Ask customers for reviews

You can ask a customer for a review by email, text or WhatsApp, or hand out a link or QR code. Every customer gets the same message and the same link, whatever they thought of you: by default it goes straight to your Google review page (or Facebook if only that is set). Nobody is asked whether they were happy before they are offered the public link.

Before you start

• Your Google review link and Facebook review link, if you want reviews there. Without them, reviews are written on your own review page.
• For text asks, a phone number under Settings › Channels. For WhatsApp asks, a connected WhatsApp number.

Steps: choose where reviews go

1. Open Sites and choose the Reviews tab, then the Settings tab inside it.
2. Under Where you want to be reviewed, paste your Google review link and, if you have one, your Facebook review link.
3. To send customers to your own review page first, switch on Open my review page first. That page shows your Google or Facebook button to everyone, next to a form for writing the review on your page. It changes the order only: nobody is kept from the public link.
4. With both links filled in, you can switch on Balance Google and Facebook to alternate between the two.
5. Set Automatic ask: days after a purchase or visit (0 to 90).
6. Press Save. The line beside it says where asks now link to.

Steps: ask somebody

1. On the Reviews tab, press Ask for a review.
2. Search your contacts by name or email and pick one, or type the name and email of somebody who is not a contact yet.
3. Choose how to send it: Email, Text or WhatsApp.
4. Press Send. You see "Sent. The link points to…" with where it goes.

Steps: share your review link or QR code

1. Open the Review link tab.
2. Copy the link under Where asks go now, and put it in your email signature or on a receipt.
3. For a counter card or a parcel insert, use the QR code: press Open full size to print.

What happens next

• The customer gets one short message asking for an honest review, good or bad, with your review link. The email also says they can reply if something went wrong, as well as, never instead of, reviewing you.
• On your own review page, everyone sees the same thing: your Google or Facebook button, and a form. Reviews written on the form arrive under Reviews, unpublished, so you read them first. See Publish reviews and reply to them.
• A review written through the link in your ask is marked Verified customer on your pages when the ask went to the customer's own email or number, and they paid through your checkout or booked a visit themselves on your booking page that you marked completed, before you asked. Orders and appointments you add yourself never count. A review anybody writes through your open review link has no label.
• The Requests tab lists every ask you sent by hand, how it went (email, text, WhatsApp or link) and where it pointed, with its status: Sent, Opened, Reviewed or Failed.
• The automatic ask after a purchase or visit runs from your workflows under Automations. It uses the same link and the same kind of words.
• Never offer a discount, gift or anything else in return for a review, and never ask only the customers you think are happy. Both are against the law in many places, and against Google's rules.

For agencies

Set up reviews inside each client with Sub-accounts › Open. Asks go out in the client's name, from the client's own channels.

Troubleshooting

Nobody answers my asks. Check the Requests tab. If they say Sent but never Opened, try another channel; a customer who only ever texts you may never open an email.

A text ask failed. Text asks need a phone number under Settings › Channels. Set one up and try again.

A WhatsApp ask failed. WhatsApp allows a free-form message only within 24 hours of the customer's last message to you. Send it by email or text instead.

Balance Google and Facebook is greyed out. It needs both review links filled in.

Can I send only happy customers to Google? No. Every customer is offered the same public link. Asking only the happy ones, or keeping unhappy ones away from your public page, is called review gating: Google does not allow it, and consumer law in the US, UK and EU treats it as misleading. Unhappy customers can still write to you directly, next to the public link.

An old ask asked "were you happy?". Asks sent before this change had two buttons. Whichever one the customer presses now, they see the same page with your public link and the form.

Related

• Publish reviews and reply to them
• Edit a page in the editor