How to get more Google reviews

1. How many reviews do I need?

There's no magic number, and be wary of anyone who gives you one. What matters is how you compare to others in your area and sector: forty reviews is a lot for a locksmith and few for a city-centre café.

And something weighs as much as the count: the pace. A business with 200 reviews from three years ago reads worse than one with 40 from this month. Google checks whether you're still alive, and so do your customers: nobody trusts a rating from 2022.

So the goal isn't «reach a hundred». It's that they keep coming in.

2. The exact moment to ask

This is where almost everything is won or lost. Asking two days later over WhatsApp works far worse than asking while the customer is happy and still on your premises.

• Right after solving their problem. The appointment went well, you fixed their car, they enjoyed the meal. That minute is the one.
• At payment. That's when they know what they got and for how much.
• Never before finishing. Asking mid-service is awkward and backfires.

If you have staff, this has to live in their routine, not in their goodwill. An agreed line — «if you enjoyed it, a review helps us a lot» — said every time is the difference between two a month and fifteen.

3. Removing friction: the QR code

Even when a customer wants to leave a review, there are too many steps between wanting and doing: open Google, search for you, pick the right result, find the button. Half of them drop off along the way.

Google has a direct link to the review form for every business. Put it on a QR code on the table or by the till and the customer scans with their camera and is already typing. That removes nearly all the friction.

• Put it where the customer waits: the table, the counter, the card reader. Not by the exit.
• Say what it is. Nobody scans an unexplained QR code.
• If you have tables, one per table. If it's a counter, one large and visible.

In Analízamelo you can generate that poster with your QR code ready, pick a design and print it. It's in your dashboard, in the reviews section.

4. Reply to all of them, bad ones included

Replying isn't politeness: it's what the next customer reads. A well-handled criticism convinces more than ten compliments, because it shows how you deal with a problem.

• To the good ones, keep it short and unscripted. Repeating the same text twenty times shows, and it costs you.
• To the bad ones, don't argue. Acknowledge what you can, explain what you've changed and offer to continue privately.
• Quickly. A reply two weeks later is read by nobody.

5. What you must never do

• Buy them. Google detects them and the penalty is worse than having none: it can suspend your whole listing.
• Only ask happy customers. Screening who you ask before knowing their opinion breaks Google's rules and shows up in the pattern anyway.
• Offer incentives. A discount in exchange for a review is prohibited, even if you don't ask for a good one.
• Write them yourself. From the shop's phone, from a relative's account. Google cross-checks devices and locations.

All of these look like shortcuts and are the fast lane to losing your listing. What works is boring: ask properly, ask everyone, ask always.

Frequently asked questions