Google reviews can make or break your local business's online presence. But gathering them consistently? That’s the tricky part. In this episode, discover how to solve the two biggest problems with review generation: knowing what to say and automating the process. Learn the exact scripts and tools we’ve tested to help businesses like yours skyrocket their review count and climb Google rankings. Plus, explore how our Story Guide Funnels toolkit can streamline your efforts, so you can focus on what you do best—running your business.

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Sean Garner

Sean Garner is a marketing consultant and Certified StoryBrand guide dedicated to helping small business owners grow and dominate their industries. He created the Marketing Domination podcast to teach people how to combine storytelling with strategic marketing to help businesses connect with customers and stand out online.

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Website: https://www.seangarner.co/ 

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EPISODE 29 TRANSCRIPTION

Introduction

Sean Garner [00:00]: All right, check. Syncing the audio, I’m gonna be a little, little hot right there on the mic. I’m gonna bring it down a little bit. Hopefully, this doesn’t make it too quiet whenever we do this. Okay, so this episode is gonna be all about Google reviews, and I’m gonna share my screen. Then I’m gonna have a call to action.

This is gonna be the first time I’m actually gonna share Story Guide Funnels publicly with people so they can go and sign up. So that’ll be awesome if we actually have somebody take us up on that.

Sean Garner [00:44]: Okay, audio.

Sean Garner [00:49]: Good, it’s synced. I got my screen share ready to go. Okay.

The Two Major Problems with Google Reviews

Sean Garner [01:01]: Here we go. When it comes to getting more Google reviews for your small business, most business owners struggle with these two problems. They don't know what to say or they don't have an automated repeated process to make sure that's happening consistently with each customer. Well, in this episode, I am going to give you the exact scripting that we use to get our clients hundreds of reviews for their local businesses, as well as show you the tools we use to automate and systematize this process so your small business can rank number one on Google.

Welcome to Marketing Domination.

Sean Garner [01:37]: I don't know. That might've been one of the better intros I've ever done. So hopefully the rest of the episode goes good.

Sean Garner [01:44]: What I have found by working with hundreds of small business owners is, guess what? Just like you, they are busy. And if they don't have a repeatable system, templates, and frameworks to execute inside of their small business, things will get missed.

Sean Garner [02:01]: So this is actually going to be the system that we implement inside of the local businesses that we work with at our agency, Sean Garner Consulting. We've seen it work so well. I promise if you execute on this scripting, you will get more Google reviews.

Sean Garner [02:19]: And not that I want you to click off this episode, but you can actually go over to our website and download the scripting that we're going to be talking about so you can follow along. Just go to SeanGarner.co/review-scripts, download your free scripts, enter your name and email address, and we're going to send these scripts over to you so you can follow along with us.

Sean Garner [02:42]: So when it comes to the scripting, what I have found is that there are two different kinds of use cases for this. Whenever we start working with a brand new client, we've got two script formulas that we want to use.

The Importance of Tailored Messaging

Sean Garner [03:02]: The first one is going to be, if this has been a business that has existed for a while and they've never made a push for this, you've got a lot of – or even if it's a new business – you've got a lot of friends, family members, previous customers, a client list, hopefully somewhere that you can send out a review request for.

Sean Garner [03:21]: We don’t want them to come through the same automation or same messaging flow as somebody who has just recently done business with you because it’s going to be kind of awkward, and it’s not going to seem unique.

Sean Garner [03:32]: With these messages, we want it to feel real, human, and you. So we want to make sure that we tailor the message to the right audience that we’re sending this to.

Sean Garner [03:43]: On our scripting here, we actually have two different use cases for the message. The first one is going to be for that person who is your friend, family member. They just want to help you out, but you’ve never given them an easy opportunity or shown them what they need to do to actually help you out.

Sean Garner [04:00]: Or previous customers that maybe you haven’t done business with in, you know, months or even years. But you’ve got so much goodwill with them that you want to ask them for a Google review.

Sean Garner [04:12]: The second flow is going to be for those people that have recently bought, where we’re going to put them through an automated messaging flow – which we’re going to get to here in just a second.

Sean Garner [04:23]: So let’s go ahead and dive into this script so you guys can see exactly how to use the different use cases here.

Sean Garner [04:31]: The very first one – this is going to be for people that, like I said, friends, family members, previous clients. These are people that we want to just start getting reviews in our pipeline.

Sean Garner [04:42]: Because I will tell you, most small business owners are not asking for reviews consistently or in the right way. You’re just sending out the Google review link, and you don’t exactly know what you should be saying.

Sean Garner [04:54]: This right here is the message that I want you to send to your contact list. But I’m going to show you exactly how I want you to send it.

Sean Garner [05:03]: So the first thing you need to know before you start sending out these review scripts for Google is you need to know where to get your link.

Sean Garner [05:11]: When you log into your Google business profile and you click on Read Reviews, the next thing that you’re going to see is this button that says Get More Reviews. I want you to click on that.

Step-by-Step Guide to Gathering Google Review Links

Sean Garner [05:23]: And then when this opens up, you will have this review link right here. I want you to copy that link and use this exact specific link in the messaging templates that you're going to be sending out.

Sean Garner [05:35]: The reason why is this is the exact link that you want to use because when a customer or a potential customer or lead clicks on this, it is going to automatically pull up the spot to leave a review.

Sean Garner [05:47]: So you can see right here, if I just paste this link in, what it does is it will pull up exactly where I need to go to leave a review. You don’t have to log in or figure out where to click to leave the review.

Sean Garner [05:58]: It will just pull up exactly where I need to go to leave a review so I can click my five stars and leave a review. Whenever customers are doing that, we obviously would love it if they said something, but right now, especially if you're just starting out, you’re really wanting to dominate with local search, you need to get more Google reviews.

Sean Garner [06:16]: So make sure you are using this exact link. So again, how to get to there is – from your main profile, whenever you’re logged in, you click the little dots, go to your business profile manager.

Sean Garner [06:28]: When you're logged onto your account, you're going to click on Read Reviews, then click on Get More Reviews, copy that link, and you are going to use that link to send over to people.

Sean Garner [06:39]: Then you are going to plug that link into this message. Now I will tell you this: this first group of messaging, I wouldn’t worry about automating too much unless you have a massive list.

Sean Garner [06:50]: You’re going to get the best results if you are just either sending this as a personalized text message, a Facebook message, or direct message.

Sean Garner [06:58]: This should be people that you are close to who you’re sending this out to. You can automate this if you do have this plugged into a CRM, and you can just use a contact first name custom field or tag so it plugs their name in automatically.

Sean Garner [07:12]: But if you're just sending this from your phone, make sure that you are personalizing it for them.

Sean Garner [07:18]: So this is the message that I want to use:

Sean Garner [07:21]: “Hey, first name, I hope you're doing great. I wanted to see if you could help me out with something. One thing I'm really working hard on is getting [your business name] to number one on Google, and I need your help.

Sean Garner [07:36]: If you could please take 10 seconds and click on the link and leave a Google review, it would mean the world to me. Even if you've never been a client or customer, just leaving a five-star review helps new clients know that they can trust us and give us a chance.

Sean Garner [07:51]: Thanks for your help and support of our small business.”

Sean Garner [07:55]: And then you paste in your Google review link right there.

Scripts for Initial Review Requests

Sean Garner [07:46]: Now I will tell you, after sending this out—like, I've sent this out and I've seen clients send this out—this exact same message has been sent out thousands of times. We have tweaked this over time to add certain elements that I believe have really helped us a lot.

Sean Garner [08:02]: So one is just customizing it, adding their first name into it. Don't make it look like it's templatized. At least add their name. You could add some type of context if you're sending this out to people that you know.

Sean Garner [08:14]: And ask for their help—be sensitive, like, “I need your help. I can’t do this without you.” Tell them why you need the review. “Hey, this really helps my business get to number one so I can find more people to find my business, and it can show up higher.”

Sean Garner [08:28]: As a small business owner, if you are not getting Google reviews, you are missing out on a huge opportunity here.

Sean Garner [08:36]: Tell them next how simple it is. “Take 10 seconds, click on this link, and leave a Google review.” Let them know how simple it is because a lot of times, people think, “I have to type all this stuff out; it’s going to take a long time.” It’s not. It’s going to take 10 seconds.

Sean Garner [08:50]: You’re going to click—you guys saw earlier—I just click it, click five stars, done. It’s going to take less than 10 seconds. If they want to type something, that’s awesome, but let them know: this is actually a really simple thing, and it would help you out a ton.

Sean Garner [09:05]: Then this line right here: because we had people say, “I've never been a customer, so I don’t want to leave a review.” This line solves that:

Sean Garner [09:13]: “Even if you've never been a client or customer, just leaving five stars helps new clients know that they can trust us and give us a chance.”

Sean Garner [09:21]: And then the other thing is: thank you for helping to support our small business. People love helping local small businesses out, and if you just remind them that this is for your small business, those things right there—I have seen help a ton.

Sean Garner [09:35]: So if you guys take nothing else from this episode, just go to the website, SeanGarner.co/reviewscripts, download these review scripts.

Sean Garner [09:46]: You now know how to go to your Google business listing, grab that link, and send this out to your friends, family members, colleagues, and previous client list.

Sean Garner [09:55]: That’s going to get you probably ahead of most of your competition right there because most of your competition is probably not doing this consistently.

Sean Garner [10:04]: That’s going to be a good jumpstart to get your business moving and some momentum. If you’ve been slacking on this for a while, or maybe it’s a brand-new business just starting up, this is exactly where you need to begin.

Automating the Review Process

Sean Garner [10:07]: Whatever the case is, just doing that is going to be helpful. Where the magic is, is anything that you can do consistently. So we just don't want this big huge spike of reviews. We want to make sure that we have a consistent process.

Sean Garner [10:23]: And that's where the next step of all of this comes into: the customer review flow. So that right there—I'm just going to send that message off to those people that I said are friends, family members. They've never really probably been a customer, or maybe they have, but it's been a long time since they've actually done business with us.

Sean Garner [10:39]: And I'm just going to send this message. I might send a variation to follow up, but for the most part, I'm using this to try and grab low-hanging fruit.

Sean Garner [10:47]: I will say a few side notes with this, and this applies to all reviews. Don't think people are lying to you if they say they left you a review, but it's not showing up.

Sean Garner [10:57]: What I have found is that with Google reviews, they can leave a review, and it might not stick. One of the things that makes Google reviews so powerful is that it’s really difficult to fake. To leave a review, they have to have a Google account, log into that account, and then leave the review.

Sean Garner [11:14]: Even if they've never left a review before, sometimes Google will hold those reviews to prevent spam. This is to stop people from spinning up a bunch of fake Gmail accounts and leaving tons of fake reviews.

Sean Garner [11:26]: So if they've never left a review, don't be surprised if the review doesn't stick. You can ask them several times. I jokingly use this example all the time: I had to ask my mom multiple times to leave a Google review for our med spa just to get it to finally stick because she had never reviewed anything.

Sean Garner [11:42]: So if people are telling you they're leaving reviews, but they’re not showing up, there's nothing wrong with your Google account or anything like that. Most likely, they've either never left a review before or haven’t left many, and it's just Google's way of preventing spam.

Sean Garner [11:57]: The other thing to note: if you've never gotten any reviews and you get this huge influx—like 100 people leaving you a Google review—Google might throttle some of those back as well because it thinks it's spam.

Sean Garner [12:11]: If you've had a Google business listing for 10 years and you've never gotten a review, and all of a sudden you get 50 reviews in one day, some of them may not stick because of that.

Sean Garner [12:22]: So just know that these are some of the things to keep in mind with all of this stuff. That applies to all of the people that fit that demographic.

Addressing Common Challenges with Google Reviews

Sean Garner [12:22]: Now the next is, what do we send? So that's the scripting to use. Next is, what's the scripting and how do we automate this process for existing customers and for people that we do business with on a regular basis?

Sean Garner [12:37]: With this, you can see we have a certain timeline that we've tested, working with all of our business owners. What we have found works really well is a sequence of three messages sent to both text and email, three days apart. That's the flow that we use.

Sean Garner [12:52]: So what we'll do is, whenever there's been a trigger to initiate the initial review send, we send out the very first text and email.

Sean Garner [13:00]: Now that trigger can be based upon your industry, whatever makes sense in context. For our medical spa, for example, the trigger is whenever an invoice is closed out, because we're doing lots of invoices and lots of transactions a day. As soon as that is done, the trigger is the invoice is closed, and it’s going to immediately send out that text. Then, about five or 10 minutes later, it’s going to send out a follow-up email asking for the review.

Sean Garner [13:25]: If you have the type of business where you don't have as many transactions on a daily basis—like one of our real estate agents we work with—she’s not doing multiple closeouts a day. Because of that, it’s just an assigned trigger. Whenever she tags somebody “Google review send,” then it will start this process.

Sean Garner [13:43]: Or, if you're manually sending these messages, you just need to know that’s obviously when you’re going to send the messages.

Sean Garner [13:50]: So this is the messaging that we use first. Again, all of this has been tested. Feel free to tweak this and make it customized to your business. For this template, we customize it for all of our clients, but this is a pretty solid framework of what you can use for all businesses.

Sean Garner [14:08]: We try to make it as generalized as possible. We just took what we use for our clients and generalized it, but the same things apply. One, we want to try and customize every single one that we do. Two, the link that’s included in each one of these is that Google review link I showed you how to get.

Sean Garner [14:38]: Link that I showed you how to get on the Google business profile. So that way it takes them directly to the review section. This is what we send immediately on that first submission.

Sean Garner [14:49]: So, "Hey, [First Name], thank you for the opportunity to serve you at [Business Name]. We hope you had a five-star experience with us. Could you take a few moments to leave us a review on Google?"

Sean Garner [15:00]: So again, we’re being very clear and direct with what we want. We’re also planting the seed: "We hope you had a five-star experience with us." In the eyes of Google, we want that five-star Google review. Then we’re putting that link in there.

Sean Garner [15:15]: About five to 15 minutes later, we send a similar variation of that to their email. So we hit them with a text and then an email. If you don’t have one of those, stick to what you do have, but use the same message.

Sean Garner [15:27]: The subject line will include their first name: “Can you help us out?”

Sean Garner [15:31]: "Hi [First Name], we hope you had an amazing experience with us at [Business Name]. Your feedback means everything to us, and we’d love to hear about your time with us. Could you take a few minutes and share your thoughts on Google? [Google review link]. It helps us a lot, and your insight could help someone else make a decision. Thank you again for supporting us! – [Business Name] Team."

Sean Garner [15:54]: We send that message out immediately when the trigger fires. First, they get the text. We have a much higher success rate with texts, and then 15 minutes later, the email goes out.

Sean Garner [16:07]: Then we wait three days and hit them again. Same process—text and then email 15 minutes later.

Sean Garner [16:14]: Similar variation of the message: “Hey [First Name], I wanted to follow up. Would you mind leaving us a review? Positive reviews help us reach more people. We’re so grateful for your support of our small business and hope to see you soon.” [Google review link].

Sean Garner [16:30]: Then the second email:

Sean Garner [16:32]: Subject line: “[First Name], We’re thankful for your support.”

Sean Garner [16:36]: "Hi [First Name], just following up to see if you could leave us a quick review. Your feedback helps us grow and reach more amazing people like you. We truly appreciate your support. [Google review link]. Thanks again! – [Business Name] Team."

Sean Garner [16:57]: What we’ve found is that 60% of reviews happen on contact number two. In sales, they say the fortune’s in the follow-up. Out of all the Google reviews that come from this automation, 60% happen on that second round of texts and emails.

Sean Garner [17:13]: That’s why it’s so important to ask multiple times. One, most businesses don’t ask. Two, they definitely don’t ask more than once.

Sean Garner [17:22]: If they still don’t leave a review, the next step is to hit them three days later with the same formula. Send a text, and 15 minutes after that, send an email.

Sean Garner [17:33]: If you’re automating this process, try to make the start time around the appointment time or closeout time. That way, they’re more likely to be active. If their appointment was at noon, these messages will go out three days later at noon. You can tweak that to fit your business.

Sean Garner [17:49]: The third text: “Hey [First Name], I hope you’re doing awesome. Could you help us with a quick review on Google? It really helps us. Just click here. [Google review link]. Thanks a million! – [Business Name] Team.”

Sean Garner [18:03]: Then 15 minutes later, we send the final email:

Sean Garner [18:08]: Subject line: “Can we ask a quick favor?”

Sean Garner [18:11]: "Hi [First Name], we know you’re super busy, but if you could just take a minute, we’d love for you to leave us a Google review. Your feedback is so valuable, and we’d be grateful if you’d help spread the word about [Business Name]. [Google review link]. Thanks for your continued support! – [Business Name] Team."

Sean Garner [18:32]: The breakdown typically looks like this: About 20% of reviews happen on the first hit, 60% on the second, and the remainder on the third follow-up.

Sean Garner [18:44]: People just get busy. Even though we space these messages three days apart, they may forget or plan to do it later. At this point, it’s been over a week since the first contact, and that third ask still brings in reviews.

Sean Garner [18:57]: That’s why it’s so important to follow up and keep asking.

Leveraging Story Guide Funnels for Automation

Sean Garner [19:16]: They just get busy. They forget, "I’ll get to it later," or maybe they have to log into their Google account. That’s why it’s important to follow up, but you’re still getting results even on that third ask. So don’t be afraid to ask.

Sean Garner [19:30]: Those are the messages you can use. Even if you just manually do this—maybe you don’t have a ton of clients, or you have a front desk person who can handle it—just sending these messages alone, following this template and framework, will help you start getting more Google reviews.

Sean Garner [19:45]: I can guarantee most likely your competition doesn’t have this set up. Or, if they’re way ahead of you, they probably do have something like this in place.

Sean Garner [19:53]: Like I said, there are two problems with getting Google reviews. One, clients don’t know what to say. And two, they don’t have a process to automate it. So I’m going to show you how we actually automate this process.

Sean Garner [20:05]: We use this with our brand-new tool that has just come out, which we’ve been using with our clients for a long time, and it’s called Story Guide Funnels.

Sean Garner [20:13]: Story Guide Funnels is the CRM marketing toolkit platform we created to help small local business owners automate all of their marketing. This is your complete CRM, email marketing, social planner, and automation toolkit.

Sean Garner [20:26]: This is what we use for our clients, and now we’re making it available to everyone. I’m going to show you the workflow for how this works, and it is super simple to use.

Sean Garner [20:37]: The whole point of creating Story Guide Funnels is that I wanted a CRM and marketing toolkit made simple. When you sign up for an account, we handle all the onboarding and setup for you. Your account is ready to go, and you can start serving your clients, knowing everything is already set up.

Sean Garner [20:53]: This is how it works in essence. We have a couple of different variations for this. For example, this is the exact flow we use for our med spa. I want every single customer to get a Google review because we deliver a very high value of service.

Sean Garner [21:08]: Some people, however, want to gatekeep it a little bit. They don’t want everybody to get a Google review request because they’re afraid of a bad customer experience or something similar.

Sean Garner [21:18]: For that, we have a different automation. Before we send the actual Google review link, we plug people into an internal survey flow. If they leave a five-star review on the survey, then we send them the Google review link.

Sean Garner [21:32]: If they rate the experience four stars or lower, it notifies the staff members inside the CRM so they can contact the customer directly, address the issue, and resolve it before sending the Google review link.

Sean Garner [21:45]: This helps reduce the likelihood of getting one-star reviews from customers who had a poor experience.

Maximizing Results Through Consistent Efforts

Sean Garner [21:34]: We will send them an internal survey. If they leave a five-star rating on the survey, then we send them the Google review link. If they rate it four stars or lower, it notifies the staff members inside the CRM so they can contact the customer, find out what the issue is, and resolve it before sending the Google review link.

Sean Garner [21:54]: This helps throttle some of those one-star reviews from customers who may have had a poor experience.

Sean Garner [22:01]: In essence, here’s how it works. You can see visually there’s a tag that triggers the process. We send the Google review request and add them to our pipeline. I’ll show you how this looks. Then, we start sending out the emails and texts. We wait three days, send another round, wait three more days, and send the final round.

Sean Garner [22:20]: This is already prebuilt for you inside Story Guide Funnels. If you want all of this done for you, you can sign up. By the way, Story Guide Funnels includes all the marketing tools you need for $149 a month—no contracts, cancel anytime—and we’ll set everything up for you.

Sean Garner [22:36]: Honestly, just using this tool for automating Google reviews alone brings 10x the value. There are companies charging $500 to $1,000 a month just for Google review automation software and messaging, but it’s included here as one of the many tools available.

Sean Garner [22:52]: For me, working with local service businesses, getting more Google reviews is critical for ranking higher on local search.

Sean Garner [23:01]: Here’s how we build out the pipeline. Whenever we send a review request, it adds the customer to a pipeline stage that shows the review link was sent. If they click the link, we move them to another stage so we can see who clicked.

Sean Garner [23:15]: Once they click and leave a review that’s confirmed—because just saying they left one doesn’t mean it stuck—we drag them over to the “confirmed” stage, which removes them from the sequence.

Sean Garner [23:26]: This process helps identify people who clicked the link but didn’t leave a review. This middle column is where your front desk team, admin team, or even you follow up with a personalized message.

Sean Garner [23:37]: Something simple like, “Hey, I saw that you started to leave a review but didn’t finish. If you could take five seconds, we’d really appreciate it. Here’s the link again.”

Sean Garner [23:45]: That way, you follow up with those individuals to ensure their review gets completed but you didn't get completed.

Ready To Boost Your Google Reviews?

Sean Garner [23:45]: Hey, I’d love it if you could take five seconds here, just click the link, send them that review link, and finish your Google review. Because they’ve obviously gotten the message—whether email or text—and they clicked it but didn’t leave the review. You want to follow up with those people immediately or as soon as you can to make sure the review actually sticks.

Sean Garner [24:08]: Then, once you drag them into the “confirmed review” stage, how our automation is set up is it will never send them the review link again. That way, if they’re repeat customers—if you have a business where people do a lot of business with you—you don’t have to worry about them being bothered every time.

Sean Garner [24:23]: If they’ve already left a review, it gets marked inside of here. Now, if they go through all three touchpoints—three days apart—and they don’t leave a review, it will remove them from the sequence. Then, the next time they come back for a visit, it will put them back through the sequence. If they’ve left a review, the system ensures they don’t go through it again.

Sean Garner [24:42]: So again, it feels more genuine and authentic because you’re only sending it to people who haven’t left a review.

Sean Garner [24:49]: Guys, I’m telling you, this software—you can check it out at storyguidefunnels.com—is your complete marketing toolkit to run all your business’s marketing efforts. It has everything: all your contacts in one place, email marketing, you can even build websites and courses inside of this.

Sean Garner [25:06]: It’s everything you need to run the marketing for your small local business. We’ve built tons of automations that are included when you sign up for $149 a month. There’s obviously a lot more we can do for you, too.

Sean Garner [25:19]: Make sure you go to seangardner.co/reviewscripts and grab these review scripts. Start implementing this into your business today. You have not because you ask not. So make sure you’re asking your customers for Google reviews.

Sean Garner [25:33]: You now have the exact scripting we’ve used to get thousands of reviews on Google. If you want to automate this process, go to storyguidefunnels.com, and we’ll set all of this up for you for $149 a month.

Sean Garner [25:45]: Start automating your Google review process, add this to your business, and by doing this, you will get more Google reviews. That will help you climb to the top of Google search so you can dominate your industry.

Sean Garner [25:58]: Thanks so much for watching, guys. Go out there, dominate, grow, and have an awesome day.