Asking customers for reviews: a routine that stays legal

Key takeaways

Asking for reviews works best as a routine: every completed job or order gets one polite request at the right moment, with one reminder. Ask all customers, not only the happy ones, and never offer incentives for positive reviews. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 and CMA guidance treat fake or misleading reviews seriously.

• Ask every customer, at the moment the job is done.
• 1 request and 1 reminder is enough.
• No incentives tied to positive reviews.
• Do not filter who is asked to hide negative views.

Why do review requests need a routine?

Without a routine, review requests depend on someone remembering, so they happen in bursts after a good week and stop when it gets busy. A steady flow of recent reviews is more useful to customers than a cluster from last year. The routine is simple and repetitive, which makes it easy to hand over.

• How UK SMEs can use outsourcing to handle repetitive tasks
• Online review management costs in the UK

What does a good request routine look like?

Trigger the request when the customer has experienced the result: after delivery, after the job is signed off, or after the first week of use. Keep it short, name the platform, include a direct link, and send one reminder a few days later. Log who was asked and when.

• Trigger on completion, not on payment.
• Short message with a direct link.
• One reminder after three to five days.
• Every customer asked, logged by date.

• Job sheet admin for trades: from completed job to invoice
• 'Where is my order?' queries: handle them at scale

What does the law say about review requests?

The DMCC Act 2024 bans fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews, and the CMA has published guidance for businesses that publish or invite reviews. Selectively inviting only customers you expect to be positive can give a misleading picture and should be avoided. Respond to negative reviews rather than suppressing them.

• How to respond to negative comments and reviews
• Social Media Marketing for UK businesses

What does a review routine take?

In an illustrative example, a trades firm completing 60 jobs a month spends about 2 minutes per request and reminder, around 4 hours a month including logging. If one in five customers leaves a review, that is about 12 new reviews a month. These are example figures; response rates vary by sector.

• Task bundling: turn scattered small jobs into one role

When is a review routine the wrong focus?

If reviews are poor because the service is poor, more requests will produce more poor reviews. Fix the cause first. A review routine also needs care in regulated sectors, such as healthcare, where patient confidentiality limits what you can say in replies.

• Rising customer complaints: is capacity the cause?

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a business with excellent service has a handful of reviews, all years old, because nobody asks. A weekly routine that asks every completed customer builds a steady flow within a few months.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Review request checklist

Check your routine against these points.

• Every customer asked, not a selection.
• Request sent on completion.
• One reminder only.
• No incentives for positive reviews.
• Negative reviews answered, not hidden.

• Customer feedback loop: turn complaints into fewer contacts

Next step

Send us how you ask for reviews today, if at all. We will suggest a compliant routine and what a team could run each week.