Nationally, 47 percent of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 Google reviews, and 31 percent now require at least 4.5 stars before they will even call, according to BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey (published February 2026). For a contractor in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Maple Grove or anywhere in the Twin Cities metro bidding against three other companies on the same storm-damage roof or the same dock install, that is not a branding statistic. It is the line between getting the call and never being seen.
Run the free Peek AI visibility scan on your own business name and you will see the same gap from a different angle: what ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews say about you right now, built in part from the same review signal this article is about.
The real benchmark, not a round number
“Get more reviews” is advice every contractor has already heard. The useful question is how many, how recent, and at what rating, because BrightLocal’s 2026 data shows all three move the needle independently.
| Consumer behavior (BrightLocal, 2026) | Share of consumers | What it means for a contractor profile |
|---|---|---|
| Will only use a business with 5 or fewer reviews | 9% | A near-empty profile loses 9 out of 10 shoppers before they read a word |
| Will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews | 47% | 20 reviews is the real floor, not 5 |
| Will only use a business with 4 stars or higher | 68% | A 3.8 average quietly filters out two-thirds of calls |
| Will only use a business with 4.5 stars or higher | 31% | Rising fast, up from 17% the prior year |
| Only trust reviews written in the last 3 months | 74% | A great 2024 review carries little weight in 2026 |
Put together, the target for a Twin Cities contractor chasing both insurance-claim and sales leads is not “some reviews.” It is 20 or more, averaging 4.5 stars or better, with a visible stream of recent activity rather than a cluster from two years ago.
Reviews are also what the AI engines read first
BrightLocal’s same 2026 survey found that consumer use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools for local recommendations jumped from 6 percent to 45 percent in a single year, now the third most common way people find a local business, behind only Google and Facebook. When someone asks an AI assistant “who installs boat lifts near Lake Minnetonka” or “best roofer for hail damage in Maple Grove,” the model is reading the same review signal: count, recency, and rating consistency, pulled from your Google Business Profile and the handful of other sites it can see.
A contractor with 60 recent, consistent reviews and an accurate, well-structured Google Business Profile has a real shot at being the name an AI assistant actually says. A contractor with 8 reviews from 2023 usually does not come up at all, in the AI answer or in the 3-pack above it.
What this looks like on a real Twin Cities engagement
This is the exact gap we work inside with construction clients. For Tonka Built, the Lake Minnetonka dock and boat lift manufacturer, our work has focused on getting the on-page structure and sales and manufacturing content right so the business shows up correctly when a buyer researches before calling, with every piece going through the client’s own review and approval step before it ships. For Bison Builders, the Twin Cities storm-damage roofing and exterior restoration company, the same discipline applies to profile accuracy and local service-area content, because an insurance-claim customer researching “roofer near me after hail” is making a decision in a narrow window and the profile has to hold up to scrutiny the moment they land on it. Neither engagement is a guess about what might work. It is the structural work: accurate categories, consistent NAP data, service-area pages that match the real seven-county footprint, and content built to be read by both a homeowner and an AI model.
A simple response cadence that keeps the count moving
- Ask at the moment of completion, not a week later by email. A text sent at the final walkthrough converts far better than a delayed automated request.
- Respond to every review within a week. BrightLocal found 89 percent of consumers expect an owner response, and a templated or ignored review makes roughly half of shoppers less likely to choose you.
- Do not let the count go stale. With 74 percent of consumers only trusting reviews from the last three months, a profile that stopped collecting reviews in 2024 reads as inactive even if the business is thriving.
- Fix the GBP fields first. BrightLocal also found only 35 percent of small businesses nationally have a complete, claimed Google Business Profile, which is often the real reason a contractor is invisible before a single review is even counted.
Frequently asked questions
How many Google reviews does a contractor actually need to compete?
20 is the realistic floor for the Twin Cities market: 47 percent of consumers will not consider a business below that count. The stronger target is 20 to 50+ reviews averaging 4.5 stars, refreshed regularly rather than frozen at one total.
Does star rating matter more than review count?
Both matter, but rating has moved faster. In BrightLocal’s 2026 data, the share of consumers who will only use a 4.5+ star business rose from 17 percent to 31 percent in a single year. A contractor sitting at 4.1 stars with 80 reviews is now losing calls a 4.6-star business with 30 reviews is winning.
Do old reviews still help a contractor’s profile?
They help less than owners assume. 74 percent of consumers in the 2026 survey said they only trust reviews written in the last three months. A profile with 100 reviews but no activity since 2023 reads as stale to both shoppers and AI assistants summarizing local options.
How does this connect to showing up in ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews?
Generative AI tools now account for 45 percent of local recommendation sources, up from 6 percent a year earlier. These tools draw on the same review recency, volume and rating signal as human shoppers, so the review cadence that wins a phone call is the same cadence that gets a contractor mentioned by name in an AI answer.
What should a contractor fix first if their review profile is weak?
Claim and complete the Google Business Profile (categories, service area, hours, photos), then put a same-day review request into the completion workflow. Most contractors skip straight to “get more reviews” without fixing the profile fields the reviews actually attach to.
See where you stand before you guess
The fastest way to know whether your review count, recency and rating are actually working against you is to look at what the AI engines currently say about your business. Run the free Peek AI visibility scan and keep the report. If you want help turning the scan into a plan, book a 15-minute strategy call.
For the full picture on getting found by both buyers and AI assistants, see our GEO marketing service and construction marketing pages, or look at what this has looked like for other clients. Related reading: How to Choose a Construction Marketing Agency (2026) and Angi vs Google LSA for Contractors (2026).
