Asking customers to mention Jake by name now breaks Google's rules.
These are my stories and my fixes. An AI writes them up, and I check every fact and link before a post goes up.
A lot of shops do reviews the same way: the tech finishes up and says, if you leave a review, mention me by name, and some owners give each tech a weekly number to hit.
Around April (opens another site), with no start date given, Google added two things to its review policy (opens another site): you can't ask staff to collect a set number of reviews, and you can't ask for reviews that name a staff member. The older rules are still in there as of October 2026: no money, discounts or freebies for a review, and no asking only the customers you know are happy.
Google enforces this: it blocked or removed over 292 million rule-breaking reviews in 2025 (opens another site) and restricted more than 783,000 accounts. One local-search expert (opens another site) has watched listings blocked for review violations go 6 to 8 months with no new reviews publishing, and Google doesn't share a timeline. That's a long time with nothing new for the next customer to read.
What Google still allows is simpler than what most shops do now.
Ask everyone, the same way
Send every customer the same short message after every job, with no reward attached and no tech's name in it. Google allows that, and your job software can send it without anyone remembering to (that part is plain automation, no AI involved).
Stop and start
- Stop: money, discounts or freebies for a review.
- Stop: asking only the customers you know are happy.
- Stop: asking for a tech by name, and review quotas.
- Never write, buy or AI-generate a review.
- Start: the same short ask to everyone, after every job.
Answer your reviews yourself, the bad ones too, since the next customer reads how you handled them.
How to set it up yourself
You need your review link, one short message, and a way to send it after every job.
Get your review link
On a computer, open your Google Business Profile, go to Read reviews, then Get more reviews, then Copy. You can save the QR code there too, but not from a phone. Google's steps (opens another site), as of October 2026.
Write one ask for everyone
Two lines in your own words: thanks for having us out, and if you've got a minute, here's where to say how it went, then the link. Leave out any reward, any tech's name and anything about stars.
Send it after every job
Send it to everyone after every job, by hand if you have to. Jobber and Housecall Pro can do this on their own once you switch on automatic review requests; Follow-ups you already pay for has the menu paths.
Fix the tech scorecard
Take review counts and names off the tech scorecard (Google's policy rules out both) and pay bonuses on the work instead. Paying a customer for a good review breaks the FTC's 2024 rule (opens another site) too, which carries civil penalties.
If you'd rather have it set up for you, I'll get the review requests going out of your job software, in your words, and you'll see the message before any customer does.
