How to ask for reviews

The three rules that survive every platform

Whatever you send, and wherever you send it, three rules hold everywhere.

Ask everyone. Google's content policy says a merchant may not discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers. Trustpilot's invitation guidance says invitations should go to all customers. Screening people before you ask is the practice the FTC's rule was written for.

Offer nothing. Google says incentives in exchange for posting, changing or removing reviews are strictly prohibited. The FTC's rule bans compensation or incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment. A prize draw counts. So does free shipping.

Stay neutral in the wording. Trustpilot is the most explicit: an invitation must not be worded so that it encourages a positive review. That rules out the friendly version everyone writes first, which is some form of we hope you loved it.

What each platform says about asking

They do not agree, and the differences are worth knowing before you build one flow for all of them.

Trustpilot also sets who may write at all: its reviewer rules require the person to be over 18 and to have had the experience within the past 12 months. An invitation sent to a customer from two years ago is asking them to break a rule.

Yelp is the odd one out, so leave it off your request emails. Our guide to Yelp's own rules on reporting reviews quotes its rule against asking in full.

When to ask

After the experience is complete, and once, with at most one reminder.

For a product, that means after delivery plus enough days to have formed a view. For a subscription, after the first refill rather than the first order. For an appointment, the same day or the next.

The failure mode is asking too early, at the moment of purchase, when the customer is pleased with the checkout and has no idea whether the product works. Those reviews read as thin because they are, and they are the ones that get filtered.

The templates

Four of them, deliberately plain. Every extra sentence is a chance to break one of the three rules.

Email.

Subject: Your review of [brand]

Hello [first name],

You ordered [product] from us on [date]. If you have a few minutes, we would like your review, whatever it says.

[review link]

It takes about a minute, and it helps the next person decide.

[name], [brand]

Text message.

[Brand] here. Thanks for your order. Your honest review helps the next person decide: [review link]. Reply STOP to opt out.

Receipt, packing slip or card.

Tell people what you thought. Scan the code, or go to [short link].

End of a chat or a call.

One last thing, if you have a minute. We ask everyone for a review, good or bad. I can send you the link now.

Notice what is missing from all four. No stars mentioned, no request for a rating first, no hint of the answer you want, and nothing offered. The QR code for the printed version comes from your Business Profile, and our QR code generator turns that link into a file you can actually print.

A Google review template you can copy

A Google review template is the email above with one change: the link. Google lets you create a link or QR code to request reviews, from your Business Profile under Read reviews, then Get more reviews. That link opens the review form in one tap. Our guide to finding your Google review link shows each step.

Subject: How did we do, [first name]?

Hello [first name],

Thanks for choosing [brand]. If you have a minute, we would like your review on Google, good or bad.

[Google review link]

[name], [brand]

Send it to every customer, not only the happy ones. Google's content policy bans selectively asking for positive reviews. And offer nothing for it: Google's tips page calls a discount or gift in exchange for a review fake and misleading content.

What to do with the negative ones

You will get some. That is the point of asking everyone, and a profile of nothing but 5-star reviews reads as bought.

Reply to them. The reply is for the next reader, not the writer, and our review response generator builds a draft from written templates. For a health brand, do not confirm in public that the person was a patient or a customer.

Report the ones that break a rule. Only those come down, and the platform decides every case. Our guides to reporting a Google review and flagging on Trustpilot cover the grounds. If you would rather know first how many of yours qualify, that is what the free audit is for.

The two shortcuts that cost the most

Gating. Asking how someone feels, then sending only the pleased ones to the review link. It is banned by both platforms that allow asking, and the FTC wrote a rule about the practice. Our guide to review gating sets out exactly what the FTC does and does not say.

One note for health brands. The ask itself is public, so do not word it in a way that confirms what someone was treated for. Our page on hair loss, ED, TRT and HRT covers the categories where that matters most.

Buying. Paid reviews are detected, removed and, increasingly, published as a statistic. Trustpilot says it removed millions of reviews as fake in a single year, and Google says the same at a larger scale. Our page of online review statistics has both figures with the sources.

If a customer asks how, send them how a customer writes a Google review for a company.

This is the work behind our Trustpilot review removal service. You pay per removal, and the three packs and their prices are public.