Ask for reviews via WhatsApp: the right moment, the right question and what Google and Meta allow

Look at your own Google page and at that of the competitor around the corner. The odds are that the number of reviews says little about who does the best work, and a lot about who asks for them consistently. Satisfied customers rarely write a review on their own; unhappy customers do. Without a fixed question at a fixed moment your online reputation therefore consists mainly of exceptions, while nine out of ten people read reviews before they call or order.

The way you ask determines the result. An email saying "leave a review" gets a response from about 5 per cent, and a card with a QR code at the till is forgotten before the customer is home. A short WhatsApp message a few hours after the experience, with one button, gets around 60 per cent response. That difference is not in the customer, but in the moment and the effort: the message arrives where the customer is already looking, and answering takes one tap.

That is why the review request belongs in the same list as the appointment reminder and the approval request: a service message that is about the customer's experience, and that happens to bring in the next customer as well.

The best moment is when the experience is still fresh and also complete. Too early, and the customer does not yet know whether they are satisfied; too late, and the feeling is gone. A practical guideline per type of experience:

• A visit with an immediate outcome (shop, hairdresser, garage, valuation): three to four hours afterwards, the same day. Gold and jewellery buyer Der Goldmann sends the question a few hours after the purchase, when the money is in the account and the experience is still fresh.
• A treatment, service or delivery whose result needs time to settle: the next day, 24 to 48 hours later. The customer has seen or used the result and can say something about it.
• A project or renovation: after handover and after the last question has been answered. Someone who still has a loose door handle on the day of handover wants to raise that first.

Two limits always apply. Do not pressure anyone into writing a review on the spot, at the counter; Google explicitly names that as something that is not allowed. And ask once per experience, with a limit per customer, for example no more than once every six months, even if someone comes every week. A customer who gets a review request after every visit blocks your number, and then you also lose the reminders and confirmations.

Do not send a Google link straight away. First ask how the customer experienced it, with three buttons: very satisfied, satisfied, not satisfied. There are three reasons for that.

The first is service. A customer who taps "not satisfied" ends up with a colleague first instead of on Google. That is exactly the customer who would otherwise write an angry review or quietly walk away; how you handle that conversation comes later in this article.

The second is that you learn something. Three buttons after every appointment or purchase give you a satisfaction figure per location, employee or service within a month, without a survey.

The third is the review itself. A customer who has just tapped "very satisfied" has already said yes; the link to Google is then a logical second step instead of a question out of nowhere.

This creates one flow with two exits: a high score immediately gets the message with the review link, a low score goes first to a colleague who picks up the conversation, and only after that, if appropriate, on to the review.

The braces are variables that CommuniQate fills in; the text between square brackets is a button. Note the order: the satisfaction question is a WhatsApp message template (a text that Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, approves in advance), because you start the conversation. The two follow-ups are ordinary messages, because with their tap the customer opens a conversation in which you may reply freely for 24 hours.

Satisfaction question after a visit Hi {{first_name}}, thanks for your visit to {{location}} today. How did you find it? One tap is enough. [Very satisfied] [Satisfied] [Not satisfied]

Follow-up with a satisfied customer Great to hear, {{first_name}}! Would you share in two sentences what you thought? Other people choose on that basis, and the team reads every response. [Write a review]

Follow-up with a dissatisfied customer We are sorry about that, {{first_name}}. We would like to put this right. {{employee}} is happy to call you today. Would you like that, or would you rather tell us below what went wrong? [Call me today] [I will type it here]

The button under the second message is a link button to your Google page; with one tap the customer lands on the place where they write the review.

Three parties have rules for review requests, and they all point the same way: genuine, honest and without pressure.

• Google. You may ask customers for a review, as long as you give nothing in return (no discount, gift or other benefit) and do not pressure anyone into writing something on the spot. Reviews that go against that can be removed by Google.
• The ACM, the Dutch consumer and markets authority. Since 28 May 2022 fake reviews have been explicitly banned in the Netherlands, with fines that can run up to 900,000 euros per violation. Reviews have to come from real customers, and if you have given a customer something for their review, that has to be stated with the review. Writing reviews yourself or having them written is no longer a grey area.
• Meta. A review request that refers to a concrete appointment or purchase ("how was your visit today?") is a service message in the utility category, just like an appointment reminder. A general "leave a review" without that reference is classed by Meta as marketing, and so is a request with an offer attached. How that category affects the costs and the consent you need is explained in our article on appointment reminders.

The practical conclusion: keep the request specific, friendly and without a reward. That is not only allowed, it also works better.

A low score is not a failure of your review flow; it is the reason you have it. This is how you look after them:

• Respond within an hour. The tap on "not satisfied" automatically creates a task in the team inbox, with the conversation attached. Whoever picks up the task calls or messages personally; no standard apology.
• Listen first, then solve. Ask what went wrong before you offer anything. Often it is something small: a waiting time, a wrong expectation, a colleague who was busy.
• Report back in the same conversation. Once it is solved, say so there. If you want, you can then still ask for a review with a personal line. A customer who has been helped well after a problem often writes a better review than a customer for whom everything went smoothly.
• Pass on patterns. Three times "not satisfied" about the same location or service in a month is not a coincidence. That is information you would otherwise only have read in an angry Google review.

Asking for reviews automatically leans on the same things as the other service messages: a start signal from your own system, an approved template and buttons that do something.

• The start signal. A completed appointment in your calendar, a paid receipt in your till or a closed file in your CRM. Through an integration that system gives CommuniQate a signal, and the waiting time (three hours, a day) runs from that moment.
• One template with three buttons. The satisfaction question is a utility template with the customer's name and what they came to you for as variables. Have it approved by Meta once, after that it runs for every customer.
• Buttons that route. "Very satisfied" and "satisfied" get the message with the review link; "not satisfied" creates a task for a colleague and puts a label on the conversation.
• Limits. At most one request per customer every so many months, no request while a complaint is open, and "STOP" switches everything off. Der Goldmann built such limits into every flow, such as a gold price message that may go out at most once every 60 days; that keeps the frequency low and your quality rating at Meta high.
• Multiple platforms. A Google review via WhatsApp is the first choice for most companies, but the link can also go to Trustpilot, Facebook or your own review page, depending on which platform matters most to your customers.

The visible result is on your Google page: more Google reviews and more recent ones, and a score that matches how customers really experience you. Companies that ask after every appointment or purchase usually see the number of reviews become a multiple of what email or a card produced, simply because the question is now asked every time.

What you do not see on Google weighs more heavily. Every "not satisfied" that you pick up within an hour is an angry review that never gets written and a customer who does not quietly leave. And the satisfaction question delivers an honest figure per service or location every month, without a survey.

That makes the review question, after the appointment reminder and the approval request, the third service message that pays for itself: it is about the customer, it gets answered, and it brings in the next customer.