Review management for today's world

This is a short-form guide, mostly drawn from our full 2026 Index. After reading this, please go there and read up in more detail on the topics that are most important for your business.

The following five point guide is intentionally brief and punchy. Why? Because the regulators just became punchy themselves. No more 'Mr Nice Guy' at the CMA; the next communication most businesses will receive is a Notice of Investigation - and likely not a warning, but the results of said investigation.

So...

Point 1.

Become compliant. No more cherry-picking and no more gating, and certainly no more asking friends and relations or colleagues to write reviews. And no more competitors pointing out how you get reviews.

Point 2.

If you run a professional service business, not a retail store (on- or off-line), switch your review efforts from whatever review site you are currently using to Google. Then watch your business soar.

Point 3.

If your business is in the aforementioned service/professional vertical, you will need to employ independent moderation to ensure that your business is not harmed by factually incorrect or misleading reviews.

 Point 4. 

Warn all your customers just how vital reviews are for your business. Then invite reviews by email. Not SMS/text. The 'warning' will increase responses to the email inviting the review (a follow-up call even more so) and following this advice willl ramp up the quality.

Point 5.

Set targets for staff and management. Consider putting a single member of staff or management in full-time charge of your review management. Google rewards businesses that get at steady flow of reviews to their own websites and into its own Knowledge Panel. Monthly is best.

 

That's it. Only one link: to the article covering everything we have said here, but in detail. Here it is again. One last suggestion: print this page and use it as a checklist when you are reading the main article.