When to send a review request

Why a few hours works

Think about the guest who finished lunch at a harbour cafe at two. By four they are back at work or at the beach, phone in hand during a pause. The meal is still vivid: the fish, the slow service, the view. A message then lands as a reminder of something recent, not as an interruption.

Ask too soon and the guest is still at the table, mid conversation, with the bill not yet paid. Google’s own policy also says merchants should not require or pressure guests to leave ratings or reviews while on the premises. An email they can open later is a request, not pressure, but a gap between the visit and the ask keeps it that way.

Ask too late and the detail fades. A week on, the cafe is one of several, and the review, if it comes, is vaguer. That is why VoqadoWiFi sends its review email 3 hours after the guest connects to the WiFi by default, and holds anything due between 21:00 and 09:00 venue time until the morning. The delay is set in hours, per venue.

Adjusting the delay by venue type

The WiFi login tells you when a guest arrived, not when they left. So the right delay depends on how long a typical visit lasts.

Lounges

At a cocktail lounge the WiFi login happens early, when the group settles in, and the visit can run four hours. A 3 hour delay can land while the table is still ordering. A longer delay so the message reaches them the next day is kinder, and quiet hours already stop anything going out overnight.

Hotel stays

A hotel guest often joins the WiFi in the lobby with their bags still at their feet. Three hours later they have seen the room and nothing else. Set a delay that clears the typical length of stay, so the request asks about the stay as a whole.

Retail

In a shop, the visit is short and the decision is made at the till. The default works, or shorter, so the message arrives while the guest is unpacking what they bought.

Quiet hours

A review request that buzzes at 11pm is a review request that gets swiped away, and sometimes resented. VoqadoWiFi holds guest messages during quiet hours, 21:00 to 09:00 venue time by default. A message that falls due in that window is deferred to the morning, not dropped, so a lounge guest who connected at 8pm still hears from you, just not at bedtime.

How often to ask

A regular who stops by four mornings a week should not get four review requests a week. Asking once, and then leaving them alone, is both more polite and more effective.

• At most one review request per guest per venue every 90 days.
• None at all if the guest has rated the venue in the last 180 days.
• Across every kind of message, at most one per guest per venue in 7 days and four in 30 days. A venue can tighten these caps, never loosen them.
• If several messages are due at once, the review request goes first and the others wait their turn.

How these caps work across thank you, return and birthday messages is set out in how post visit campaigns work.

Why every guest gets the same public link

It is tempting to ask “How was your visit?”, send the five star answers to Google and the rest to a private form. That practice is usually called review gating, and it is the one thing on this page that can get a venue in real trouble.

What Google says

Under rating manipulation, Google’s Maps user generated content policy says it does not allow merchants to “discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”. It also says merchants should not offer incentives in exchange for reviews.

What the FTC rule says

In the United States, the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, took effect on October 21, 2024. Its review suppression section, 465.7, makes two things unfair or deceptive: using unfounded legal threats, physical threats, intimidation or knowingly false public accusations to prevent or remove a review, and a business misrepresenting that the reviews shown on its site are most or all of those submitted while it suppresses reviews because of their rating or negative sentiment.

The FTC’s own questions and answers are candid that the rule has no specific ban on asking only customers you think are happy, and add that the practice could still violate the FTC Act. Between that warning and Google’s explicit policy, the safe design is simple: one public link for everyone.

How VoqadoWiFi handles it

Every rating sees the same public review destinations in the same order, with Google first. A private note to the venue is offered underneath for every rating, in addition to the public link, never instead of it. A rating is recorded only when the guest taps Send or a destination, never just because the page loaded. The background is in review gating and Google policy.

Who receives a review request

By default, a review request goes only to guests who ticked the email box on the WiFi login. Guests who said no are never scheduled at all. Every message carries a link to a preference centre where the guest can stop emails from the venue with one tap. Guest email from a venue is sent once sending has been switched on for that venue; until then messages are held, not sent.

For the wording itself, start from the post visit email templates. For how ratings and private notes come back to you, see customer feedback.

Questions

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