More Google reviews the lawful way, with the link and the message to send

Asking for a review feels pushy. It isn’t, if you ask everyone the same way and make it one tap for them.

Here’s the whole routine: the link, the words, the text, and the rules it has to follow.

Step one: get your review link

Google lets you make a link and a QR code that open the review box on your Business Profile, the free Google listing that puts you on the map.1 A QR code is the square barcode a phone camera opens.

Google’s own steps, on a computer: go to your Business Profile, select Read reviews, then Get more reviews, then Copy to copy the link.1 To save the QR code, right-click it and choose Save image as. Google says the QR code can only be made in a browser on a computer for now, not on a phone.1

Save the link in your phone’s notes so it’s there at the end of every job. Google suggests putting it on receipts and in thank-you emails too, and the QR code is worth printing on your invoice or a card you leave behind.1

Step two: what to say at the end of the job

Say it to every customer, whether the job went perfectly or not. Something like:

“Thanks for having us. If you’ve got a minute later, we’d really value a Google review, whatever you thought of the job. Are you happy for me to text you the link?”

Then stop there. Don’t ask them to do it while you stand and wait: Google says businesses shouldn’t “require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises”.2 Write the yes, or the no, on the job.

Why ask before you text?

Because, under the spam rules, a sale on its own doesn’t count as permission to send someone marketing. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), the regulator for phones, internet and spam, says inferred consent, meaning permission you assume rather than ask for, “does not cover sending messages after someone has just bought something from your business”.3

Whether a review request counts as a marketing message under the Spam Act 2003 isn’t settled in anything I’ve read, so I ask first and skip the argument. This isn’t legal advice.

If it does count, the Act also wants the message to say who sent it and how to reach you (section 17), and to give a working way to opt out (section 18).4 Putting both in costs you one line.

Step three: the text or email to send

Only to customers who said yes. The text:

Hi [first name], it’s [your name] from [business]. Thanks again for having us out today.

Here’s the link for a Google review, as promised: [link]. Honest is all we’re after. Reply STOP and I won’t message again. [business phone]

The email, if that’s how they’d rather hear from you:

Subject: Your Google review link

Hi [first name], thanks again for having us out today. As promised, here’s the link if you’d like to leave a Google review: [link]. Good, bad or in between, honest is all we’re after.

[your name], [business], [business phone]. If you’d rather not hear from us again, reply and say so.

What’s in neither: stars, a rating you’re hoping for, a staff member’s name, or anything offered in return. Each of those runs into one of Google’s rules below.

Google’s rules, in Google’s words

From Google’s policy on what people post to Maps, which I read again on 2 October 2026.2 Where Google says “solicit”, read “ask for”.

• No asking only the happy ones. Google doesn’t allow businesses to “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”.2
• No naming the staff member. Google says businesses shouldn’t have staff ask for reviews “that include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member”.2 So no “mention Dave by name”.
• Nothing in return. Google bars offering payment, discounts, or free goods or services for a review, a changed review or a removed bad one, and its help page calls that “fake engagement”.12
• What Google does allow: “Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience”.2 Asking every customer, honestly, is that.

If a review tool asks “how did we go?” first and sends only the happy ones on to Google, that’s the selective asking Google bans, with extra steps.

When to ask, and how often

Once, at the end of the job. Then one message with the link, the same day, if they said yes. No reminder and no second text.

Make it the routine for every job, so nobody gets picked by how happy they looked. That’s my advice, and it’s how I’d stay inside Google’s rule on asking selectively.

Who shouldn’t use this routine?

Registered health practitioners. Section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law bans using testimonials in advertising a regulated health service.5

If you’re registered, read the guidance on reviews from Ahpra, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, which runs the national register of health practitioners, before you ask anyone for one. This routine isn’t written for you, and this isn’t legal advice.

A made-up example: the hot water job

This one is made up. A plumber finishes replacing a hot water system mid-afternoon, and while packing up he says the line, word for word. The customer says yes to a text, and he notes it on the job.

That evening the text goes out with the link. He doesn’t chase it.

The next customer gets the same line, whether that job ran smoothly or ran three hours over.

Want it set up for you?

On our menu this is part of Start here, the first step we offer: your Google profile set up properly, and every customer asked for a review, the legal way. If yours is different, we scope it.

Book a free hour.