Ask every client for a review, not only the happy ones, within a couple of days of finishing the work, with one direct link and no reward attached to the review. Ask for referrals in a separate message, where a thank you gift is fine, and answer a bad review briefly in public before fixing the problem in private.
When should you ask for a review?
Ask within 48 hours of finishing the work, while the client still remembers the details and the feeling. Enthusiasm fades quickly once the client's attention moves to the next thing in their life, and a request three weeks later competes with everything else in their inbox.
The right moment to ask for a review depends on the shape of the service:
- Event work (photography, catering, DJ, florals, officiants, venues): within two days of the event. Mention one specific moment you noticed, such as a toast that made the room laugh or a dish guests asked about.
- Ongoing work (doulas, coaches, tutors, virtual assistants): at a natural milestone, such as the end of a package, a finished term, or a result the client tells you about.
- Long projects (wedding planning): after delivery, when the client can judge the whole job rather than the first month of it.
What do Google and Yelp allow?
Google allows you to ask for reviews; Yelp asks you not to. That difference decides where your review link points.
Google lets a business ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code to leave a review, and the same page says that offering incentives in exchange for posting, changing or removing reviews is prohibited. Google's Maps content policy adds two rules many vendors break without knowing it: a merchant must not selectively solicit positive reviews from customers, and should not request that specific content be included in a review. Asking only the clients you know were delighted, or suggesting what they should write, both run against that policy.
Yelp goes further than Google. Its support page titled Don't Ask for Reviews tells businesses not to ask anyone for a review and warns that proactively asking may hurt your rating, because Yelp's software may not recommend reviews that seem prompted by the business. So a request that points at Yelp can backfire even when the client is happy. Point requests at Google, or at a platform whose published rules allow requests, and let Yelp reviews arrive on their own.
What does federal law say about reviews?
Federal law bars paying for a particular kind of review and bars contracts that silence reviewers. Three rules matter most to a small service business.
The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, makes it unlawful to offer compensation or other incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, positive or negative. The same rule bars using an unfounded legal threat or intimidation to stop or remove a review.
The FTC's Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR 255.2(d), say that in procuring or suppressing reviews, advertisers should not take actions that distort what customers think, whether or not the reviews count as endorsements. Asking only the happy clients sits uncomfortably close to that line.
The Consumer Review Fairness Act, 15 U.S.C. 45b, makes a clause in a form contract void when it prohibits or restricts a client's review or imposes a fee for one. A "no negative reviews" line in your standard client agreement does not protect you: it is void from the start, and the same section makes it unlawful to offer a form contract that contains one. Leave it out of your client contract templates entirely.
Write the request so it is easy to say yes
Personal review requests get answered; generic ones get archived. Build each one from four parts:
- Specific thanks. Name the job and one detail: "Thank you for trusting me with your mother's 70th birthday dinner."
- The place, not the words. Name the platform and give the direct link, so the client never has to search. Do not suggest what to write.
- Honesty welcome. "Whatever you thought of it, an honest review helps other families decide." That line keeps the request even handed, and it means you can send it to every client.
- Nothing attached. No discount, no entry into a draw, no credit for a review.
Keep the review request template short enough to personalize in a minute. Sending it to every client, on a schedule, is what turns reviews from luck into a habit.
Keep referral rewards separate from reviews
Referral rewards are a different thing from review incentives, and keeping them apart keeps both clean. A referral is a client sending you a new customer; thanking them with a $50 credit or a gift card when that customer books is a normal business courtesy. The risk comes from blending: a single message that says "leave a review and refer a friend for $50 off" can read as paying for the review.
Send the referral note on its own, about a week after the review request. Make the terms concrete ("when someone books and mentions your name, I'll send you a $50 gift card"), ask every new client how they heard about you, keep a simple record of who referred whom, and pay the reward promptly. A referrer who has to chase a promised gift stops referring.
Answer a bad review briefly, then fix it privately
A bad review will arrive eventually, and your reply is read by far more people than the review's author. Wait until you are calm, often a day, then reply in public. Google's own guidance on replying to reviews covers the essentials: never share a reviewer's private information or attack them, apologize where it fits, explain what you can and cannot control, and ask the reviewer to contact you to resolve it privately.
Keep the public reply to a bad review to a few sentences. Then call or email the client, listen, and offer a remedy if one is fair. Google notes that customers can still change their review after reading your reply, and some do once the problem is fixed. Never make a refund or a gift conditional on editing or removing the review: Google treats that as a prohibited incentive, and the FTC rule above covers it as well.
Worked example: a florist's two weeks after a wedding
A florist finishes a Saturday wedding. Here is the whole sequence.
Saturday, at the venue. A short in person thank you to the couple's parent who handled the vendors.
Monday morning, the review request (sent to the couple, as it is to every client):
Hi [name], thank you for letting me do the flowers for your wedding. The ceremony arch in the late afternoon light is a picture I'll keep. If you have a minute, an honest review on Google helps other couples decide: [your Google review link]. Whatever you thought, I'd value hearing it.
The following Monday, the referral note:
If friends ask who did your flowers, I'd love to help them too. When someone books and mentions your name, I'll send you a $50 gift card as a thank you.
Day 10, a three star review arrives saying the boutonnieres wilted before the photos. The florist waits a day, checks the delivery log, and replies:
Thank you for telling me. The boutonnieres were delivered at noon for 5 p.m. photos, and I should have used a sturdier flower for that gap in the heat. I've sent you a message so we can talk about making it right.
Day 11, privately: a phone call, an apology, and a partial refund of the boutonniere line, offered with no mention of the review. The florist also changes the delivery plan for summer weddings.
Week 3: one of the couple's friends books and names them. The gift card goes out the same day, with a note.
Every step in the florist's sequence follows the Google, Yelp and FTC rules above: one platform that allows requests, no suggested wording, the same request for every client, a reward tied to a booking rather than a review, and a remedy that never asks for the review back.