A monthly review routine for a one truck business

When you are the plumber, the dispatcher and the bookkeeper, reviews get handled the way everything else does: in a rush, at night, when something goes wrong. A bad review sits unanswered for weeks. Customers from a busy stretch were never asked. The profile still shows last winter’s hours. None of this takes long to fix. It just needs a slot on the calendar.

This routine fits in one hour, once a month. Pick a fixed day, the first Monday morning or the last Friday afternoon, and put it in your phone as a recurring appointment. The day matters less than never moving it.

What you need before the first session

A tracker. Nothing fancy: a spreadsheet or a page in a notebook with one line per job and five columns.

If your invoicing app already lists your jobs, use that list and add the last three columns next to it. The tracker is what turns the hour from “scrolling through Google” into a checklist.

The one hour, step by step

1. Asked versus reviewed (15 minutes)

Go down last month’s jobs. For each one, check whether the customer got a review request. Anyone you missed gets one now, the same message everyone else gets. Anyone you asked who has not reviewed can get one polite reminder; after that, let it go.

Ask everyone, not just the customers you think were happy. Google bans merchants from asking “selectively” for positive reviews, and it also bans asking staff to collect “a certain number of reviews” (Google). If you have a helper on the truck, give them no review target.

If you keep finding customers who were never asked, the problem is timing, not memory. Our guide on review request timing helps you pick a moment you will not skip.

2. Reply to every new review (15 minutes)

Open your Business Profile, select Read reviews and reply to each new one (Google). Google’s own advice is to “Keep it short and simple”, to avoid copying the same thank you everywhere, and to “avoid using your response to offer deals or promotions” (Google). So name the job, thank the person in a sentence, and stop.

Two things worth knowing from the same help pages. Google checks your reply before posting it; that usually takes up to 10 minutes but “sometimes a review can take up to 30 days”. And the customer is notified when you reply and can still change their review (Google). Google notes that a constructive reply “may even encourage the customer to update their review” (Google).

For a bad review, do not reply in the same session you read it if you are angry. Draft, wait a day, then post. Our guide on how to respond to a bad Google review has six replies you can adapt.

3. Add a few job photos (10 minutes)

Photos of real work help customers picture what you do. Google says photos and videos “help complete your Business Profile” and asks that images be in focus, well lit and free of heavy filters: “the image should represent reality”. Its guidelines call for JPG or PNG files between 10 KB and 5 MB, with 720 by 720 pixels recommended (Google). A phone photo meets that easily.

Pick a few from the month: a clean install, a tidy panel, the truck at a job. Leave out anything showing a customer’s house number or face unless they agreed. New photos can take 24 to 48 hours to show up, so do not upload them twice.

4. Check your profile info (10 minutes)

Look at your profile as a customer would. Are the hours right? Do you need special hours for a holiday next month? Is the service area still the towns you actually drive to? Google lets you set main hours, special hours and a service area based on “the cities, zip codes, or other places you serve” (Google).

Then check what Google learned without you. Google may contact the verified number on your profile with automated calls, texts or WhatsApp messages to confirm details, and answers can be used to update your profile (Google). Where the feature exists, Edit profile then Collected info shows what was gathered, its source and its date. Updates from those calls are marked “Pending” and the review “might take up to 5 business days” (Google). Google adds that it will never ask for payment or passwords, so a caller asking for money to keep you on Google is not Google.

5. One look at Yelp and Nextdoor (5 minutes)

Do not ask customers for Yelp reviews. Yelp’s policy says “Don’t ask anyone to review your business”, and its software tries to spot requested reviews and not recommend them (Yelp). Just read what came in.

On Nextdoor, recommendations written on your page, and posts where a neighbor tagged you, appear under the “What neighbors say” tab, and businesses “are able to see and reply to recommendations for their page” (Nextdoor). A short thank you under a neighbor’s recommendation costs nothing.

6. Write down three numbers (5 minutes)

At the bottom of the tracker, write the month’s jobs, requests sent and new Google reviews. Do not chase a target; watch the trend over three or four months. If requests are close to jobs but reviews stay flat, look at your message. If requests lag jobs, look at your timing. To know what a reasonable total looks like for a trade like yours, see how many Google reviews a plumber needs.

By hand or with software

Everything above works with a spreadsheet and your phone. Software does not change the monthly hour much; it changes the asking in between, because it remembers for you. Prices below are from each company’s own page, read on October 4, 2026:

• NiceJob sends text and email review requests automatically. Starter is $75 a month, Pro $125, no contracts (NiceJob).
• Podium includes review management with AI responses in a wider lead platform. Core is $399 a month and goes through sales (Podium).
• Own Your Ratings, made by Pikwize’s publisher, prepares each request so you send it from your own phone and shows who clicked. There is a free plan with 1 request a month and a Pro plan at $35 a month or $350 a year (Own Your Ratings).

For a one truck business, the honest question is whether you will remember to ask after each job. If yes, a saved text is enough. If not, pay for the reminder. Our comparison of review request tools goes through the options in more detail. More on this topic: managing reviews.