Post #15 · Business · Reputation

The gate

Everybody does it. That is the problem.

The preconception

Asking only your happiest customers to leave Google reviews is just smart marketing.

How it works

The filter

Every customer gets a link that first asks "How did we do?" Happy answers go to your public Google page. Unhappy ones go to a private form nobody else sees. The public rating stops being a record of your work and becomes a highlight reel.

See it

Drag the slider

Customers who had a bad experience: 20%

Honest rating

Gated rating

The law

The line moved

The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews took effect in October 2024. It bans fake reviews, bought reviews and review suppression, with civil penalties of more than $50,000 per violation. Google’s own review policy says you can’t selectively ask for positive reviews or discourage negative ones.

You never make up a review, you only route the unhappy customers away. Is that OK?

Do this instead

Ask everyone

Send the same review link to every customer. Treat every bad review as free quality control, reply publicly and calmly, and fix the cause. Readers trust a 4.6 with honest replies more than a suspicious 5.0.

Sources: FTC Trade Regulation Rule on Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) and Google Maps user-contributed content policy.

Rewritten from the original No Sacred Cows post for the LeonLink blog.

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