Setting up automatic review requests in Housecall Pro

Where Housecall Pro keeps its review request settings

Review requests are on by default in Housecall Pro. Housecall Pro's Reviews article says "Your account is automatically configured by default to send Review Requests when you click or tap "Finish" within a Job." So the real work is checking where those requests go and what they say. This post goes one level deeper than our reviews and reputation guide, which covers why reviews matter and how techs should ask.

The settings live in two different menus. Housecall Pro says "Review request timing and message settings now live under Settings > Notifications." It also says "Your Google and Facebook connection settings are still under Settings > Marketing Center > Reviews." The Reviews dashboard itself sits under the Marketing tab in the left navigation.

Reviews is one of several Housecall Pro tools that touch your marketing. For the ones that affect where leads land and how they're tracked, see which Housecall Pro integrations matter for marketing.

How do you connect Google to Housecall Pro Reviews?

The Google connection links your Google Business Profile (GBP), the listing that shows you in Google Maps and the map pack, to your Reviews dashboard. Housecall Pro's connection article lists these steps:

1. Click the Marketing tab in the left navigation bar of your Housecall Pro account.
2. Select Reviews from the dropdown menu.
3. Go to the Google section and click Connect.
4. Follow the steps in the pop-up to link your Google Business Profile.
5. Check your Reviews dashboard. Once you're connected, Housecall Pro says you'll see your current average rating on Google there.

If your Google Business Profile has more than one location, Housecall Pro says you'll need to choose one location to send your reviews to. If your business doesn't show up after you connect, Housecall Pro's Reviews FAQs say to check that you chose the Google account that manages your profile. If it still doesn't appear, "you likely need to verify your business with Google first." A "no Locations found" message means your Google Business account isn't fully set up. Our Google Business Profile guide covers the profile side.

Old reviews and your own review link

Reviews already collected in Housecall Pro stay in Housecall Pro. The connection article says they "cannot be transferred to Google or any other platform." The help articles we read don't describe pasting in your own Google review link, because the connection handles routing. Keep your Google link handy anyway for texts you send by hand. Google's review link article says to go to your Business Profile, select Read Reviews, then Get more reviews, and "To copy the review link, select Copy."

Choose when the review request goes out

Housecall Pro gives you two timing choices: when the job is finished or when it's paid. The FAQs say "By default, email and text review requests will be sent automatically when the job is marked as finished." If you switch to paid, the Reviews article says the request "will automatically send after you finish a job and collect payment." For a job with more than one invoice, the FAQs say the request waits until the job is fully paid.

1. Click the gear icon to open Settings.
2. Select Notifications.
3. Find the Reviews section and open Initial request.
4. Find Request timing and choose when requests should send.

Which timing fits a carpet cleaning job

If your tech takes payment and finishes the job before the truck leaves, either setting sends the request the same day. In our view, the paid setting makes more sense when customers pay an invoice later, such as a commercial account billed after the work. That way the request doesn't land while the bill is still open.

Multi-day jobs and resending a request

For jobs split into segments, the FAQs say you can trigger the request from the first or last segment and put a review-exclusion job tag on the others. That keeps a two-day restoration job from sending two requests. To resend a request, Housecall Pro says to "click Undo to unfinish the job, then click Finish again."

What does the customer receive?

Housecall Pro's FAQs say "Review requests are sent via email and SMS." Customers without a mobile number get the email only. Each channel has its own toggle. Housecall Pro's personalizing article says to "Turn the Email toggle off to stop sending review requests by email, or the Text toggle off to stop sending them by text."

You also pick one of two message styles, and only one style sends at a time:

• Personalized is the default. Housecall Pro describes it as "a unique message for each customer, based on the job completed." It draws on the customer's first name, the technician, your company name, what the job involved, when it happened and the service address.
• Custom is "one message you write, sent to every customer." To switch, go to Settings > Notifications > Reviews > Initial request, select Custom and click Save.

The email adds a Leave a review button and your company information for you. A Custom text needs one thing from you. Housecall Pro says "Your text message must include the Review Link variable. Without it your customer has no way to leave the review." Housecall Pro also says only the initial review request can be changed today.

Before you trust the setup, test it. Housecall Pro says "You can also preview the real thing by adding yourself as a customer and completing the job process." By default, customers with notifications turned off don't get review requests. The FAQs say only customers with notifications enabled receive them unless you turn on the setting that sends to them anyway.

Send more of your requests to Google

By default, Housecall Pro decides where each request goes based on the customer's email address. The Reviews article says "we will send all of your customers with a Gmail email address straight to Google to leave their reviews." Everyone else is split equally between your Facebook page and your website review collection. Housecall Pro's reason is that "customers need to have a Google account in order to leave a review on Google Business Profile."

Google's own tips for getting reviews add a detail. It says "Customers must be signed into a Google Account to leave a review. They can set one up with a non-Gmail email address." So a customer with a work or internet-provider email may still have a Google account. Under the default split, that customer gets sent to Facebook or your website instead.

Changing the split with Premium Reviews

1. Go to Marketing > Reviews, click Actions, then Edit distribution.
2. Toggle off Optimize requests for me. Housecall Pro's Premium Reviews article describes this step as turning on Override optimization.
3. Set the percentage for Google, Facebook and your website. Setting one source to 100% sends every request there.
4. Click Save.

Changing the split is a Premium Reviews feature, and so is replying to Google and Facebook reviews from inside Housecall Pro. Housecall Pro's Premium Reviews article, which was served to us in Spanish, says Premium Reviews is available on all Essentials plans and higher, formerly the Grow plan. It doesn't list prices, so check your own plan before you count on it.

In our view, Google is the review that matters most for map pack visibility, so it's worth weighting your split toward Google. The tradeoff is that a customer without a Google account has to make one or skip the review. For how we run marketing around Housecall Pro, see our Housecall Pro marketing page. CarpetCleaningSEO is an affiliate partner of Housecall Pro and NiceJob and may earn a commission when you sign up through our links.

Keep your setup inside Google's review rules

Google sets rules for how you ask for reviews. Its review content policy says "We do not allow merchants to" "Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers." It also bans offering "incentives – such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services - in exchange for posting any review."

The Housecall Pro articles we read describe splitting requests by email address and by the percentages you set. They don't describe screening customers by star rating first. Keep your own process just as clean:

• Ask every customer. In our view, exclusion tags belong on jobs where the person on site isn't your customer, such as a tenant at a property manager's move-out clean. Never use them to skip a customer who might leave a low rating.
• Offer nothing in return. Don't offer a discount on the next cleaning, a free deodorizer or a giveaway entry for a review.
• Don't script the review. Google says merchants should not "request that specific content be included." Leave lines like "mention our pet odor treatment" out of your Custom message.
• Ask without pressure on site. Google says "merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises."

For the full list of what's allowed, how techs should ask, and how to answer bad reviews, go back to our reviews and reputation guide. Reviews also support your rankings in the map pack, which is part of our local SEO service.