Review velocity — new reviews collected per month — is the single biggest Prominence input Google uses to rank local businesses. Volume matters once. Velocity matters every month. A profile with 200 stale reviews ranks below a profile with 30 fresh ones.

This checklist gives you the system. Calculate where you are, set a target, build the request flow, monitor it. Stop chasing volume; start building velocity.

Calculate your current velocity

Pull your last 90 days of reviews. Count them.
Divide by 3. That's your current monthly velocity.
Look at the trend. Are reviews per month rising, flat, or falling over the last 6 months?

Velocity formula: reviews in last 90 days ÷ 3 = monthly velocity.

A velocity of 0-2 is below floor — your profile looks dormant to Google. A velocity of 3-8 is competitive in low-density markets. A velocity of 10+ is winning territory in any market.

Set your monthly target

By business type, based on what wins Map Pack in 2026:

Café / single-location retail — 5-10 per month
Restaurant / hospitality — 10-20 per month
Plumber / electrician / HVAC — 10-25 per month (you have more job touch points than other trades)
Builder / renovator — 3-8 per month (fewer jobs but each one matters more)
Salon / personal care — 8-15 per month
Dentist / GP / health — 5-12 per month
Professional services (law, accounting, consulting) — 2-5 per month
Auto repair / mobile service — 8-15 per month

If your current velocity is half your target, you've got a system problem, not a customer problem. Almost no business is genuinely incapable of doubling its monthly reviews.

Identify your request triggers

Every job your business completes is a request trigger. The question is which trigger fires automatically.

Post-job complete — Most powerful for trades. Fires the moment a job is marked done.
Post-payment cleared — Useful for one-off services where job-complete isn't clearly defined.
Post-delivery / post-pickup — For product businesses, fires when the customer has received what they ordered.
Post-appointment — For appointment-based businesses (salon, dental, fitness), fires at end of appointment.
Post-checkout — For retail/hospitality, fires when the bill is paid.
Post-milestone — For long-cycle work (building, large projects), fires at defined milestones (handover, 30-day check-in, etc.).

Pick the trigger that fires closest to peak customer satisfaction. For most trades, that's 24-48 hours after job completion. For builders, it's after handover. For dentists, it's after the follow-up appointment when the customer is genuinely happy.

Set up your automation

First ask via SMS within 24-48 hours of trigger. Conversion: 25-40%.
Pre-written script (per the scripts checklist) — adapted to your trade.
Direct link to your Google review page. Use the short URL from your GBP.
Follow-up at 7-10 days if no review yet. One follow-up, not three.
Send window 10am-7pm in customer timezone. Outside that feels invasive.
Stop after second ask. Three asks crosses into harassment regardless of wording.

Manual works if your volume is low (under 10 jobs/week). Above that, automate via SMS provider, CRM trigger, or dedicated review platform. Manual ad-hoc asking doesn't scale.

Monitor and adjust

Track these every week:

Reviews collected vs target (running monthly count)
Conversion rate (review requests sent ÷ reviews received)
Average days from job to review (faster is better; under 5 days is excellent)
Reviews requested but not received (track these — they show where the funnel leaks)

Adjust monthly:

If conversion is below 20%, fix the script or the timing first.
If conversion is above 25% but volume is still low, you're not asking enough customers — fix the trigger.
If volume is spiking suddenly (50+ in a week), pull back — Google may flag it.

Red flags

Velocity drops 30%+ month-over-month — investigate immediately. Usually a broken trigger, removed automation, or staff change.
Suspicious volume spike — 5x normal in a week. Google's filter may have flagged you.
All reviews look templated — same phrases, same length, same tone. Customers and Google notice.
Reviews coming from accounts with no other activity — review farms or fake accounts. Get them reported and removed if possible; they hurt more than help.
Rating average drops below 4.4 — diagnostic moment. Reviews aren't the issue; service quality probably is.

Why this matters

Velocity is the cleanest predictor of local SEO momentum. Total review count is what you have. Velocity is what you're becoming. Google reads the latter as a stronger signal because it shows your business is alive and trusted right now, not three years ago.

Every box on this checklist exists to compound that signal. The trigger fires; the request goes out; the customer reviews; Google sees fresh activity; ranking improves. Skip a step and the chain breaks.

The boring fact: most of your competitors have no velocity system at all. They ask the customers who happen to be standing in front of them. You can beat that with a system that asks every customer, every job, every time.

What to do next

This week:

Calculate your current monthly velocity.
Pick your target from the list above.
Identify your trigger.
Set up the SMS automation (manually if low volume, via a tool if higher).

Then track. Every month for 90 days.

For the deeper context on why velocity beats count, read Why Review Velocity Matters More Than Review Count.

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The Review Velocity Checklist