Take the tablet off the counter. Reviews posted from one device and one connection, in bursts, look like a campaign and get filtered. Ask customers instead to review later, from their own phones.

A review station at reception

A salon sets a tablet on the reception desk with its review page open. As each client pays, the receptionist hands it over and asks for a few words while the visit is fresh.

It looks like the answer to a familiar problem. Happy customers mean to write a review, then forget, and the station catches them before they walk out.

A month later the owner counts. Several desk reviews have vanished, others sit hidden, and two clients have said, politely, that they disliked signing in on a shared screen.

What review sites see

Review sites do not only read the review. They also record where it came from: the device, the internet connection, the account and the time.

From a station, every review shares one device and usually the business's own connection, and they arrive in clusters on busy days. Accounts are often brand new, made at the desk to post one review.

That is the pattern a business writing its own reviews would leave. The filters see only the pattern, not the genuine smile at the till, so they hold the reviews back or remove them.

Why the station backfires

Several things go wrong at once:

The last point matters more than it seems. A review written with the receptionist waiting tends to be short and bland, and future customers learn little from it.

Signing in on someone else's tablet

To post on Google, a customer needs a Google account with a Google+ profile; Yelp and Facebook need their own. Each means typing a password on a device the business controls.

Many people hesitate, and rightly. Others type quickly, leave, and forget to sign out, so the next customer finds a stranger's account open, name and photo attached.

A business keeping a station would have to clear the browser after every use. Staff at a busy till rarely manage it, and the customer cannot see whether they did.

What the review sites ask

Google's review guidelines for businesses discourage setting up a station at the place of business to collect reviews. Yelp goes further and discourages businesses from asking for reviews of any kind.

What both want to avoid is reviews gathered in bulk, under the owner's eye, on the owner's equipment. A request that leaves the customer free to write later, or not at all, is a different thing.

Asking so customers review later

The better approach keeps the asking and moves the writing. Ask at the till in one sentence, and leave the review for the customer's own phone, in their own time.

Give them something to take away, a small card or a printed line on the receipt, carrying a short web address: ideally a page on your website that gathers your review links.

If customers have agreed to hear from you by email, a short note the next day with the same links arrives while the visit is still fresh.

Reviews then come in singly, over days, from many different connections and from accounts with other reviews behind them, which is how genuine customers look to a filter.

A worked example

A hairdressing school runs a student salon open to the public, where clients pay reduced prices for cuts and colour done by students under an instructor's eye.

Its reception kept a tablet for reviews, offered to every client at checkout. Within weeks, several reviews had gone from the Google listing and others sat behind Yelp's not recommended link.

Then a client found the previous person's account still signed in. The school took the tablet off review duty that afternoon.

Each client now leaves with an appointment card carrying, on the back, a short address for a page on the school's site that lists where to leave a review.

Clients who opted in to email get a thank-you note the next day linking to the same page. Any reviews that follow arrive singly, over days, from the clients' own phones and computers.

A review page on your own site

A page on your website listing where to leave a review gives you one address to print, one link to send and one place to update if a listing changes.

Keep it short: a thank-you, a line on how reviews help future customers, and links to your Google, Facebook and other listings. Leave out any suggestion of what to say.

Ask everyone the same way, whatever their visit was like. A page that steers only the happiest customers to public sites gives readers a picture that is not quite true.

One sentence at the counter

Agree on one sentence everyone at the counter uses, such as: if you have a minute later, a review would help us, and the address is on your card.

Ask once and keep it light. A customer asked twice, or while paying a large bill, feels pressed, and a review written under pressure helps nobody.

The counter-case

A tablet by the till is fine for feedback that stays with you. A short private comment form, or a newsletter sign-up with clear consent, raises none of these problems.

And a customer who wants to write a review there and then, on their own phone, should be welcome to. The difference is whose device, whose connection and whose choice.

The station only backfires when it turns public reviews into a counter routine. Keep the asking in person and the writing at home.

Moving the asking off the counter

  1. Take the tablet off review duty.
  2. Build a short page on your site listing where to review.
  3. Print its address on cards and receipts.
  4. Agree one sentence for staff to use at the till.
  5. Send a next-day note to customers who agreed to email.
  6. Ask every customer the same way.
  7. Reply to the reviews that arrive, good and bad.

Step four keeps the human part. A customer asked warmly by the person who served them is likelier to remember later, when the phone is in their own hand.

Google reviews that vanished after a few days traces why reviews can still drop off a Google listing after they appear, and what an owner can do.

Frequently asked questions

Why do reviews posted on a shop tablet disappear?

They share one device and one connection, arrive in bursts and often come from new accounts. Review filters read that as a business writing its own reviews.

Is it against the rules to ask customers for reviews?

Asking in a normal way is generally accepted on Google, while Yelp asks businesses not to request reviews. Both discourage collecting them on equipment at the business.

What is wrong with customers signing in on our tablet?

They type a password on a device you control, and some forget to sign out, leaving their account open to the next customer with their name attached.

What should we do instead of the tablet?

Keep asking, in one sentence at the till, then hand over a card or receipt with a short web address and let customers write later on their own phones.

What belongs on a review page on our website?

A short thank-you, a line on how reviews help future customers, and links to each listing. Never suggest what to write, and ask every customer the same way.

Can the tablet stay at the counter for anything else?

Yes. Private feedback forms, bookings and newsletter sign-ups with clear consent are fine. Only public reviews posted from it cause these problems.

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.

Reviews from the counter disappearing?

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