A customer walks out of a 45-minute visit that ran fifteen minutes long, and she's polite about it. She smiles, tips, and drives home. Somewhere between the parking lot and her couch she opens Google and gives you two stars.
A private recovery path does not control whether that review is posted. What it can do is give her a real channel to raise the issue, without restricting who gets asked for a public review. What follows describes that path, including what it explicitly excludes, which is any form of review gating.
What the process excludes
Do not ask every customer for a rating and only forward the high ratings to the public review link. That is review gating: filtering who gets asked to leave a public review based on how they answer privately first. Review gating is prohibited in this process regardless of platform. Confirm the current terms for each review platform you use before configuring anything, since terms change.
The process also excludes conditioning a discount, service, or future booking on a review or its removal. Avoid incentives unless the current platform terms and your own written policy both allow them.
What the process includes
Ask every customer the same one question at the same moment. Every eligible completed customer receives the same public request, whatever they answer. The private reply runs in parallel for anyone who raised an issue, and it never suppresses the public request.
The flow
- 01
Visit ends
Standard follow-up sent after checkout.
- 02
Private feedback prompt
One question. Was anything off today?
- 03
Route by response
Happy paths go to public review. Unhappy paths route to owner.
- 04
Resolve or invite review
Fix the issue directly, or invite a public review only after.
One post-visit message. Two paths, cleanly separated, with the public request unchanged either way.
- One question. How was your visit today, in one word or a couple of sentences.
- If the answer signals a problem, reply with a real message from the operator within one business day.
- Send the same public review request to every eligible completed customer on the same channel.
- Do not condition, delay, or batch the public request based on the private answer.
The private path has an SLA
The private path is a commitment, not a suggestion box. Reply within one business day, from a real person, using the customer's name and the specific service. If that response window cannot be staffed consistently, do not offer the path at all: an unstaffed channel collects issues that nobody answers.
If a public negative review posts anyway
Reply within a day. Not the same hour, not while you're still hot about it. Use these categories, in this order, and stop at four sentences.
- Acknowledge the specific issue in one sentence.
- State what happened, briefly and without arguing.
- State what you did to make it right or what you changed.
- Invite the customer to reach you directly. Give the channel.
What not to do
Do not argue in public. Do not share private customer information. Do not ask the customer to remove the review. Wait until you can write a calm reply. Future readers are the audience, and the tone of the reply is what they read.
Frequently asked questions
start here
Wire a review flow against the current platform terms.
The Loop Audit checks your records and a test booking, then names the seam. Any module is prescribed after that, against a written scope.
No card, no sales call required. Report emailed to you.