Review management for trades: what you need and what you don't

Most trades don't need review management software in the sense the term is used by vendors. You need three things: a way to ask every customer for a Google review, a way to reply to each review, and a way to notice the occasional bad one. For a one-van firm that can be a review link, a text template and ten minutes on a Friday. Software earns its place when remembering is the bit you keep failing at.

What review management actually means

Strip away the marketing and it covers four jobs:

1. Collect. Get customers to leave reviews.
2. Monitor. See new reviews as they arrive, on Google and elsewhere.
3. Respond. Reply in public, promptly and sensibly.
4. Protect. Flag fake or rule-breaking reviews and deal with the real bad ones.

Enterprise tools add reporting, location comparison, survey tools and sentiment scoring. That's for chains with fifty branches and a head office. A plumber doesn't need a sentiment dashboard.

What a tradesman needs

A direct review link

Everything starts with a link that opens the review box on your Google profile. Customers who have to search for you, find the right listing and hunt for the button will mostly give up. Make one with the free review link generator, or read how to find your Google review link.

A consistent ask

This is the bit that decides your review count. Ask every customer, within a day or two, in a text. If you ask only after the jobs that went best, you break Google's guidance, which says businesses may not selectively solicit positive reviews. See how to ask for a Google review for scripts.

Replies

Short, specific and calm. Customers read the replies as much as the reviews. See positive review responses and how to respond to a bad review.

A look at the bad ones

You can't delete a review, but you can flag one that breaks the rules. See can you delete a Google review.

What you don't need

• Sentiment analysis and reports. You know how your customers feel. You read them.
• Multi-location dashboards. One van, one profile.
• Review gating. Software that routes happy customers to Google and unhappy ones to a private form. Google's policy bans selectively soliciting positive reviews, and in the UK the CMA's guidance flags cherry-picking reviews as a misleading practice.
• Anything that promises reviews. Review packages that guarantee a number are selling fake engagement. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, fake reviews are banned and so is offering services to traders that arrange them. See why buying Google reviews backfires.
• Another login for each site. If a tool needs you to check four dashboards, you won't.

Questions to ask before you pay

• Does the customer write their own review on the real Google page?
• Does it ask every customer, or can I pick who gets it?
• What happens with consent? Texting a customer falls under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and UK GDPR, so you need a record they agreed to be contacted.
• What does it cost per month, and what's the notice period?
• Who writes the replies, and do I approve them first?

This is general information, not legal advice.

A made-up example

Dale runs a two-man roofing firm in Leeds and does around 15 jobs a month (an invented example). He used to ask for reviews only when he remembered. A fortnight after each job, he'd think "I should have asked". He doesn't need a platform that scores sentiment. He needs the ask to happen without him, and the replies to be half written when he opens them.

Where Mitch fits

Mitch handles the parts above that you keep forgetting. After you send in a finished job, on the Local plan Mitch texts the customer a Google review link 24 to 72 hours later, provided you have their mobile number and a consent tick. Mitch drafts a reply to every review on your Google profile, and nothing posts until you approve it. Mitch doesn't write or post reviews. It also posts your jobs to Facebook and Instagram, which most review tools don't do.

It isn't a multi-site monitoring suite. If you want Checkatrade or Trustpilot reviews pulled into the same place, Mitch doesn't do that today.

If you're comparing against a review site or a directory, see Mitch compared with Trustpilot. For the full system, start with the guide to getting more Google reviews, or browse the reviews hub.

Sources

• Google Maps contributor policy: incentives and selective solicitation
• CMA fake reviews guidance (CMA208), GOV.UK
• Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20 (unfair in all circumstances), legislation.gov.uk
• ICO: guide to PECR
• ICO: UK GDPR guidance and resources