How to Ask for Google Reviews in BC Without Getting Them Deleted

The safest way to ask for Google reviews in BC is to send the request after you have left the property, from your own follow up system, with no incentive attached and no filtering of who gets asked. Google spent 2026 enforcing its review policies automatically instead of waiting for complaints, and industry reporting puts removals at more than 60,000 businesses this year. For a Chilliwack roofer or an Abbotsford HVAC shop, that means the habit you have used for years, handing a customer your phone in the driveway, is now the fastest way to lose the reviews you earned.

TL;DR

• Asking for a review on your premises or on your device, including a counter tablet or the phone in your hand, is against Google's rules.

• So is review gating, which means only asking the customers you already know are happy.

• So is anything offered in exchange: discounts, gift cards, draw entries, loyalty perks.

• Removals are being applied retroactively, so reviews left years ago can vanish with no notification.

• Review recency now carries real ranking weight, so a steady trickle beats a big pile of old ones.

What Google actually counts as an ask you were not allowed to make

Most contractors assume the rules only cover buying fake reviews. They cover far more, and the practices being enforced are the ones the trades use every day. Four to watch:

• On premises requests. A tablet at the counter, a kiosk in the shop, a QR code on the invoice you hand over at the door, or your own phone passed to the homeowner. If the ask happens where you are, it is a problem.

• Review gating. Sending a satisfaction question first and only routing the happy answers to Google. Every review tool that offers a "filter unhappy customers" feature is selling you a policy violation.

• Incentives. A discount on the next service, a gift card, entry into a draw, a free filter change. Anything of value in exchange for feedback.

• Scripted mentions. Asking a customer to name your lead hand or to work a phrase like "best plumber in Surrey" into the review.

AI written review text is also being stripped. If a customer asks a chatbot to write it for them, Google's detection is designed to catch the pattern, and it does not care that the job was real.

Why Google reviews are disappearing from BC contractor profiles with no warning

This is the part that catches people. Enforcement is not only forward looking. Reviews collected years ago through a gating tool or a shop tablet are being removed retroactively, in batches, with no email and no explanation. You do not get a notice. The count on your profile just drops.

For a painting or concrete company in the Fraser Valley that built its profile in 2022 with a review kiosk, that is not a small correction. That is the single asset homeowners actually compare, quietly shrinking while you are on a job.

Two things to do about it:

1. Keep your own record. Once a month, screenshot or export your review list. Reviewer name, date, rating, text. Google is not a backup and it never has been.

2. Kill the old method today. Every extra review you collect the wrong way is another one on the removal list. Stopping is free.

How to ask for Google reviews in the Fraser Valley without breaking the rules

The compliant version is not harder than what you do now. It is just moved off your property and off your device.

Build it into the job close, not the goodbye.

• The job finishes. The invoice goes out.

• Two to four hours later, an automated text goes to that customer with a direct link to your Google review page.

• The link goes to every completed customer, not a hand picked list.

• No offer, no discount, no coaching on what to write.

• One polite reminder three days later if nothing happens, then it stops.

That is it. It runs off your CRM or your job management software, it fires on every closed job whether you remember or not, and it is defensible if anyone ever looks at it.

It also produces better reviews. A homeowner in Mission reading the text on their couch at eight at night writes three sentences about the work. The same person standing beside you with your phone in their hand writes "great job thanks" because you are watching.

Volume of asks beats persuasion

Text every completed job and the numbers take care of themselves. Pick your favourite three customers and chase them, and you get two reviews from the same week.

Recency now counts for more than your total

The 2026 Whitespark local search ranking factors survey puts review signals at roughly 20% of local pack weight, and its own founder ranks review recency among the top five signals overall. Consumer behaviour matches it: most people scanning your profile are looking at what got written in the last few months, not your lifetime total.

Read that plainly. Forty reviews, all from 2023, tell Google and a homeowner the same story: this shop used to be busy. Four a month tells both of them you are running right now. A roofing company in Chilliwack with 60 reviews and nothing since spring will get outranked by an electrician with 25 and four this month, and the second one deserves it.

This is why the automated ask beats the occasional push. A burst of twelve reviews the week after you nag your customer list looks less natural than three a month for a year, and it does less for you.

Frequently asked questions

How do I ask for Google reviews in BC without breaking Google's rules?

Send the request after you have left the site, from your own system, to every completed customer, with no incentive and no script. An automated text with a direct review link two hours after the invoice is the cleanest version.

Why did my Google reviews disappear in the Fraser Valley?

Most likely they were collected in a way Google now removes retroactively: through a gating tool, on a shop tablet, on your own phone, or in exchange for something. Google does not notify you when it removes them.

Can I offer a discount for a Google review?

No. Discounts, gift cards, draw entries and loyalty perks all count as incentivized reviews and are grounds for removal, and repeated violations can put your whole profile at risk.

How many Google reviews does a contractor need to rank in the map pack near me?

There is no threshold number. In a Fraser Valley market, a steady flow of three to five recent reviews a month will usually do more for your position than a larger total that stopped a year ago.

Does it matter how old my Google reviews are?

Yes. Recency is now weighted heavily, and most homeowners are reading the newest ones first. Old reviews still count for trust, but they stop pulling their weight on ranking.

The bottom line

Reviews are the one marketing asset you cannot buy back, and the way most trades collect them has quietly become the way to lose them. Take the ask off your counter and out of your hand, put it into an automated message that fires on every closed job, and you get a compliant, steady flow instead of a pile that Google might delete.

That is a follow up system, not a habit, and it is the same system that chases your quotes and answers your leads. If you want it built once so it runs without you, that is what BTM's funnels and follow up work does. Marketing that works as hard as you do.