Turn more taps into 5-star reviews.

Placement beats everything else

The single biggest lever is where it sits — not what it says. Put the stand at the counter or checkout, right where a customer already pauses to pay. That natural pause is the highest-converting moment you have.

Second-best spot: tucked into the receipt or bill folder, since they're already looking down at it. Near the exit works too — it's the last thing they see on the way out.

Using the sticker instead? Table tents and the service counter surface work the same way. Avoid anywhere a phone isn't already out and comfortable to use — a low-traffic wall or a restroom stall gets taps but rarely reviews, because it's not a natural pause.

Ask at the right moment, not every moment

The best time to mention the stand or sticker is right after something goes well — a compliment, a finished meal, a completed service. Train staff to notice that moment and gesture to it then, not as a scripted line to everyone regardless of how the visit went.

One simple line is enough: "If you enjoyed your visit, we'd really appreciate a quick tap and review — takes about 10 seconds." Casual, not a hard sell.

Don't gate or incentivize reviews

Two things to avoid, because Google's own policies prohibit both and can get reviews removed or the account penalized: only asking customers who seem happy (review-gating), and offering a discount, freebie, or entry into anything in exchange for a review.

It's fine to make leaving a review easy and low-friction — that's the whole point. It's not fine to make it conditional on anything.

One per point of contact, not just the front counter

If more than one person on staff has their own moment with the customer — a stylist, a technician, a server, a trainer — a stand or sticker at each of those spots outperforms a single one at the register, because the ask lands right after the specific interaction that earned it, not several minutes and a payment later.

Your dashboard reports taps per stand or sticker, so with more than one you can actually see which station or seat converts best instead of guessing which staff member is best at the ask.

Let the specifics come up naturally

A review that names a specific service — "great fade," "fixed my AC same day," "the salmon" — helps more with local search than a vague "friendly staff, would recommend," because Google's local ranking weighs relevant, specific content. But asking a customer to use particular words yourself crosses into the same territory the Google policy in #3 warns about.

The natural way to get there: when staff mention what was actually done — the service, the dish, the fix — in normal conversation before the ask, customers tend to reference that same specific thing on their own. No scripting required, just don't skip the specifics when you talk to them.

A steady trickle beats a single burst

A dozen reviews that land in one launch week and then nothing for months reads worse — to both Google's local ranking and to a customer scrolling through dates — than the same dozen spread a few a week over the same stretch. Recent, regular activity signals an active, trustworthy business; a stale cluster from months ago doesn't.

You don't need to engineer this by hand. Keep the ask part of the normal routine (see #2) rather than a one-time push, and the pacing takes care of itself.

The first few weeks matter more than the rest

A brand-new profile with three reviews and one with fifty both get compared by the same customer scrolling the map — and the review count itself is part of what makes a business look established, before anyone even reads what they say. Early on, the marginal review does more work than it will later.

If you're just getting started, it's worth being more deliberate about the ask for the first month or two — every satisfied customer, not just the obviously delighted ones (short of gating, see #3) — to get off the ground faster. Once you're past the first couple dozen, the steady pace from #7 is what carries it from there.

Respond to what comes in

Replying to reviews, especially the positive ones, is a small habit with an outsized effect — it signals to both the customer and to anyone reading later that someone's actually paying attention, which nudges more people to leave their own.

This is exactly what a management plan does for you automatically, but even a one-line reply on your own is worth the two minutes if you're on Product Only.

How to actually respond to a bad one

Don't get defensive and don't argue the specifics in public. Acknowledge what they raised in one or two sentences, apologize for the experience (not necessarily for being wrong), and invite them to continue the conversation somewhere private — a phone number or email. Keep it short; a long public reply reads as trying to win an argument, not resolve a problem.

Every reader who sees a calm, professional response to a bad review comes away trusting you more, not less — it's often more convincing to a future customer than another five-star review would have been. This is exactly the kind of reply a management plan handles for you.

Use your own tap data

Every stand and sticker reports taps to your dashboard in real time. If you've got more than one stand, sticker or location, that's a live experiment — try two placements for a couple weeks and see which one actually taps more, instead of guessing.

On a management plan, the monthly report already surfaces this — use it to move a stand or sticker rather than leaving it wherever it first landed.

A good review doesn't have to stay on Google

A specific, well-written review is free marketing copy someone else wrote for you. A screenshot of it works on Instagram, a printed one works in a window or on a counter, a quoted line works on your own website — most businesses let these sit on Google and never look at them again.

This is separate from asking someone to leave a review in the first place (#2) — it's what you do afterward with the good ones you already have. No customer permission needed to screenshot a public review; if you're quoting them by name somewhere more prominent than the review itself, a quick "mind if we share this?" is just good manners, not a requirement.

Make your page worth the second tap

The review row gets the first tap. What keeps people on your page is something useful right below it: a special offer for their next visit, your Wi-Fi name and password, or today's hours.

Ask yourself what a customer standing at your counter wants to know in the next ten seconds, then put that on the page.

Keep the review row near the top

The same idea as placement (#1) applies to your page. Keep the review row above your other links. A row someone has to scroll past gets far fewer clicks than one they see first.

Fewer rows, kept current

A page holds up to 10 rows besides the review row, but you do not need all 10. Five rows that are all true today beat ten where half are out of date.

Change an offer when it ends, update your hours for holidays, and take down anything you no longer do. Open Your page in your account and it takes a minute.

Use rows that start a conversation

A Text us row opens a message to your business in one tap, and a Save our contact row puts you in their phone. Both bring a customer back later without you chasing them.

Link rows are for the one or two places you most want people to go, like booking or your menu. Too many links and people pick none.

Read what gets pressed

Your page this month, on Overview and in the Hub tab of the FavorTap app, shows how many times each row was pressed. A row nobody presses is a row to change or remove.

Check it once a month and make one change. Small changes you can measure beat a full redesign.

Point every product at the right place

Each product has its own review link. In Settings, check your Google review link and make sure it is the right Google listing for your business.

Then test one: tap it with your own phone and make sure it lands on your business, not a similar name down the road.