Review automation: ask every customer, on time, the same way.

How it works

ReputeLift is our review-request software, built and operated by Martello Systems. We set it up around how you finish a job and then run it. The mechanism:

1. A job is marked done. In TradesBackbone that happens when the job closes. Otherwise it happens when you or your team mark the customer as finished, or from a list of completed customers we load for you.
2. The request is scheduled. ReputeLift queues a request for that customer at the delay you chose. For most trades we suggest the day after the job, when the work is still fresh and any snag has had a chance to show up.
3. It goes out by text or email. From your business name, with a short link to your Google review page or your Facebook page. Those are the two destinations it sends to.
4. Every customer gets the same message. The same wording, the same timing, the same link. Nobody is skipped because someone thought they might be unhappy.
5. A customer who has opted out is never sent one. ReputeLift keeps a do-not-contact list and a texting opt-out list and checks both before every send.
6. You see what happened. Requests sent, and the reviews that arrived afterwards. If a review comes in, you get a note so you can reply to it.

The rule that matters: no gating, no filtering

A lot of review software offers a feature that looks clever: ask the customer how the job went first, send the happy ones to Google and send the unhappy ones to a private form so the owner can "fix it privately". This is called review gating. ReputeLift does not do it and we will not set it up for you, for two reasons.

First, Google's policy for reviews and other user content prohibits businesses from selectively soliciting positive reviews and from discouraging or prohibiting negative ones. [1] A profile built by gating is a profile that can be cleaned out when Google notices, and a business that used gating to get there has nothing to fall back on.

Second, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission finalised a rule on consumer reviews and testimonials in 2024. [2] It prohibits, among other things, offering anything conditioned on a review carrying a particular sentiment, and certain ways of suppressing negative reviews. The FTC's own guidance says that asking only satisfied customers is not covered by the rule itself, but that the practice could still violate the FTC Act under its rules on endorsements. [3] In plain words: the gate is not a safe place to stand, and the ground around it is shrinking.

There is a plainer reason too. A page with a hundred five-star reviews and nothing else does not read as honest, to a person or to an AI assistant summarising your business. A page with real reviews, a few of them critical, and a considered reply under each one reads like a business that does the work.

Timing and wording

The two things that move the response rate are when the request lands and how much it asks. The message below is an example. Yours is written with you on the call, in your voice, and you approve it before the first one goes out.

Example request text: "Hi Sam, thanks for having Northside Plumbing out yesterday. If you have a minute, a quick Google review helps other people find us: [link]. If anything was not right, reply here and Dana will sort it. Reply STOP to opt out."

Note what it does not do. It does not ask how the job went before offering the link. It offers the link to everyone, and it also offers a direct line back to a person, in the same message, so a customer with a problem can raise it. That is not a filter; the link is right there. It is a business making it easy to be told.

On timing: for most trades, the day after the job. For a service where the result shows up later, a cleaning company or a landscaper, a few days. For a med spa or a clinic, after the follow-up visit rather than the first. We set the delay with you and can change it.

What to do with a bad review

Asking everyone means some reviews will be critical. That is the trade for having a profile that is trusted. What we do with a bad one:

1. Reply, in public, within a day. A short, specific reply from the owner. Not a template. It is written for the next hundred people who read it, more than for the person who wrote it.
2. Fix the thing. If the complaint is fair, the reply says what you are doing about it, and then you do it. Customers do sometimes update a review after that. Some do not, and the reply still stands.
3. Flag only what breaks the rules. If a review is not from a customer at all, or breaks Google's content policy, you can ask Google to look at it. That is the only route we use. We do not try to bury, drown or remove honest reviews, and we do not sell that service.

ReputeLift can draft a reply for you to edit before it goes up. Nothing is posted in your name that you did not approve.

The AI visibility check

ReputeLift also runs an AI visibility check. It asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity the questions a customer would ask, "who is a good plumber in [your city]", "best med spa near me", and records which businesses each assistant names and what it says about them. You get a read on whether you appear, how you are described, and who is being named instead of you.

Reviews are part of why this matters. Assistants and Google both read your reviews, your reply to them, and the pattern of how many and how recent. We keep that claim modest: reviews are one input among several, and nobody outside those companies knows the weighting. But a business with a steady flow of recent, genuine reviews gives an assistant something to say, and a business with six reviews from three years ago does not. For the wider picture see answer engine optimisation and the AI visibility audit.

Who this is for

Any service business that finishes jobs and does not ask for the review afterwards: contractors and trades, cleaning and landscaping companies, med spas, clinics, groomers, studios, auto shops. It works best alongside the rest of the customer thread, so the request goes out from the same system that sent the booking confirmation; see CRM for service businesses.

It is not for a business that wants to choose which customers get asked. We will explain why on the call, and if that is still the requirement, we are not the right fit.