Handle The Sh!T

#6 - Get The Damn Reviews - The Septic Business Growth Hack You're Ignoring with Heidi Hooker

• Tanya Wilson & The Crew at HomeField East Valley • Episode 6

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📍 OVERVIEW

In this episode of Handle The Sh!T!, Tanya Wilson teams up with HomeField East Valley’s Marketing Director, Heidi Hooker, to talk about one of the most powerful (and underused) tools in the septic and wastewater business: customer reviews.

We cover everything from why asking for feedback feels awkward, to how to automate your review process, to handling those dreaded one-star slams with professionalism and grit. You’ll hear real examples from the trenches — the wins, the clap-backs, and how HomeField built more Google reviews in eight years than companies 5x their age.

If you’ve been sleeping on your review strategy, this is your wake-up call.

🧠 TOPICS WE COVER

  • Why reviews are non-negotiable for septic business growth
  • How to automate your review requests without being annoying
  • Responding to one-star reviews like a pro (and turning haters into believers)
  • Using reviews as a team morale booster and marketing gold
  • Why Google reviews beat Facebook, Yelp, and BBB for SEO impact

✨ 5 THINGS YOU’LL LEARN

  1. The #1 reason most septic companies fail at getting reviews
  2. How automation tools like Podium make it easy to ask every customer
  3. Why bad reviews aren’t the end of the world — and how to respond
  4. How to incentivize your team to ask for and earn reviews
  5. Ways to repurpose great reviews into ongoing marketing content

🔗 RESOURCES & LINKS

🎧 Thanks for Listening to Handle The Sh!T!

If today’s episode fired you up or hit home, send it to someone in the field who needs to hear it.
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🔗 Connect With Us:

🌐 Website: HomeFieldEastValley.com
📸 Instagram: @HomeFieldEastValley
📘 Facebook: @HomeFieldEastValley
🎵 TikTok: @WeDoEpicShit
🎥 YouTube: @homefieldeastvalley
🐦 X (Twitter): @HomeFieldEastValley
💼 LinkedIn: Tanya Merritt Wilson
📧 Email: Tanya@homefieldonsite.com

Handle The Sh!T! is powered by HomeField East Valley — where septic gets done right, and business gets handled.

#HandleTheShitPodcast #HomeFieldEastValley #SepticStrong #WastewaterWarriors #TradesTalk #WeDoEpicShit

Tanya (00:02.798)
Welcome back to another episode of Handle the Shit. I'm Tanya Wilson and today I have my marketing director, Heidi Hooker with us. We are gonna talk all about how important it is to get reviews for your septic business. We all know we should get them, but for some reason, a lot of people have a really hard time either asking for them, they don't know how to set up automations for it, they really feel creepy or weird about

So we're going to talk and address about all those things and why it's so incredibly important if you ask every customer those little one star reviews, because we all know for human we're going to get them. They don't hurt so much. So Heidi, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. So excited. Tell me a little bit. Tell our audience a little bit about what you do here at Home Field Nice Valley as far as your marketing position here.

And then little intro, if you will. And then we'll just jump into and have a conversation about why it's so important for septic companies to ask for reviews and how to do that.

Sure. So as she said, I'm Heidi, I am the marketing director. So I've got my hands in a little bit of everything. Of course, we do social media, which is huge. We'll get into that later. That's a whole nother episode. But the importance of social media review is as she said, I do a lot of behind the scenes, which would just had our awesome photo shoot today. But

Gosh, it's gonna be so good.

Heidi (01:35.852)
Yeah, it's to do with everything that and what this brand represents and really telling a story for Home Field. People don't want to just see, we're Home Field, that's great. They wanna see the people behind the scenes. They wanna see faces. They wanna get to know you. And like you've heard Tim say, you know, so much, we're like a family here and it's so true.

So I think just, you know, portraying who we are and just telling people what we do, but having fun in the industry. You know, a lot of people are like, well, what's marketing for a septic company?

Yeah, like what do you even do? Yeah.

Well, yeah, I talk about shit. handle the shit, but it's so fun to see, you know, the personalities come through the different things that we have going on here are goals. You know, we're people too. It's not like Tanya said, it's not just an industry that we fall into because there was nothing better for us. Like, hell yeah. I want to market for a septic company. This is something that no one's doing. And there's so many people that have that misconception of what it is, you know, the industry, you know, the guys come to your house, he pumps or shit and he takes off like,

No, it's so much more to it than that. We're all about education, customer education. We want them to understand what's going on, why we're doing something and have fun with it because like, you know, there's shitty jobs and we got to do them. You know, someone has to do it. So why not have fun with it?

Tanya (02:56.15)
shitty jobs are good jobs because there's never going to be a lack of shit. Period. Period. Period. Well, let's dive into a little bit about why we work so hard to get reviews. We are one of the younger septic companies in the Valley. We've been around almost eight years in July. Isn't that crazy? I can't believe it. Super, super cool.

Everyone shits.

Heidi (03:19.95)
Exciting.

Tanya (03:24.33)
We have more reviews by at least two times now of companies that have been around for 40 years. Why do you think that is?

The biggest thing automation and not being afraid to ask for those reviews, which it's hard sometimes you're like, well, you're just kind of think, well, I'm tootin' my own horn all the time. Well, you should, if you're doing a good job, let's talk about it. So I think the biggest thing is the guys getting to know the customers and leaving a card with them. Hey, I'd really love it if you could leave a review if you're happy with my service, but.

I don't think we have to say if you're happy with my service, we know what's going on when we're at those jobs because we care so much. So it's automating it, which super simple. We use Podium. get the job gets finished and that communicates with our system that we use and it sends them that review invite. It's just a quick, simple, hey, 30 seconds. Will you take your time? Quick review this, but you have to make it so simple. Set it up for people where all they got to do is click the button, leave you that quick review. And as we know, so many people

book us because they're like, Hey, we saw your good reviews. Yeah. And I mean, that's what you need to do to spread the word. And it helps on so many levels. People feel confident with your business. They want to use you because they understand that you're knowledgeable. And I feel like as we grow and have, you know, come into home field and everything, it's super important coming into a rebrand too. So then you spread the word and it also helps talk to Google and you know, get to know who home field is.

Yeah. Reviews, speaking of Google, reviews are a very, very important part of SEO for your business. And I don't just say just for your website, because I'm talking about your Google business profile, formerly known as, what was it called? GMB. Yeah. Google my Google, business or something. Google business profile. So if you see GBP now, that's what that means. It's the new GMB.

Tanya (05:23.242)
Anyways, when you have stellar reviews and a shit ton of them, obviously Google is going to be like, wow, these guys must be doing something really great. And it will rank you higher than people that are closer to you in that map pack for sure. It really does play on the backside of things. Important with that as well is responding to those reviews.

So whether it's a one-star review, which I mean, we're all human, things happen. just, unfortunately, can't please everyone. But I think it also shows a level of maturity and it looks good from a business and a consumer standpoint if you respond to that professionally. And it also kind of sometimes will take out the bad that gets put in it because people are like, well, they handle that very professionally or it shows that we try to make it right.

And unfortunately, we just in the end didn't please that person. But then those are in our people then. We move on, we did the best we could, but it's also a learning experience for us at the same time.

it's you know sometimes people will set it up if they're on an automation for reviews that only four or five star reviews post right like to different areas here's the thing like if they want to go to Google and leave you a bad review they're probably not even using the link that you sent them in the first place they're gonna beat you to it because they're mad about something that happened there whether the septic inspection didn't come out right whether you know

Maybe you were running a little bit behind schedule. Maybe they misunderstood what was price quoted to them. You know, there's a variety of different reasons why. And sometimes people are just assholes. I mean, I don't mean to be rude, but sometimes they just are, you know? Sometimes it's just like there's nothing you can do to please them. I'm sure Tim and I will do a whole entire episode on that because Tim gets to go behind all of these. When...

Tanya (07:20.322)
We get a one-star review. That is something that we super, super take to heart. Let's understand. Let's talk to them. Tim, the service manager is calling them right away. I typically respond to those reviews as the owner of the business because it shows them that this was escalated quickly somewhere else. Sometimes you'll get those reviews that many times hours have been, well, they didn't pass the inspection and I think they should have.

Yeah

It can't help that you're going to have people that are mad that they waited until the last second to get the septic inspection for a sale transfer and shit happened. Now they got to replace the system because they think because it flushed, it should work. Meanwhile, there's a tree living inside of the tank, right? Or there's a hole in it. So you will get those like that. Sometimes it doesn't matter how manicured and how much care you take. There's a line in the seam of the grass and now they're frustrated with things.

There is a level of expectation, obviously, but we've even had some of them come in that are just blatantly crazy. And I want to talk about these for a minute because these tend to be the ones that people don't, or the reasons why people don't want to ask customers for reviews is that they're afraid they're going to get something like this. We've had reviews before that they just personally attacked one of my technicians, like,

just kept naming his name the entire time through the review. What he was saying was complete and utter slander against this technician. And it was just heartbreaking to even read that because this again was a real estate transaction that did not go well. They were unable to find the tank. It was a very, very old property. This guy is like a ninja at finding tanks. So if he couldn't find it, there was a big issue.

Tanya (09:13.196)
Always offer, know, we've got to run a camera, we've got to do something else, we've got to be able to locate this. We just can't do it right now. But being able to take to Google and be really diplomatic in the way that you respond. But if people are like literally assholes to you on that review, here's my advice for you. Take that review that you have.

copy that sucker, put it into ChatGPT, if you don't know what that is, there'll be a million episodes on this too, on how it will help your business, go into ChatGPT's AI, post the review, and then give them context about what actually happened at the job site, like type it into ChatGPT, and say, please write me a response for this. You can even tell it to talk in a certain tone, you can even have it come back, sometimes you're like, mm, that's.

like could you be firm but fair? That's my favorite cue to put in. Please respond to this firm but fair. Don't be a pushover because they're not very nice. However, I need to respond to this as the business owner. The more detailed you get, the better the response will be. That guy literally went in and took the review down because the response back was such a clap back, but it was a respectful clap.

It was very respectful and I totally remember that and I just it was amazing to see you know the professionalism and the way you responded and knowing also that you had our backs because you know Justin would never treat our customers like this and now he's like one of the top rated guys on our team so it's like I don't know who pissed in your Cheerios this morning but it definitely was not Justin. Yes.

So he had that down with him, I would say probably five minutes he took his review down because he knows that we were firm, we called him out on it and this is our livelihood. Like, don't take to that lightly.

Tanya (11:05.526)
No, not at all. And you know what, just being able to respond in that way when a technician was so falsely accused of doing such vile things really built, I feel like a lot of rapport between me and him too. Like that's really meaningful when you as the business owner will

have your technicians backs. And I feel like if you have trained them well and you have great people on your team, you should have zero problem ever backing up your technicians. Another reason why it's so important to have great people on your team. Because I feel like everybody's out there to try to help and do their very best. So it's very simple to be able to say, look, you know, this is what happened. But of course, have the conversation with your technician.

exactly.

Tanya (11:56.526)
respond, but never ever ever let those just go unanswered. We've had reviews before in the way that I answered them that people have actually said, I read through your reviews. I saw that you had some one starts, but I really liked the way that you responded to them. It was very professional. So even little things like that, you just never know what people are looking at. You know, if you've got, what do we have now? I knew she knew because she tallies us every day. So 471 as of this morning,

171 as of this morning.

Tanya (12:26.296)
We're at a 4.9. So if you look at the little scale on Google and you're like, there's like a little tiny, like once there's more once than there are two threes and fours. So it's either you're pissed off or you had a great experience. It's kind of those. And then you'll have the fours because some people just refuse to give people five stars for things. They'll be like, fantastic service, four stars. Yeah. Don't get butthurt about the four stars. You know, it's one of those things.

But the more reviews that you have, the less of an impact that those negative ones will have on your score, right? Yeah, it's super, super important. tell everybody why you have directed all of our reviews to go to Google versus recommendations on Facebook, the BBB, Yelp, all those things.

So I really think that, you know, a review is good anywhere, of course, like you want to take those, you want to be appreciative. But Google is like way up here in the world of SEO. And you got to look at it also, too. It's pretty much like free advertising, you know, for your business. So you're going to rank higher in the organic searches. It's going to save you money in the long run.

Of course, you're gonna get jobs from that and it'll also help you in those circumstances where you do have a shitty review and you respond professionally to it. It boosts morale around here, because you can say, I'll take some screenshots of some really good ones that come through, put them in our chat channel. And the guys are like, sweet. It gives them that little bit of extra boost. So I think overall, it's just amazing to have reviews for so many reasons like those.

Yeah. Now I know there are owners that may be listening to this and you're like, yeah, yeah, that's great and all, but my technicians, they're never going to ask for reviews. What would you say to them?

Heidi (14:23.362)
I think it would be great if everybody, would actually challenge you to ask your technicians, hey, here's some cards. Like we make our guys great business cards. We give that to them so they can pass those out, spread the word about what we do. But then you hand that over to the customer at the end of a job and it's just, it's a good interaction. It keeps your customers coming back. And I just really challenge you to get your technicians to get involved in it.

take some pride, take some sense of responsibility. And it's almost like ownership in a way that I did that job and look at this review that I got for us. I just say, do it. Just handle the shit.

think it's great. And I also think that if you are in any kind of position, which I think you should implement this from technician number one, that if reviews come in where they are named in the reviews, I pay everyone on my team 50 bucks, which I got a list I got to go through. But Heidi keeps a list of those for me of all of the reviews that come in so that we know who the customer is. We know who the technician was that was on site.

or the people in the office because they are often named at great professionalism, super easy to schedule, know, Lauren's very knowledgeable. Twyla was very sweet. Like people, Tim gets ones that come in. It's not just the service technicians. It's literally everybody on the team, which is really, really cool.

That's also great for Testimonial Tuesday. Put that into a Canva template, make it Testimonial Tuesday each week there. Bam, you got a real too.

Tanya (15:59.63)
Hey, look at this. I'm just gonna teach you all kinds of stuff. There's multiple reasons why you want to have those. And we mentioned Podium, which is a program that we use. I'll put a link for that program in the show notes. I have a couple other suggestions for you as well. I'll also link those in the show notes. But this is a great program where you can actually set it up and it sends out campaign style, three different messages to the customer.

to please leave us a review. The first one's right after the job is done. We use House Call Pro. So it's right after the job is done, a text goes out and then it follows up with an email. And then I believe it's a secondary text that goes back out after that. Now at any point in time, if they leave a review, it won't continue to keep asking them. So it opts them out of the funnel. So it's really important to do that because the majority of our reviews that come in are from

that second email or that second text.

Yep, they need that little extra nudge sometimes.

Sometimes they need the nudge sometimes they're still in the moment of what's going on like job just got done I'm hurrying and doing something else because I've been busy doing this so it is really nice to do that whenever I get those two sometimes I'm like, yeah, let me do that later and then I forget Yeah, and then if I will prompt it again, I probably would go back and do them So it's not being annoying to your customer to ask them how the service was and this is something you can even tie into

Tanya (17:30.39)
a survey for people that haven't responded via a review and just ask them, how do you feel about Homefield East Valley? How do you feel about Turner Septic or whatever the septic company is? How do you feel about it? Where could we do and make improvements, different things like that? think anything with customer feedback is just really, really important and you want to make sure that you utilize that as much as possible.

So if you have one piece of advice for the person that's listening to this, when they're like, shit, I need to get on this reviews game. I really need to get my stuff set up. I really need to be able to do this. What's one step one for them to start doing this that you think is the best thing they can do to start generating great reviews?

I think it's just having to come up with a plan, okay? And a goal, I think too, like on our goal board for the year, we're gonna be like, okay, I wanna get this many reviews. Sometimes it seems crazy. We're like, we're never gonna get there. And look, every time we're able to rip that down. We do. But I think it's just a matter of implementing it, of course, but sticking to it. I think that's the biggest thing. People get excited, they'll start getting the reviews rolling in and it keeps the momentum going for a while. And then they're just like, yeah, whatever.

So I really think it's just finding whoever you want to use, Podium, whoever to send your text, and just implementing it and sticking to it and get everybody involved, of course.

Don't make it, that'd be nice, make it a standard. Like our technicians are evaluated on their reviews that come in. Like it's just not okay if none of them are getting reviews. If none of you are getting reviews and we're asking everybody, I'm questioning your level of service while you're out there.

Tanya (19:15.702)
at the level that we are getting them coming in now. Holy shit. it's Isaac was great and Justin was great and Seth was great and, and Twilight and Lauren and everybody is getting reviews like crazy. If you have somebody on your team that's not generating them or isn't asking or isn't doing things, you know, that's, that's a coaching moment for you to be able to have inside of the business. Maybe you're not ready for automations yet. You need something a little less expensive. Maybe you're not looking for software for that.

At least get a QR code made that you can print on a $20 business card. Have them get out and be able to send it to your customers. Even if it's a follow-up email. I mean, that's completely free. That it's something that's done inside of your office that is just a, hey, thank you so much for your business. We'd love it if you could leave a review. It's a very simple email template that you could even send out to anybody for that.

Yeah, or that you could

Tanya (20:12.088)
There's a variety of different reasons. There's a variety of different ways. It's really just having the want to, be able to generate those reviews. And it will be evergreen marketing material for you to use forever. Eight out of 10 people, even recommended by a friend or family member, will go online and check the reviews before they make the call to the service company that was referred to them. That's a big damn deal. Like it's huge. And it's not, the days are gone of like,

I just get by with word of mouth because how many people even know their neighbors anymore? I get it's different all over the country, but you're talking to people that are 20 or something year old that are buying homes with septic and people that are 90, a hundred years old that still live on them. know, so you've really got to be able to hit all of those little areas and anything that anybody that's 60 and below are definitely looking at reviews before they hire a company.

No one talks to me.

Tanya (21:09.506)
So make sure your Google business profile looks great and professional. You're getting those reviews. You have great photos of your team, who's behind the scenes, and your logo and your trucks and everything that they can expect as part of that world-class service that you're going to be able to offer them.

Exactly, they want to know who's coming to know their house.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast Heidi and until next time keep handling the shit