TLDR: Ask every guest at one fixed moment, usually your booking or ordering system's post-visit message, with a link to that location's Google profile. Count asks and new reviews per location weekly. Never pay for reviews, filter who is asked or let staff review their location: Google forbids all three, and US, UK and German law bans fake and bought reviews.
You open Google Maps on a Monday morning. The flagship shows thousands of reviews. The location you opened in spring shows a few dozen, and the newest of those is three weeks old. The food and the team are as good. The guests just do not say so on Google.
The fix is not a review drive. It is one asking routine, run the same way at every location every week, with a count that shows when it breaks. Review volume follows how many guests you ask, and a routine asks more guests than any campaign.
How do you get more Google reviews at every restaurant location?
Give every location the same three things: one moment when every guest is asked, a link that opens that location's own review form, and a weekly count of guests asked and reviews received. Then leave it running.
The newest location needs this most, because it starts from zero. Reviews belong to the Google Business Profile they were written on. Google's help center describes moving reviews only when the same business relocates or ends up with a duplicate profile; a second restaurant is a separate business with its own profile. The flagship's thousands stay with the flagship.
Volume matters for local search. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help a business's local ranking, and lists review count among the signals of prominence. What reviews do for AI answers is a separate question, which we cover in our look at whether Google reviews affect AI restaurant recommendations. For guests choosing between your locations and the place next door, a profile with recent reviews simply has more to say.
Google's own advice to businesses is to remind customers to leave reviews. The rest of this guide is how to do that at twelve locations as reliably as at one.
Where should the ask happen?
Pick the moment every guest passes through and attach the ask to it. For most groups that is the message after the visit, because a system sends it without anyone remembering to. Google suggests putting the review link on receipts, in thank-you emails and at the end of a chat, and printing the QR code for display.
| Asking moment | What sends it | Who it reaches | What to check first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Message after a booked visit | Your booking system's follow-up email or text | Guests who booked, the same day or next morning | That it can carry a different link per location, and that it does not ask for a score first and send only high scorers to Google |
| Message after a pickup or delivery order | Your online ordering system's confirmation or follow-up | Takeout guests ordering direct | That the link goes to the kitchen they ordered from |
| The check | A printed QR on the receipt, or a pay-at-table screen | Walk-ins who never booked | That paying never depends on reviewing |
| The table | A QR on the menu card or table tent | Every table, booked or not | One code per location, never a group code |
| The end of service | A host or server handing over a small card | Everyone leaving | Neutral words, the same for every table |
Run one moment from a system and one from the room. The system reaches booked and ordering guests without effort; the card or table QR catches walk-ins.
Keep the words in the room plain and the same for every table: a thank-you, the card, and that the link opens this location's page on Google. Wording that works is in our review management guide. Google's policy says that when soliciting reviews, businesses should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, so the card goes home with the guest. Nobody waits by the table while it is written.
How do you send each guest to the right location?
Take the link from each location's own profile. In Google Business Profile, open the location's profile, choose Read reviews, then Get more reviews, and copy the link or save the QR code. Google notes that the QR code can only be generated on a computer browser. Do it once per location and store all of them in one sheet with the location name beside each.
Three mistakes send reviews to the wrong place:
- One group link everywhere. A guest at your newest site reviews the flagship, and the newest site stays at a few dozen.
- A template that kept the first location's link. The second location's messages all point to the first location's profile.
- A printed QR moved between locations. A box of table tents travels to a new opening and nobody checks the code.
Before a link goes live, open it on a phone and confirm the location name at the top of the review form. Do the same after any template change.
This is also where profile housekeeping pays off. A location with two profiles, or a profile under the wrong name, splits its reviews. Who holds access to each profile and who may change it is set out in our guide to Google Business Profile governance for restaurant groups. If your newest site does not appear on Maps at all, start with why a new restaurant is not showing on Google Maps.
Setting up and correcting each location's Google Business Profile is work we do as part of our managed service, at no extra charge. Your booking, ordering or till system sends the ask; we make sure the profile and the link behind it are right.
What are you allowed to do when asking for reviews?
Ask every genuine guest you are allowed to contact the same way, and stop there. No reward for a review, no filtering of who is asked, no reviews from staff or their families. Google's policy forbids all three. Since October 2024 in the US and April 2025 in the UK, regulators can also fine for the worst of them, and in Germany the UWG has banned fake and commissioned reviews since May 2022.
| Market | What it rules out for a review routine | In force | Primary source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google, every market | Incentives for posting any review; selectively soliciting positive reviews; reviews from staff; pressure on the premises (set out in our review management guide) | Current policy | Maps user-contributed content policy |
| United States | Incentives conditioned on a review "expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative"; undisclosed reviews by officers and managers; asking staff or relatives for reviews in a way that produces undisclosed ones | 21 October 2024 | 16 CFR Part 465 |
| United Kingdom | Submitting or commissioning a fake review, or one that conceals it was incentivised; publishing reviews in a misleading way | 6 April 2025 | DMCC Act 2024, Schedule 20, paragraph 13; CMA fake reviews guidance |
| Germany | No. 23b: claiming reviews come from consumers who actually bought or used the product without reasonable and proportionate checks. No. 23c: submitting or commissioning fake consumer reviews or recommendations, and misrepresenting consumer reviews or recommendations on social media to promote sales | 28 May 2022 | UWG, Annex No. 23b and 23c |
This is a summary of official sources, not legal advice. Three lines matter most for a routine.
Why is asking only happy guests off limits?
Because it distorts the picture guests read. The common version is a feedback tool that asks for a score first and sends only high scorers on to Google, which Google's policy forbids. Regulators now say the same. The FTC's Endorsement Guides describe a business that invites only purchasers who gave very positive feedback to post reviews as a practice that may be unfair or deceptive, while inviting all recent purchasers would not be, "even if it had expressed its hope for positive reviews". The FTC's own questions and answers on the review rule say the rule has no specific ban on asking only happy customers, "but this practice could violate the FTC Act". In the UK, the CMA's guidance names cherry-picking done "by encouraging just those who are satisfied to leave reviews", and lists "arbitrarily stopping and starting review invitations" among the ways of suppressing genuine negative reviews (CMA208, paragraphs 4.4 and 4.5).
That last line is the strongest argument for a routine over a drive. A message that goes to every guest every week, whatever the week was like, leaves nothing to explain.
Can you reward guests for a review if you disclose it?
Not on Google. UK law allows an incentivised review if it is disclosed, and the US rule allows an incentive that does not depend on the review being positive. Google's policy bans incentives for posting any review, so on Google the answer is no in every market. The US penalty for a knowing breach of the rule is up to $53,088 per violation under the current inflation adjustment.
Can you email or text guests to ask for a review?
Yes, if you are allowed to contact them that way. Whether a post-visit email counts as a commercial message, and what consent a text message needs, depends on the channel and the state, so ask your attorney how your follow-up message is classed before you switch it on. Other markets draw their own lines: the UK regulator says merely emailing customers generally to ask if they wish to provide a review is not a banned practice, while Germany's Federal Court of Justice treats a satisfaction request sent by email as advertising that needs consent.
So every guest means every guest you may contact, through the channel you may use. The consent check decides the channel, never who is asked. Guests you may not message still get the card, the receipt QR or the table QR, which are not marketing messages.
For replying to the reviews this routine brings in, handling complaints and reporting fake reviews, use our guide to review management for multi-site restaurant groups.
How do you know the routine is working?
Count two numbers per location every week: guests asked and new Google reviews. Divide the second by the first and you have reviews per 100 guests asked. That rate tells you whether the routine is running, which the review total alone never will.
Guests asked is the number of post-visit messages your system sent, plus cards handed out if staff tally them. New Google reviews is the count on the profile this Monday minus last Monday's. Add a third column for the average rating of the new reviews only, because that is what changed this week.
Here is one week for an illustrative three-location group. The figures are invented to show the arithmetic; they are not benchmarks.
| Location | Guests asked | New Google reviews | Reviews per 100 asked | Average rating of new reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location A (flagship) | 610 | 22 | 3.6 | 4.6 |
| Location B | 340 | 13 | 3.8 | 4.4 |
| Location C (newest) | 210 | 1 | 0.5 | 5.0 |
Location C's guests were asked, so the routine ran. They did not review, so something between the message and the form broke. Opening the link on a phone shows the answer: the message template still points to Location A's profile. Location A's 22 include some that belonged to Location C.
Read a falling week by which number fell:
- Guests asked fell. The system stopped sending, a template broke or staff stopped handing out cards. Fix the routine.
- Asks held but reviews fell. The link is wrong, the message lands in spam or the wording changed. Test the link and the message.
- Reviews held but their rating fell. The routine is working and guests are telling you something about the location. That is a service question, and our review management guide covers who checks it and who replies.
Compare each location with its own previous weeks, not with the flagship. Covers, booking share and guest mix differ, and a target on raw review count invites exactly the filtering the law forbids.
When should a location not start yet?
When guests are already complaining about the same thing. More honest asks bring more honest reviews, and a location with a known service problem will hear about it faster. Fix the problem first, using the review management guide, then switch the routine on.
How do you roll the routine out across every location?
Start at one location, prove the count, then copy it.
- Collect one review link per location. Copy each link from that location's own Google Business Profile, save the QR codes, and test each on a phone. The output is one sheet of locations and links.
- Switch on the post-visit message at one location. Use the booking or ordering system's follow-up, with that location's link and neutral wording, sent to every guest you are allowed to contact that way; everyone else gets the in-room ask. Turn off any step that scores guests before showing the Google link.
- Add one in-room moment. Put that location's QR on the check or the table card, and brief staff on the one sentence they say.
- Count for four weeks. Every Monday, record guests asked, new reviews and their average rating for that location.
- Roll out to every location. Copy the setup with each location's own link, test every link on a phone, and add a row per location to the weekly sheet.
Start at one location this week
Pick the location with the fewest recent reviews, switch on its post-visit message with its own link, and start the Monday count. After four weeks you will know your rate and can roll it out to the rest. If you also want to know how each location appears when guests ask an AI assistant where to eat, request a free AI Search audit and bring your location list, so each location is checked on its own.
Sources
- Google Business Profile Help: Move your reviews across Business Profiles
- Google Business Profile Help: Tips to improve your local ranking on Google
- Google Business Profile Help: Tips to get more reviews
- Google Business Profile Help: Create a Google link or QR code to request reviews
- Google: Maps user-contributed content policy
- DMCC Act 2024, Schedule 20 (legislation.gov.uk)
- CMA: Fake reviews guidance (CMA208), April 2025
- CMA: Reviews and social media endorsements, guidance for businesses
- eCFR: 16 CFR Part 465, Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials
- FTC: Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, questions and answers
- FTC: Final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials, 14 August 2024
- eCFR: 16 CFR 255.2, Endorsement Guides
- eCFR: 16 CFR 1.98, civil penalty amounts
- Gesetze im Internet: UWG Annex (to section 3(3)) and section 7
- Federal Court of Justice, VI ZR 225/17, 10 July 2018 (federal case-law portal)
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