Asking Staff for Reviews

Why it is tempting

A new business with three reviews and a competitor with ninety faces an obvious problem, and staff are willing, available, and genuinely think the business is good.

Asking them feels like a shortcut rather than a deception, particularly where they have actually seen the work.

The same reasoning extends to family, friends, and suppliers, and the resulting reviews are sincere in a way a purchased one is not.

Sincerity is not the issue. The issue is that the reader is being told something untrue about who is speaking.

What the platforms say

• A review must reflect a genuine customer experience.
• Employees reviewing their employer are prohibited.
• Undisclosed relationships are a conflict of interest.
• Incentivised reviews are restricted or banned.
• Reviews from one location can be flagged automatically.

The last is the practical mechanism. Several reviews originating from the same premises or the same network within a short period is a detectable pattern, and it is detected.

What happens when it is noticed

Three consequences, of increasing seriousness.

The reviews are removed, which loses you the rating you were building and looks like a drop.

The listing can be restricted, in some cases losing the ability to receive reviews at all for a period, which is considerably worse.

And a reader who recognises it draws a conclusion about the business rather than about the reviews, which is the one you cannot undo.

That third one is the reason this matters even where nothing is enforced, because the pattern is visible to anybody paying attention.

Readers can see it

More easily than businesses expect.

Several five-star reviews within a few days at the start of a listing, from accounts with no other reviews, written in a similar register, reads as exactly what it is.

Names that match staff on the website, or a run of reviews that stops abruptly, add to it.

Anybody comparing two local businesses will notice, and the conclusion is about judgement rather than about the work.

A business with four honest reviews looks new. One with twelve obviously arranged ones looks dishonest, which is a worse starting position.

Consumer protection applies too

Beyond platform rules, and worth knowing.

Representations that create a misleading impression about a product or service are restricted under Canadian consumer protection law, and a review presented as coming from an independent customer when it comes from an employee is such a representation.

Enforcement against a small business over a handful of reviews is unlikely, and the principle is not in doubt.

This is a general description rather than legal advice, and the point stands regardless of enforcement: the practice is not merely against a platform's rules.

The same applies to incentives, where offering anything in exchange for a review changes what the review is.

A worked example

A new business asked six staff and family members to leave reviews in its first fortnight, producing seven five-star reviews quickly.

Four were removed within two months, without notice, leaving a listing that had visibly shrunk.

The remaining ones sat alongside two genuine reviews that arrived later, and the gap in dates made the original cluster obvious.

They started asking actual customers properly and reached twenty reviews over the following year, all genuine.

Their assessment was that the first fortnight had cost them time rather than saved it, and had produced a listing they were uncomfortable pointing anybody at for months.

What staff can legitimately do

Because the enthusiasm is real and is worth using.

They can ask their own customers for reviews, which is the highest-return thing anybody in the business can do.

They can post about the work on their own accounts, subject to the ordinary rules about customer privacy.

They can refer friends and family as genuine customers, who can then review honestly.

And they can review the business as an employer, on the platforms that exist for that, which is a different thing entirely and is legitimate.

Telling staff explicitly what they may and may not do prevents the well-meaning version of this, where somebody helps without being asked.

Getting real ones instead

The alternative, which is slower and works.

Ask every satisfied customer, at the moment the work is finished and they are pleased, which is the only moment that reliably produces one.

Make it easy: a direct link, sent by message, rather than an instruction to search for you.

Ask consistently rather than occasionally, since the difference between businesses with many reviews and few is almost entirely whether asking is a habit.

Twenty genuine reviews over a year is achievable for almost any business that asks, and it is worth more than fifty arranged ones would have been.

The same applies to reviewing others

The reverse case, which arises less often and carries the same principle.

Reviewing a competitor, whether negatively or as a customer you were not, is the same misrepresentation with the roles swapped, and platforms treat it more severely.

It is also traceable, since an account leaving a review of a business it is connected to leaves the connection visible.

Reviewing your own suppliers is legitimate where you genuinely are their customer, which most businesses are, and it is worth doing since they will notice.

Where a supplier asks you to review them in exchange for something, that is the same incentive problem in the other direction and is worth declining politely.

The counter-case

The line is not always obvious.

A member of staff who genuinely bought something from the business as a customer, in a normal transaction, is in a different position, and disclosing the relationship in the review resolves it.

Family members who are genuinely customers are also legitimate, and the same disclosure applies.

There is also a version of this caution that stops a business asking anybody for anything, which loses the reviews it should be getting.

Ask real customers relentlessly, never ask anybody to pretend to be one, and require disclosure where a genuine customer has a connection to the business.

What to do

1. Never ask staff or family to review as customers.
2. Tell staff explicitly, so nobody helps unasked.
3. Require disclosure where a customer is connected.
4. Offer nothing in exchange for a review.
5. Ask every real customer, at the right moment.
6. Send a direct link, not an instruction.
7. Accept that it takes a year.

Step two prevents the common well-meaning version, where somebody helps the business without being asked and creates the problem anyway.

Professions with their own restrictions are covered in reviews you are not allowed to ask for.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.