How to get more Google reviews from every install.

Why reviews matter so much for installers

Google reviews help you show up in the map results, and they help a homeowner trust you with a big, expensive job. More reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking.

Solar panels, a battery or a heat pump is a big decision. The homeowner is letting you onto their roof or into their home, and paying thousands for it. Before they ring, they want to know what it was like for people like them, and online reviews are where they look.

They feed your ranking too. The help page on local ranking says prominence depends partly on “how many reviews you have”, and that “More reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.” So each one does two jobs: it helps you get found, and it helps you get chosen.

When to ask for Google reviews

Ask on handover day, face to face, when the system is working and the customer is pleased. Send a message that evening, and one reminder about a week later.

The best moment is a little different for each kind of job:

• Solar panels and batteries: when you show them the app and their first generation figures.
• Heat pumps: once the house is warm and you’ve walked them through the controls.
• Boilers, repairs and servicing: at the end of the visit, once you’ve shown them everything works.

Then ask the same way every time, with every customer. That isn’t just good manners. The content policy doesn’t allow firms to “selectively solicit positive reviews”, and the UK’s consumer regulator treats encouraging only satisfied customers as cherry-picking. There’s more on the rules below.

What to say when you ask

Ask face to face, in plain words, for an honest opinion. Say where to leave it, how long it takes and that you’ll send the link, then leave them to it.

• Ask for an honest opinion, not five stars. It’s the right thing to do, and it keeps you inside Google guidelines.
• Name the place. “On Google” is clearer than “online”.
• Set expectations. Two minutes, and they’ll need to be signed in to a Google Account.
• Let them do it in their own time, on their own phone. Don’t hand over your tablet and wait while they type.

Most people are happy to help an installer who’s just done a good job in their home. The ones who forget usually just need the link in front of them at the right moment, which is what the evening message is for.

How to get your Google review link and QR code

Open your Google Business Profile on a computer, select Read reviews, then Get more reviews. From there you can copy your review link or save your QR code.

1. Use a computer

   For now the QR version can only be made in a browser on a computer, so do this at a desk, not on your phone.

2. Sign in at business.google.com

   Use the login that manages your listing, and open it.

3. Select Read reviews, then Get more reviews

   That opens the sharing options.

4. Copy the link, save the image

   Select Copy for the link. For the square image, right-click it and choose Save image as.

5. Keep them where your team can find them

   Put the link in a saved message on every phone that does handovers, and print the square image on your handover card and paperwork.

Where to share your request

Put it where your customers already are: a message on handover day, one follow-up and a card in the handover pack.

By text or WhatsApp

Send it the same evening, from the person who did the handover. A personal message from someone they’ve just met gets a better response than a message from “the office”. Keep it short.

By email

Use email for the one reminder, about a week later. By then they’ve lived with the system for a few days and have more to say. Google suggests email, WhatsApp and Facebook as ways to share the request.

On a card in the handover pack

Print it on a small card with one line: “Scan to leave us a review”. Customers come back to the handover pack for warranty details and app logins, and the card is there when they do.

On your invoice or receipt

Add the same image to the final invoice. It reaches every customer, every time.

What Google and UK law don’t allow

No rewards, no asking only happy customers, no fake reviews and no hiding the bad ones. They get removed, and UK consumer law has explicitly banned fake reviews since April 2025.

The rules for Google reviews

The content policy says firms may not offer incentives, such as payment, discounts or free goods or services, in exchange for reviews. It bans discouraging negative ones or asking only for positive ones, and it lists current or former employment and family relationships as conflicts of interest. You can still encourage Google reviews, as long as you offer nothing for them and don’t try to influence the rating or the words.

Fake engagement is removed, and the listing can be restricted too: no new reviews for a set period, existing reviews hidden for a set period, or a warning that tells customers fake reviews were removed. Our guide to a suspended listing covers what to do when things go further.

UK law on fake reviews

The UK’s consumer law now includes “an explicit ban on the posting and commissioning of fake reviews”, in force since April 2025, and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) can fine a firm up to 10% of its global turnover for breaking consumer law. The CMA’s guidance also bans concealed incentivised reviews. It says “encouraging just those who are satisfied to leave reviews” is cherry-picking, and that hiding a reviewer’s link to the firm, for example as an employee, is misleading.

The CMA does allow incentivised reviews if you say so clearly. Google doesn’t allow incentives at all. For your listing, the rule is simple: offer nothing.

How to reply to Google reviews

Reply politely, briefly and promptly, and sign off with your name. Replies show customers you value their feedback.

• Keep it short and personal. One or two lines is plenty.
• Mention the job, not the customer’s address or anything private.
• Sign off with your name or initials.
• Leave offers and deals out of replies. Reviewers are already customers.
• Reply promptly, while the job is fresh.

The help pages say you don’t need to thank every reviewer publicly, and to reply when you have something useful to add. For an installer getting a handful a month, replying to each one takes minutes, and it shows the next homeowner there’s a real person behind the firm.

What to do about a bad review

Look into what happened, reply calmly with an apology where it’s due and an offer to put it right, and only report it if it breaks the rules.

1. Check your records

   Look up the job: the dates, the notes, who went out. Find out what went wrong before you write a word.

2. Reply in public, briefly

   Admit mistakes, explain what you can and can’t do, and apologise where you should. Keep the facts straight and the tone calm.

3. Take it offline

   Invite them to call or email you directly to sort it out.

4. Report it only if it breaks the rules

   If a review breaks the content policy, flag it. Removal decisions go through the Reviews Management Tool, with a one-time appeal if the review you reported was found not to break the rules.

Make review generation part of every install

Put the review request on your handover checklist, so it happens on every job, not just the ones you remember.

• “Review request sent” is a line on your handover checklist.
• A QR card goes in every handover pack.
• One reminder goes out on day seven if there’s no review.
• New ones are checked and replied to every week.
• A simple log: job, date asked, left one or not.

Make it part of how you hand over a job, not a target. If someone else in your team does handovers, show them the words above and the card, and check the log together once a month. Everyone who does handovers asks, every time, in the same words. After a few months, the log tells you which of your review requests turn into reviews most often, so you can do more of what works. Business reviews build up slowly, and a steady routine beats a rush.

Reviews are one part of your local SEO

Google reviews help most when the rest is right too: a complete listing, a website with a page for every service and town, and links from other local websites.

Prominence also depends on “how many websites link to your business”. On their own, they won’t put you at the top of the map results in a town where you have no page and no links. Of all the online marketing an installer can do, asking is one of the cheapest: it costs you a message. It works best inside a wider digital marketing plan.

Next, read how to rank higher on Google Maps and our guide to optimising your listing. If you’d rather hand the lot over, that’s what our renewable energy SEO is for.

Google reviews: your questions answered