When to ask for the review (and what to say)
The ask works when it comes from the right person, at the right moment, in plain words. Here is the moment for each kind of business, and the words to use.
The moment is the whole trick
People leave reviews when the experience is fresh and the outcome is clear. For a single-visit service, that is the same day, within a couple of hours of leaving. The haircut looks good, the drain runs, the cleaning is done, the adjustment helped. Wait until the next morning and it has become one more thing on a list.
For treatment that takes several visits, do not ask after the first one. Ask at the milestone the customer was waiting for: the braces come off, the last physical therapy session, the case closes, the roof is finished and the yard is clean. The customer has a story to tell at that point, and the review writes itself.
There is one more good moment: when a customer says something kind in person. “You all were great.” That is the time to say thank you and ask whether they would put that in a review. The text with the link follows within the hour, while the words are still theirs.
Who asks
The person who delivered the service should ask, face to face, in one sentence. The hygienist, the technician, the therapist, the attorney. The front desk can ask too, but the ask lands differently from the person the customer just spent an hour with. Then the system sends the text with the link, so nobody has to remember.
The text should come from the business number, name the business, and have one link. It should not come from a number the customer does not recognise or a third-party sender they have never heard of. How to ask for Google reviews has the mechanics.
What to say
In person: “If you have a minute later today, a review would really help us. We’ll text you the link.” That is the whole script. No speech about how important reviews are, no instructions about how many stars.
By text, the same day: “Thanks for coming in today. If you have a minute, a quick review helps other people find us. The link is below. Reply STOP to opt out.” One message. If they do not act, one reminder a few days later, then leave it. How to ask for a review without making it weird covers the tone in more depth.
Replace “today” with the milestone when that is the occasion: “Congratulations on finishing your treatment.” Keep it to the fact of the visit; do not describe what was done in the text, especially in healthcare.
What not to do
Do not gate. Asking “how was it?” and sending only the happy customers to the review link is review gating, and Google’s policies prohibit it. Ask everyone. The unhappy customer who tells you first is a gift; the one who tells Google first is a review you will reply to anyway.
Do not pay for reviews or offer a discount for them; that breaks platform rules and, for some professions, licensing rules. Do not write reviews for customers or let staff review their own workplace. Do not ask in a batch months later; the response will be thin and the reviews will cluster in a way that looks odd.
In healthcare, legal, and other confidential work, do not mention the reason for the visit in the request or the reply. “Thank you for your review” is fine. “Glad the root canal went well” is not, even if they wrote about the root canal themselves.
Replying is part of asking
Reply to every review within a day or two. Thank the good ones briefly; a sentence is enough, and vary the wording. For the critical ones, acknowledge, do not argue, and offer a direct way to talk: a name and a number. Write every reply as if the next customer is reading it, because they are. If a review is plainly spam or about a different business, flag it through the profile and move on; do not debate it in public.
A profile with recent reviews and recent replies looks like an open business. It also makes the next ask easier: a customer who sees that you answer people is more willing to write something, because they know it will be read. The Google Business Profile checklist covers the rest of what keeps the listing current.
How Ottimo handles it
In Ottimo, a visit marked complete can trigger the review request from the reviews tool: a text from your business number, in your wording, with the link to your profile, sent after the delay you choose. For multi-visit treatment, the request is tied to the milestone on the customer record instead of to every visit, so people are asked once, at the right time.
New reviews show up in the same inbox as your texts and emails, and you reply from there. Each request and each review is noted on the customer record, so the front desk can see who has been asked and nobody gets asked twice.