Asking Customers for Reviews: What Google and the FTC Allow

Asking customers for reviews is allowed, and Google encourages it. What gets businesses into trouble is how they ask. This guide sets out what Google's policies and the FTC's review rule say, using their own wording, so you can build an ask that stays inside them. It is general information, not legal advice. For the wider context, see the contractor's guide to reviews.

What You Can Do

Google's Business Profile Help says: "To leave reviews, you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code." Customers must be signed into a Google account to leave a review, which they can set up with a non-Gmail email address (Google Business Profile Help).

Google's Maps content policy describes acceptable asking this way: you may "solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review" (Google Maps policy). In practice that means asking customers for an honest review and giving them an easy way to leave it.

What Google Prohibits

The same policy lists behavior that breaks the rules. These are its words:

• Offering incentives, such as payment, discounts, or free goods or services, in exchange for posting a review, or for revising or removing a negative one.
• Trying to "discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers."
• Content "based on a conflict of interest," which Google says may include current or former employment or a contractual relationship.

Google's Business Profile Help repeats the incentive rule and says such offers are considered fake and misleading content and are strictly prohibited. Note that this covers offers to change or remove a review too, not just to write one.

What the FTC Adds

The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule went into effect on October 21, 2024. From the FTC's questions and answers for businesses:

• It prohibits creating, buying, or spreading fake or false consumer reviews.
• It prohibits conditioning a review incentive on the review expressing a particular sentiment. The FTC says the rule does not prohibit incentives as long as there isn't an express or implied requirement about sentiment.
• It prohibits using false accusations, physical threats, or intimidation to remove negative reviews, and hiding unfavorable reviews.
• Company insiders who post testimonials must clearly and conspicuously disclose their relationship.

Google's rule is stricter than the FTC's on one point. The FTC does not ban incentives outright, but Google's policy prohibits them for reviews on Google. Follow the stricter rule for anything you want posted on your profile.

Asks to Avoid

• "Leave us five stars." It attempts to influence the rating, which Google's policy rules out.
• "Only leave a review if you were happy." It selectively solicits positive reviews.
• A discount or free service for reviewing. Google prohibits it, and it is the exact example the policy uses.
• Reviews from your own crew or family. Google treats a current or former employment relationship as a conflict of interest.
• A deal to remove a negative review. Google prohibits offering incentives for removal, and the FTC prohibits using threats or false accusations to get one removed.

If a customer tells you something went wrong, fix it. Nothing in the policies stops you from inviting that customer to share their honest experience afterward. What you can't do is steer unhappy customers away from reviewing while steering happy ones toward it.

A Simple Ask That Stays Inside the Rules

Send the same message to every customer, with the same link. For example:

• "Thanks for choosing us today. If you have a minute, an honest review helps other homeowners find us: [your Google review link]"

That message offers nothing in return, doesn't mention a rating, and doesn't filter recipients. Sending it soon after the job is our suggestion, not a Google requirement. The point of doing it soon is that details are fresh, which tends to produce a more specific review.

Before You Send Anything

• Get your review link or QR code from your Business Profile, following the steps in Google's help pages.
• Decide who sends the ask and make it a routine after each job, so nobody is choosing who to ask.
• Keep a record of when and how you ask, in case you ever need to show that everyone gets the same message.

Once reviews start arriving, the Google Business Profile playbook covers how they fit into the rest of your profile.

Related Guides

• The Contractor's Guide to Reviews That Actually Convert