Short answer
Connect ServiceM8 to Ratings Rocket once, using your ServiceM8 API key. From then on, when a job is marked Completed, Ratings Rocket picks up the customer’s name, mobile and email from ServiceM8 and queues a Google review request. The text goes out about a day later, only between 9am and 7pm, with a direct link to your Google review form. Nothing to remember after each job.
What you need
- A ServiceM8 account with your jobs and clients in it.
- A Ratings Rocket account. The ServiceM8 connection is on every plan, including the 30-day free trial.
- The owner login for Ratings Rocket. Only the business owner can connect or disconnect ServiceM8.
- An API key from your ServiceM8 account. It’s a private code that lets Ratings Rocket read your jobs, so keep it to yourself like a password.
Setting it up
- Sign up and find your Google listing, so Ratings Rocket knows where to send customers.
- In your Ratings Rocket dashboard, go to Settings, then ServiceM8.
- Paste your ServiceM8 API key and connect.
- Check the connection shows Connected. That’s it.
What happens when you finish a job
- You mark the job Completed in ServiceM8, the way you already do.
- ServiceM8 tells Ratings Rocket. Ratings Rocket looks up the client on that job and takes their first name, mobile and email.
- A review request is queued for about 24 hours later.
- The text goes out from you, by name, only between 9am and 7pm in your time zone. The link opens your Google review form straight away.
- If no review has come in two days later, the customer gets one reminder. On the default setting (text first, then email) that reminder is an email; a second text only goes out if you’ve turned that on.
Here’s what the customer gets:
Hi Sarah, it’s Mick from Bayside Pipe Co. Thanks for choosing us. Would you mind leaving us a quick Google review? It helps other locals find us.
ratingsrocket.com.au/r/a9K2x7Qm1Z
Reply STOP to opt out.
What it won’t do
The automation has checks built in so it doesn’t embarrass you:
- No double texts for one job. If a job is flipped back to In Progress and completed again, it isn’t asked twice.
- No asking the same customer twice in 14 days, even across different jobs.
- No texts to anyone who has replied STOP. Opt-outs are processed automatically, and checked again right before each send.
- No texts to a landline or a number that isn’t an Australian mobile. If the client has an email and you allow email, the request goes by email instead.
- No sending past your plan’s monthly limit, or after your subscription has lapsed.
- No filtering. Every completed job gets the same ask and the same Google link, which is what Google’s rules require.
Don’t use ServiceM8?
You can still send a review request from your phone in about 10 seconds. On Pro and Bundle you can upload a list of past customers in one go, and Bundle includes custom triggers and API access for other job software. See pricing for what each plan includes, and is it legal to text customers for a review for the rules behind every text.