How to get more Google reviews for an insulation company: the door script, the timing, and a healthy pace
The exact words a crew lead says at the door, when the office sends the link, how to get the job type into the review, and what review velocity is realistic.
The median insulation contractor on Google has 5 reviews. 61.1% have fewer than 10 and 21.2% have none. That is the whole opportunity in one line. You do not need 400 reviews. You need more than the two companies next to you in the map pack, and in most towns that is 30 to 60.
The problem is not that customers refuse. It is that nobody asks, or the ask comes three days later by email when the homeowner has moved on. Insulation has a built-in advantage here that most trades do not: the customer feels the result the same day. The upstairs is cooler. The draft by the back door is gone. You ask while they are feeling it.
Ask at the door, not from the office
The crew lead asks before the truck pulls away. The walk-through is done, the homeowner has seen the attic photos on the phone, and the invoice is signed. That is the moment. The script is short:
"One more thing. Reviews on Google are how most of our customers find us. Would you be willing to write a couple of sentences about today? I will have the office text you the link in the next few minutes so you do not have to search for us."
Then the crew lead texts the office, or taps a button in the job app, and the link goes out within the hour. Not that evening. Within the hour, while the crew lead's name is still fresh.
Two details matter. First, the crew lead asks, not the owner by phone later. The person who was in the attic has the relationship. Second, the request mentions the job. "Thanks for having us out for the attic top-off and air sealing today" puts those words in the customer's head, and a good share of them will write "attic top-off" in the review. That is what the next homeowner types into Google.
The text that goes out
Keep it to three lines and one link:
"Hi Karen, this is Dana at [company]. Thanks for having Mike's crew out for the spray foam in the crawl space today. If you have two minutes, a Google review would help us a lot: [direct link]. Reply here if anything about the job needs a second look."
The last line matters. It gives an unhappy customer a private channel before they use a public one. The direct link is the short review URL from your Google profile, not your home page. If they have to find the review button themselves, about half will not.
Send the request by text first and email the next morning if nothing posted. Do not send a third. Two polite asks is the limit.
A laminated card for the truck
Some customers want to do it right then. Give every crew lead a card the size of a business card with a QR code to the review link on one side and "Thank you for choosing us" on the other. The homeowner scans it standing in the kitchen and the review is up before the truck leaves the street. Cards cost about $30 for 500 and they work best on retired homeowners, who are a large share of attic and crawl space customers and who prefer to do it now rather than later from a text.
What a healthy pace looks like
A reasonable target is one review for every two completed jobs. A two-crew company doing 30 jobs a month in season gets 12 to 15 reviews a month at that rate. From October through December that puts 40 new reviews on the profile, which moves most companies from under the median to the top quarter in their metro. The 90th percentile nationally is 50; the top of your own town is probably lower. Check the benchmark report for your state.
Pace matters as much as the total. Google weights recency, and homeowners read dates. A profile with 60 reviews and the most recent from April looks closed. A profile with 35 reviews and three from this month looks busy. Keep the trickle going through the slow months even if it is two a month.
Do not run a push where 25 reviews land in a week after a year of silence. It looks bought, Google sometimes filters a batch like that, and it does nothing for recency in March.
Reply to every review, in a day
A reply takes 40 seconds and does three things. It shows the next reader a person runs the company. It lets you put the job type and the town in your own words: "Glad the upstairs bedrooms are finally comfortable, and thanks for letting us handle the attic in Maple Grove." And it gives Google more text on the profile that matches what people search.
For a negative review, reply once, calmly, with a fact and an offer: "We installed the attic insulation on the 14th and I am sorry the thermostat issue was not resolved. Please call me at the office and I will come out myself." Never argue in the reply. The reply is for the next customer, not for the reviewer.
What not to do
- Do not offer a discount or gift card for a review. It violates Google's policy and customers can tell.
- Do not ask only the happy ones. Ask everyone. A 4.7 with 80 reviews beats a 5.0 with 9.
- Do not have the office write reviews from customer accounts, ever. Profiles get suspended for this and the suspension is hard to reverse.
- Do not put a review kiosk in the office. Reviews from one IP address get filtered.
Frequently asked
How many reviews do I need before ads start working better? Local Services Ads and the map pack both show your count on the listing. Around 25 to 30 reviews, with a rating above 4.6, the click and call rates on paid placements noticeably improve, because the homeowner comparing three listings stops skipping you. Below 10 you are paying for clicks that go to the competitor with 45.
What if most of my work is for builders, not homeowners? Ask the builder's site super and the project manager. They have Google accounts too. Three reviews from builders that mention "batts on 40 homes this year" carry more weight with the next builder reading them than 30 homeowner reviews do.
Should I use a review service that texts customers automatically? Yes, as long as the crew lead still asks at the door. The automation sends the link on time, which is the part offices forget. The ask in person is what makes the customer actually open the link. One without the other gets about a third of the results.
If you would rather have the request system, the door cards and the reply habit set up and running, that is one of the services in the free 14-day trial.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, insulation companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor