late.
At 10 reviews a week, a shop at the median (22) passes 100 in about eight weeks and reaches the 75th percentile (84) well before that. At 20 reviews a week it reaches the top 10% line (233) in a season.
Recency counts as much as the total. A shop with 180 reviews whose last one is from February looks closed. Google weighs recent reviews more in local ranking, and homeowners read the top three, which are usually the newest.
Pay techs for the ask, not the review
Paying a bonus per review creates two problems: Google can penalize incentivized reviews, and techs start pressuring customers. Pay for the behavior instead. Track which tech sent a review text on each job (most field software logs it), and pay $2 to $3 per job where the text went out within ten minutes of job completion. A tech doing 25 jobs a week earns an extra $50 to $75. The reviews follow on their own.
Put the weekly review count on the whiteboard in the shop, per tech. Nobody wants to be the name with a zero next to it.
Reply to every review, especially the bad ones
A reply within 24 hours is visible to every future reader. Keep it short, name the appliance, thank them. For a four-star or lower review, do not argue in public. Say what you will do and take it to the phone:
"Thanks for the honest note. A second trip for a part should not have taken six days. I am calling you this afternoon to make this right."
Prospective customers read the bad reviews first, then they read your reply. The reply is what they are judging.
17.9% of appliance repair companies sit under 4.0 stars. If that is you, the kitchen ask on every job is the only way out. Twenty new four- and five-star reviews will move a 3.8 with 30 reviews to a 4.3 in a month. There is no faster fix.
The warranty job problem
Home warranty claims are the weak spot in most shops' review counts. The customer did not pick you, did not pay you directly, and often waited a week for the warranty company to dispatch. They are not in a reviewing mood.
Ask anyway, with different words: "The warranty company sent us, but the review goes to our shop, not theirs. If we did right by you, a line on Google helps us get more direct customers and fewer warranty jobs." Honest, and it works more often than you would expect. The jobs you really want reviews from, though, are the direct ones. Prioritize the ask there.
Where the link lives
Put the direct review link in five places:
- The job-complete text, sent from the kitchen
- The invoice email footer, as a backup for anyone who missed the text
- A QR code on a card the tech leaves on the appliance
- The confirmation text for the appointment, framed as "here is what past customers said about us", which also calms the nervous first-time caller
- The signature of every email the office sends
One of those five catches the customer who was busy when the tech asked.
Frequently asked
Can I ask for reviews by text if I did not get written consent? A customer who gave you their number to schedule service has consented to transactional texts about that service. A one-time review request tied to the completed job is generally treated the same way. Do not add them to a marketing list without asking separately.
Should I remove or respond to a review from someone we never serviced? Flag it through your Business Profile as a conflict of interest or off-topic, and reply publicly: "We have no record of a job at this address. Please call the shop so we can look into it." Google removes some of these, not all.
How many reviews do I need before Google Ads and Local Services Ads work better? Local Services Ads rank partly on review count and rating. Shops under 20 reviews tend to get fewer LSA leads at the same budget. Past 50, the difference flattens. See the Google Ads guide and the benchmark report for where you sit.
If you would rather have the ask script, the text link and the reply routine set up for you, review generation is one of the services in the free 14-day trial.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, appliance repair companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor