Google's rules on asking for reviews: what a UK trade can and can't do
Asking customers for Google reviews is allowed and, frankly, expected. But the rules around how you ask have tightened, and in the UK the law has caught up with Google's own policy. Here's what matters for a small business that meets customers in person. This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice.
Allowed
Asking, in person or by message. "Would you mind leaving us a review?" at the end of a job is fine. So is a card, a QR code, a link on your invoice or a follow-up text. Google's guidance actively encourages businesses to ask customers to share their experience.
Making it easy. Sending the customer straight to the review box, rather than making them search, is fine.
Replying to reviews, including bad ones. Polite, factual replies are read by far more people than the reviewer.
Not allowed
Paying for reviews, in any form. Discounts, gift cards, a free service, entry into a prize draw — anything of value offered in exchange for a review breaks Google's policy, and the same applies whether the review turns out positive or negative. "Leave us a review and get 10% off your next job" is the most common accidental breach.
Review gating. Asking only the customers you think are happy, or using a "how did we do?" step that sends happy customers to Google and unhappy ones to a private form. Google treats this as manipulating the rating. The honest version is to ask everyone the same way.
Reviewing yourself or your competitors. No reviews from owners, staff or family, and nothing about a rival. Google links reviews to accounts, devices and locations, and removes clusters that look like this.
Reviews written on the business's own device. Handing a customer your tablet to type a review on, or sending a batch of reviews from the shop's wifi, trips the same filters. Reviews should come from the customer's own phone and account.
Faking or buying. Obviously. But also "review swaps" with other local businesses, which are faking by another name.
The UK law behind it
Since April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 lists fake reviews among the practices that are banned outright in UK consumer law. Writing or commissioning a fake review, and publishing reviews with an undisclosed incentive behind them, are now matters for the Competition and Markets Authority, which can fine businesses directly rather than going through the courts. The CMA has said it expects businesses to take reasonable steps to make sure the reviews they display are real. For a small trade the practical meaning is simple: an honest ask is fine; an incentive or a filter is not, and the consequence is no longer just a removed review.
What this means for a review card
A card like TapReceipt's stays on the right side of all of this because it does nothing except open your review page on the customer's own phone. There's no incentive, no pre-screening question, no typing on your device. The customer decides whether to write anything, Google decides whether to publish it, and the only thing the card records is that it was tapped. We'd suggest the same rule for whatever method you use: ask everyone, ask the same way, and let the rating be what it is. A profile with a handful of three-star reviews among the fives reads as real, and real is what customers are looking for.