Short answer: you can, and should, ask your real customers for reviews. What you can't do is make them up, buy them, ask only for positive ones in exchange for something, or hide the negative ones. Besides being illegal in the European Union and the United States, it gets detected and ends up hurting the brand.
This article is for information only and is not a substitute for legal advice. If you have questions about your specific case, consult a lawyer.
Why they matter for AI
When an assistant looks for information to recommend a company, it often checks review platforms, directories and forums. What your customers say there influences whether it mentions you and how it describes you.
What's prohibited
In the European Union, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, strengthened by the so-called Omnibus Directive (2019/2161), considers it unfair to publish or commission fake reviews and to misrepresent reviews for promotional purposes. Spain transposed it into its consumer protection law in 2021. In addition, if your website displays reviews, you must state whether and how you check that they come from real customers.
In the United States, the FTC approved a rule in 2024 that prohibits, among other things, fake reviews, buying reviews, conditioning an incentive on the review being positive and suppressing negative reviews.
Platforms have their own rules. For example, Google doesn't allow offering incentives in exchange for reviews on its business profiles. Check each platform's policy before asking for reviews on it.
What you can do
- Ask all your customers for reviews, not just the ones you think are happy.
- Make it easy: a direct link to the platform, at the right moment (when the service is finished or when the customer gets a result).
- Reply to every review, including negative ones, politely and with solutions.
- Show real reviews on your website, explaining where they come from.
A simple 4-step system
- Choose one or two platforms that matter in your industry (Google, Trustpilot, specialized directories).
- Define the moment: the point in the process when the customer has already seen value.
- Prepare the message: short, personal, with the direct link and without conditioning the content. For example: *"Would you tell us about your experience? It helps us improve and helps others get to know us. [link]"*.
- Measure: how many you ask for, how many you get and which topics come up again and again.
What we won't offer you
At Visaeon we don't write reviews or generate fake traffic. Besides being illegal, it doesn't work: platform systems and AI models themselves are getting better and better at telling what's authentic. What we do is help you set up a genuine reviews program.