Review Request Email Templates for Contractors

The review request email that works for contractor accounts is short, sent 24 to 48 hours after the job closes, written in the technician's name, and built around exactly one link. Use three emails, not one: the ask, a single reminder on day four, then stop. Keep each under 120 words. Three copy-paste templates are below, along with the subject lines and the sending setup that decide whether any of it lands. The templates matter less than the sequence — a mediocre email sent twice beats a beautifully written one sent once and then forgotten.

Last updated: September 2026

Why one email isn't a sequence

Most contractor review programs are a single email fired from the agency's marketing platform, with the company logo on top, three navigation links, a social icon row, and a "leave us a review" button somewhere in the middle.

Every one of those choices works against you. The customer just had a person in their house and remembers that person's name — they have no relationship with a logo, and definitely none with your agency. Every extra clickable element gives them somewhere else to go, and every branded flourish moves the email closer to the promotions tab.

That's why the version that works looks like a note someone typed on a phone. Most people don't realize this is a deliverability decision before it's an aesthetic one — plain, personal mail lands in the inbox that campaign templates get filtered out of.

Template 1 — the ask (send 24-48 hours after job completion)

Subject: Quick favor, [Customer First Name]?

Hi [Customer First Name],

Mike here — I was out at your place on [Day] for the [job type].

Hope everything's still running the way it should. If you've got 30 seconds, would you mind leaving a quick review? It genuinely helps people in [City] figure out who to call, and it helps our crew a lot.

[Leave a review →]

Either way, thanks for having us out.

Mike [Company Name] · [Phone]

That's it. No logo header, no footer menu, no P.S. about seasonal maintenance plans.

Three details do the real work: the technician's first name in the opening line, the specific job referenced so it can't read as a blast, and "30 seconds," which sets an honest expectation of effort. People don't skip reviews because they're ungrateful — they skip them because they assume it'll take ten minutes.

Send this to every customer the same way — don't try to guess who's likely to leave a good review and skip the rest. Pair the review link with a low-key private feedback option (a "something not right? tell us directly" line works) so a dissatisfied customer has somewhere to go without you having to predict who that'll be.

For larger jobs — a roof, a full HVAC changeout, a repipe — push the send to day three or four, once the customer has lived with the result.

Template 2 — the reminder (day 4, once)

Subject: Re: Quick favor, [Customer First Name]?

Hi [Customer First Name],

Following up once in case this got buried — no worries at all if you'd rather skip it.

[Leave a review →]

Thanks again, Mike

Shorter than the first one, same sender, same link. The "Re:" subject makes it read as a follow-up rather than a second campaign.

Send one reminder. Not two, not a "last chance" sequence. Your client has to keep working in this town, and a nagging review program costs goodwill that's worth more than the review. Suppress anyone who's already left one.

Template 3 — replying when a customer uses the private option

Don't build a step that decides who gets the public ask based on a guess about how the visit went. Screening customers before they see the review link — showing the public ask only to people predicted to leave a good review, and quietly routing everyone else to a private form — is sentiment-based review gating, and it's banned under the FTC's rule on consumer reviews (16 CFR Part 465) as well as Google's own solicitation policy. Send Template 1 to everyone, with the public link and a private option offered side by side, and let the customer pick.

This template is for when a customer takes you up on the private option, or complains directly instead:

Hi [Customer First Name],

Mike here — thanks for the honest feedback about [Day]'s visit. That's not the standard we hold ourselves to and I'd like to fix it.

Dana, our service manager, will call you within one business day. If you'd rather reach out first, she's at [Phone].

Mike [Company Name]

Notice what's missing: no discount offer, no request to update a rating, no defensiveness. You're buying a phone call, and the phone call is where the situation gets resolved.

We're not lecturing from a safe distance here — an earlier version of DFY Hub's own review request flow worked the banned way, sentiment question first, then branch to public or private. It got pulled and rebuilt to show everyone the same thing, specifically because of this rule. Feedback gate for review collection covers why some reputation tools still sell the old version as a feature, and what the compliant flow looks like.

Read the platform policy before configuring any of this. Google's rules on review solicitation get revised periodically. That judgment is yours on each client account — read the current policy text rather than relying on any vendor's summary of it, including mine.

Subject lines that actually get opened

Patterns that hold up for contractor accounts:

• Quick favor, [First Name]?
• How'd we do on [Day]?
• [Technician First Name] from [Company] — one quick question
• Everything still good with the [job type]?

Avoid: "review" in the subject line (it pre-frames the effort), all caps, emoji, and a leading "please," which reads as a mass send.

Sending these across a book of contractor accounts

Writing three emails is an afternoon. Running them across fifteen contractor clients without a person babysitting each send is the actual problem, and it's where most agencies quietly fall back to "we'll do it manually" and then don't. The fuller automation pattern — per-transaction triggers instead of quarterly campaigns — is in automated review requests for businesses.

What DFY Hub's product record documents: Email Campaigns covers campaign creation, an approval workflow, Resend delivery with open and click tracking, and AI-drafted content. Review Request Campaigns sends the ask by email with the public link and private option shown together, the way Template 1 describes. And a Confirmation Required Flow requires human approval for high-stakes agent actions before execution.

So the realistic division of labor: the platform drafts, schedules, delivers, and tracks; a person on your team approves before anything sends under a client's name. Anyone promising a hands-off review machine hasn't watched an AI-drafted email go out to a customer whose job was cancelled.

Two things worth confirming before you sell this as fully automated. A completed job in Jobber doesn't trigger a send by itself today — the webhook briefs the sub-account's AI agent with a suggestion that a follow-up might be worth sending, and a person still approves before anything goes out, same as any other draft. GoHighLevel doesn't have this integration live yet at all. And every campaign sends from one shared DFY Hub address right now, not a client's own domain — worth knowing against the domain-authentication guardrail below, since DFY Hub can't handle that part yet. A client who needs mail sent from their own domain still needs that set up outside the platform.

If you're weighing this against a dedicated point tool per client, check the per-location math. Birdeye, the strongest review-generation product in our tracked competitor set, runs $299 to $449 per month per location. DFY Hub's plans start with a free Starter tier (no credit card), then $99/mo Local Dominator, $199/mo Growth Engine, and $399/mo Full Stack, with higher tiers including everything below them — details on the pricing page. Review Request Campaigns is included starting at Local Dominator, and the price is per agency account, not per client — one subscription covers every sub-account you run through it, which the per-location number above doesn't. For the wider category, see review management software, and for the response side once a review is actually public, AI review response generators covers drafting those.

Guardrails to put in the scope of work

• Never incentivize. No discounts, drawings, or technician bonuses tied to review counts. It violates platform policy and can get the reviews removed.
• Send from the client's domain, not yours, authenticated with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC — otherwise the program dies in spam filters regardless of copy. (If you're running this through DFY Hub, note the sending-address limitation above — that piece is a manual setup for now, not a platform feature.)
• Include an unsubscribe. These are commercial emails.
• Suppress aggressively. Anyone who reviewed, complained, or opted out comes off permanently.
• Cap frequency per customer. A quarterly maintenance-plan customer shouldn't get four review requests a year.

FAQ

When should a contractor send a review request email?

Twenty-four to 48 hours after the job closes for standard service calls, and three to four days for large installs where the customer needs to live with the result first. The window where the technician's name is still fresh is short, and requests sent weeks later convert poorly however they're written.

Should the review request come from the technician or the company?

The technician's first name, with the company name underneath. The customer interacted with a person, and a from-line carrying that name reads as a note rather than a campaign. Sending from the agency's domain is the worst option — the customer has no idea who you are.

Can DFY Hub send these review request emails automatically?

The platform drafts, schedules, and tracks delivery through Email Campaigns and Review Request Campaigns, and a Confirmation Required Flow requires human approval before anything sends. What it doesn't do today: auto-populate a send list straight from a Jobber job-completion event — that briefs your AI agent with a suggestion, not a send — or send from a client's own domain. Both still need a person, and the domain piece needs setup outside the platform.

Is it legal to route unhappy customers away from public review sites?

No — in the US it's a legal question before it's a platform-policy one. The FTC's rule on consumer reviews (16 CFR Part 465) prohibits soliciting reviews in a way designed to surface positive sentiment while suppressing negative sentiment, which is exactly what routing unhappy customers away from the public ask does. Google's own solicitation policy separately bans it too. It isn't a gray area to configure carefully — don't build it, and don't buy a tool that does.