.svg)
In April of this year, Google made a couple of key updates to their review policy.
In short:
- Businesses cannot ask customers to include specific content or specific employee names in their reviews
- Businesses cannot pressure customers to leave reviews while still on-site
- Offering incentives for leaving reviews (or revising/removing negative ones)
- Pre-screening customers by sentiment before asking for reviews aka review gating
- Requiring employees to collect a certain volume of reviews
Specific content or staff
When nudging someone on what to write, or who they write about, the review is no longer genuine.
Leaving reviews while still on premises
Coercing a customer to leave a review before they leave pressures the customer to leave a positive review.
While Google’s guiding principle that reviews reflect authentic experiences have long existed, the rules have become more explicitly laid out and more strongly enforced. Some additional prohibited practices that have existed since 2018 or earlier, and have become more strongly enforced over the years:
Incentivized Reviews
Gift cards, rent credits, and the like offered in exchange for leaving a positive review is expressly prohibited.
Review Gating
A typical process for this may be sending a customer a text or email asking how their experience was. If they respond positively, it will be followed up by a link to leave a review. If they respond negatively, they get directed to share their feedback privately. The initial off-site communication is completely allowed, but the dictation of traffic afterwards is not.
Review Quotas
Businesses cannot have any internal quotas for review collection, nor can they tie performance incentives to review volume.
Google can automatically detect and subsequently delete violating reviews. A sudden influx of reviews also triggers automated removal. With this in mind, it’s advisable to receive consistent review volume, rather than via a big push through giveaways, parties, or other similar initiatives.
Furthermore, beyond simply removing reviews, repeated violations may result in restrictions on your business profile or other repercussions. However — to be clear — asking for reviews is still explicitly allowed; but it requires conscious effort to do it the correct way.
A couple of best practices on how to maintain compliance:
- Standardize timing: send asks for reviews after move-in or after a service interaction has been fully resolved — not while still in the leasing office.
- Keep the ask generic: don’t mention any specific staff or prompt them to mention specific amenities or aspects of your community
In addition to Google, the FTC also takes review practices very seriously. Gamifying your reviews not only opens you up to fines and suspensions, but ultimately harms your performance. For even more insights, do read the most recent Insights From Turner blog.