Getting more Google reviews, within the rules

Google’s policy is specific on two points that trip up a lot of trade businesses: you cannot filter who gets asked to review you based on how happy they seem, and you cannot offer anything — a discount, a prize entry, a freebie — in exchange for one. Google can remove reviews that break either rule and can restrict the profile they sit on, and in Australia the ACCC treats misleading reviews as a consumer law problem as well. Everything below sits inside those two lines.

The two rules that actually matter

Review gating — asking customers to rate you privately first and only sending happy ones to Google — is against Google’s policy, because it manufactures a rating that is not representative. Incentivised reviews — a discount, a giveaway entry, anything of value offered for leaving one — are also against policy, whether or not the review has to be positive to qualify. Both are worth knowing precisely, because the honest version of asking for reviews is still highly effective, and it is the version worth building a habit around.

Ask everyone, the same way, every time

The safe and effective version is simple: ask every customer, not a filtered subset, and ask the same way regardless of how the job went. Build it into the end of the job as a step, not a decision you make about who seemed satisfied. This is also just a better system — the customers you would have been tempted to skip are often the ones with the most specific, most useful reviews to leave.

Ask at the moment the customer is happiest

That moment is when you finish the job, not a follow-up email a week later when the relief has faded and the invoice has arrived. If you can ask in person and follow it with a text containing the direct link, you will get a noticeably higher response than an email sent from the office that afternoon. The direct link matters more than it sounds — every extra step between the ask and the review loses people.

Ask for something specific, not just a rating

“Would you mind mentioning the job was in Ellenbrook?” produces a review containing the words a future customer actually searches for, which does more for you than a bare five stars. This is not manipulating the review — you are asking someone to describe their own experience in their own words, just prompting them toward the details that are useful rather than leaving it entirely open.

Make it genuinely easy

• Text the direct review link rather than asking someone to search for you.
• A QR code on the invoice or the van works for the customer who would rather scan than type.
• Do not make the review the only path to something else — a discount code that only works after leaving a review is the incentivised-review problem by another name.

Reply to all of them, including the bad ones

A profile with only five-star reviews and no replies tells a prospective customer less than one that answers a complaint properly in public. Replying is not against any policy and it is one of the few parts of this that is entirely within your control after the fact — a calm, specific reply to a bad review does more to reassure the next customer than deleting the memory of it ever could, because you cannot delete it anyway.

What to avoid, plainly

• Sorting customers before asking. A private “how did we do?” step that only forwards happy answers to Google is review gating, however friendly the wording.
• Offering anything for a review. A discount, a prize draw entry, a free callout — regardless of whether the review has to be positive to qualify.
• Writing or editing a review for someone. Even with good intentions, it is not their words.
• A second profile at the same address. A common way businesses try to dilute a bad run of reviews, and a common suspension trigger.

If a review is fake or clearly wrong

You can flag a review to Google for removal if it is not from a genuine customer, is abusive, or is obviously posted by a competitor. It is not guaranteed and it is not fast, but it is the correct channel — responding publicly and calmly in the meantime does more for anyone reading it than an angry reply would.

This is one part of what our Google Business Profile management does on an ongoing basis, and you can see how we handle our own reviews — including the honest advice on reading anyone’s, ours included — on our reviews page.

John Ocello

Founder, PC Madness Web Services, Midland WA