How to ask for reviews without breaking the rules

Asking customers for reviews is allowed and normal. Paying for them is not. The line between the two is narrower than most businesses assume, and Google draws it in a different place from the ACCC.

What Google bans outright

Google prohibits offering anything in exchange for a review. That covers discounts, free items, gift cards and entry into a prize draw. Google scans review text for language suggesting the reviewer was compensated, and the consequences land on you rather than the customer: reviews get removed, and a warning banner can appear on your public business profile.

Google also bans review gating. That is the practice of screening customers first, sending the happy ones to Google and quietly routing the unhappy ones to a private feedback form. Even though every individual review is real, the overall rating is distorted, so Google treats it as a breach.

What Google allows

Asking is fine. The conditions are straightforward:

• Ask every customer, not a filtered selection.
• Do not mention a reward.
• Send people to a neutral link that lets them say whatever they think.

A card on the counter, a stand by the till or a QR code on an invoice all sit comfortably inside that, because they are offered to everyone who walks past and they lead straight to your listing without any screening step.

Where Australian law differs

Australian Consumer Law is not identical to Google policy, and it is worth knowing both.

The ACCC does permit incentivised reviews, but only under two conditions. The incentive has to be offered regardless of whether the review turns out positive or negative, and it has to be clearly disclosed so readers know the review was incentivised.

The ACCC is also explicit that suppressing or editing genuine negative reviews is misleading conduct, as is publishing reviews written by family, employees or anyone paid by the business without disclosing the connection, or reviews from people who never used the product.

The practical upshot

Google is stricter than the law here. The ACCC would let you run a disclosed prize draw open to everyone who reviews; Google would still strip those reviews and flag your profile.

So if Google reviews are what you are collecting, follow Google. It is the tighter of the two standards, and meeting it means you meet the ACCC as well.

What good practice looks like

• Ask everyone, the same way, at the same point in the visit.
• Make it easy rather than make it worth their while. Removing friction is allowed; paying is not.
• Never split customers into happy and unhappy before deciding who gets the link.
• Reply to negative reviews rather than trying to remove them. A calm public reply usually reads better to the next customer than a clean sheet of five stars.
• If someone is unhappy, fix it because that is the job, not as a trade for changing their rating.

Why we build it this way

Every product we sell drops the customer on your live listing with nothing in between. There is no screening step, no feedback funnel and no way to route anyone anywhere. That is deliberate. It is also why we will not add one if asked.

Sources

• ACCC, Online reviews for products and services
• Google, prohibited and restricted content for Business Profile reviews

General information, not legal advice. If a specific campaign matters to your business, check it with someone qualified.