Every small business owner knows reviews matter. So when a Fairfax wellness clinic I work with asked me to ask past customers for reviews, the obvious move was to export every client and send one friendly message.
I didn't. The most useful work happened before anything was written. Here's what that looked like.
Start with who actually counts as a customer
The first question sounds silly: who is a past customer?
The clinic's records held a lot more than customers. They had leads, people who filled in a form and never booked, and people who only ever cancelled. Asking someone who never came in to review you is awkward at best.
So the owner set one rule: a customer is someone with at least one completed session. That covered both the old booking system and the new one.
- 302 people passed that test.
- Most came from the old system, a few from the new one, and some from both.
One clear rule up front stopped weeks of "does this person count?" later.
Should you ask people who already left a review?
No. It's the fastest way to annoy your most loyal customers. They already did you the favour. A second ask reads like you weren't paying attention.
So I matched the client list against the clinic's existing Google reviews. That's harder than it sounds, because people don't review under the exact name on their booking. Shortened first names, different last names, nicknames.
The owner's rule was simple: if it's a likely match, take them off. When in doubt, leave them out.
- 49 people were removed as likely reviewers.
- 253 people were left to ask.
Going cautious costs very little. Missing one possible reviewer is cheap. Asking a happy reviewer twice is not.
Check permission before you plan the message
Next I looked at how each person could be reached, and whether they had agreed to it. It's the step most owners skip.
- 253 had an email address.
- 249 had a phone number.
- 0 had a recorded yes to receiving texts.
That last number changed the plan. Having someone's phone number doesn't mean you have permission to text them. We flagged that as a real risk and wrote it into the plan, so it's a decision the owner makes knowingly, not something buried in a spreadsheet.
I also left out the most recent clients who had already been sent a review request after their visit. Asking them again a few weeks later would be the same mistake as asking someone who already reviewed.
Write your stop rules before your start date
This is the part I'd tell any business owner to copy.
Before deciding when the campaign starts, we decided what would make it stop. Nothing has been sent yet. The plan is drafted and waiting for the owner's approval:
Send in small batches
No more than 50 people a day, on weekday mornings. A problem then shows up after a small group, not after the whole list.
Pause on early warning signs
Sending stops on its own if a batch gets 3 or more opt-outs, any spam report, or 3 or more bounced emails.
Follow up once, then stop
One first message, one reminder seven days later, and that's it. Nobody gets chased.
Stop rules are what let you run a campaign without watching it all day. They protect your reputation and your phone number, which matter more than any single review.
The takeaway for your own business
A review campaign mostly goes right or wrong in the list, not the message. Decide who counts, remove people who already helped, check you have permission, and set your stop rules before you set a start date.
If you're about to ask your customers for anything, spend an hour on the list first. It's the cheapest hour of the whole campaign.