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How long until you catch the tradie above you?
Reviews are the single cheapest thing most trades are losing on, and the maths is simple enough to do in your head — which is exactly why nobody does it.
Your review gap, in months
Assumes the leader keeps collecting at their current pace. A 25% ask rate is what a QR code on the invoice typically gets — it is not a promise, it is a starting point you can measure against.
Why this one matters more than it looks
The map pack loads before your website does. Three pins, and the one with recent reviews and owner replies gets the call. It is the cheapest signal on the list and the one most trades ignore, because asking feels awkward.
The gap almost never closes by accident. If the business above you is collecting four a month and you are collecting two, the distance grows while you are standing still.
What actually moves it
Asking every customer, at the moment the job is done, with something they can scan. Not an email three days later.
And replying. Every review, briefly, in your own words. It is the fastest signal to fix and the one that shows a business is still trading and still cares.
We do not write reviews, coach what they say, or gate who gets asked. All three are against Google’s policy and all three get profiles suspended.
What the count doesn’t tell you
The gap in numbers is the easy half. Three other things decide whether the map pack sends you the call, and not one of them is on a slider.
Recency. Forty reviews where the newest is from 2023 reads worse than twelve from this year. Most people scroll to the date before they read a word of it.
Replies. A profile where the owner answers every review — including the three-star one, briefly, without arguing — is the clearest signal that a business is still trading and still cares. It costs nothing and almost nobody does it.
The average, in context. A 4.7 across two hundred beats a 5.0 across nine, every time. Nine perfect reviews look like the ones your cousin left. Chasing a spotless average is the wrong target; volume, with the odd honest four-star in it, is the right one.
And closing the gap does not automatically mean overtaking. How close you are to the person searching, and which category you have picked, still do most of the sorting. What reviews decide is which of the three pins gets tapped once the map has chosen them — which is the part you can actually change.
Want the real numbers instead of sliders?
The map and review audit pulls your actual count, recency and reply rate against the eight nearest competitors, on the day you run it.
Run the audit