American customers don’t know you yet. They know your reviews. And those reviews carry a lot of weight:
- 47% of consumers say they won’t use a local business with fewer than 20 reviews;
- 74% look for reviews from the last 3 months;
- 89% expect the owner to respond.
(BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026.)
Having reviews isn’t enough. You need plenty of them, recent ones, and responses.
What Google allows (and what it doesn’t)
You can:
- Ask all customers for a review by text, email, QR code, or card;
- Send a direct link to leave a review;
- Respond to every review.
You can’t:
- Offer a discount, freebie, or payment in exchange for a review;
- Filter who gets the request so it only goes to happy customers (review gating);
- Buy reviews or ask friends and family who aren’t customers to leave one.
In the US, the FTC also prohibits fake and purchased reviews, with steep fines. It’s not worth the risk.
What about Yelp?
Yelp takes a different approach: it discourages asking for reviews and may hide reviews that appear to have been solicited. So the strategy on Yelp is different: a complete profile, good photos, polite responses to everyone, and letting reviews happen naturally.
Setting up the same automation for Google and Yelp is a common mistake.
A system that works
- The right timing: ask right after the job is done, while the customer is happy.
- The right channel: text messages tend to get the highest response rate. Make sure the customer has agreed to receive messages.
- A short message in the customer’s language:
“Hi Sarah, thanks for choosing us today! If you have a minute, a quick Google review helps our small business a lot: [link]”
- One reminder a few days later for customers who haven’t left a review.
- A personalized response to each review, mentioning the service. Don’t use the same “Thank you for your review!” for every customer.
What about reviews in Portuguese?
Reviews in Portuguese help you connect with the Brazilian community, but American customers may not understand them. If you’re also trying to reach local customers, encourage reviews in English without pressuring anyone, and respond in the language the review was written in.
Got a negative review? Here’s what to do
Respond quickly and calmly, without arguing. Acknowledge the concern, briefly explain what happened, and offer to resolve it privately. Your next customer is reading that response, too—not just the person who complained.
Want to automate this?
We connect review requests to your scheduling system or CRM, in English and Portuguese, following the rules, and track growth in your monthly report. We can talk through it in Portuguese or English.
