Published on 27 August 2026
This article was created with the support of artificial intelligence and reviewed editorially by us before publication.
This page was translated from German with AI support. The German version is the authoritative one.
Between two businesses offering much the same thing, almost always the same factor decides: the stars under the name. An entry without reviews looks like a shop nobody has ever been to — even if it has been running well for twenty years. The good news: the first twenty reviews are simply legwork, and they cost nothing.
Why twenty of all numbers
Below five reviews each one looks like a coincidence — a single bad one drags the average straight down. From around twenty a stable picture emerges: the average barely moves, individual outliers stop mattering, and the entry looks like a business where things actually happen. Twenty is not a magic number, then, but the threshold from which reviews work for you rather than against you.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Most businesses ask too late, too rarely and too vaguely. “Do leave us a review on Google sometime” at the end of a conversation goes nowhere, because at that moment the customer has neither the time nor the link. Ask at the right moment and shorten the path to two clicks, and you get many times the response — from the same customers.
The right moment
Ask when the satisfaction is visible: right after the compliment at the table, immediately after the work is finished, while paying. Not three days later by email, when the experience has already faded. Catch the moment and you don't have to persuade anyone.
Shorten the path to two clicks
- Create a QR code that goes straight to the review area of your profile — not to the home page.
- Put the code where people are waiting anyway: on the bill, at the counter, on the table stand, on your business card.
- For trades and services: put the link in the closing message or the invoice email.
- Agree on one fixed sentence everyone on the team uses — then it isn't only the boss who asks.
One note from practice: the short review link is exactly right for this purpose. On your own website, the full profile link is the better choice, because there the profile with your name appears first — a bare login screen without a company name tends to put people off.
What you must not do
Don't buy reviews, don't invent them, don't promise discounts or free extras for them. That breaches the platforms' guidelines, is legally attackable under competition law — and reliably comes out, because bought texts all sound the same. A business with eight genuine reviews stands better than one with forty bought ones.
And if a bad one arrives?
Reply — factually, politely, within a few days. Not for the author, but for the silent readers: most prospects read the replies and draw conclusions about how you deal with problems. A calm, concrete answer to a critical review often convinces more than five enthusiastic stars without text.
The simplest plan
- Week 1: complete the profile, create the QR code, agree the fixed sentence with the team.
- Weeks 2 to 6: ask every satisfied customer. Two a week is plenty.
- Ongoing: reply to every review — including the good ones, briefly and personally.
- After three months: compare views and calls in the profile. The difference is usually clearly visible.
Reviews are the only marketing channel that grows stronger over time and costs nothing. Once the first twenty are behind you, you hardly need to nudge any more — after that they come by themselves.
Would you like to put this into practice in your business?
In a free first call we look together at where your biggest potential lies — no obligation, in plain language.