Review request timing: when to ask, by kind of business

Ask for a review when the customer can judge the result and the visit is still fresh: the same afternoon for a haircut or a cleaning, the next day for a repair that needs to prove itself, a week or more for a treatment with results that take time. Always inside quiet hours, once per visit at most, and not every visit for regulars. A request sent before the customer can judge gets ignored; one sent weeks later gets a vaguer review.

The principle

The customer writes the best review when two things are true: they can say whether it worked, and they still remember the details. For most service visits, both are true a few hours after. For some, the first is not true for days.

By industry

Salons and barbers: same day, two to four hours after. The result is visible and the feeling is immediate.

Dental (cleaning, checkup): same day, a few hours after. For treatment (a crown, a filling), the next day, once any discomfort has settled.

Med spa: consult and simple treatments, same day. Injectables and treatments with results that develop, one to two weeks, timed to when you tell clients to expect the result.

Home services (repair): the next day. The customer wants to know the fix held.

Home services (installation): two to three days after, when they have used it.

Veterinary (wellness): same day. Sick visits: a few days after, and only if the outcome was good, which requires a person to decide, not a rule.

Chiropractic and physio: after a few sessions, not the first. The customer needs to feel a difference.

Legal and accounting: at the end of the matter or the filing, not mid-process.

Real estate: after closing.

Fitness: after the first month, not the first class.

Restaurants: same evening or next morning.

Moving: the day after the move.

Quiet hours and the evening visit

A 6pm haircut's "two hours after" is 8pm, inside the window; an 8pm restaurant booking's is 10pm, which is not. Schedule the request for the next morning when the natural time falls outside hours. The messaging system should do this automatically.

How often to ask the same customer

Once per visit at most, and for regulars, once or twice a year. A customer who comes in monthly and gets a review request monthly stops reading your texts, and the requests they ignore count against your delivery reputation. Set a minimum gap (three to six months) per customer.

Who decides for the exceptions

Rules handle the routine. Some visits should not get an automatic request: a sick pet with a bad outcome, a treatment with a complication, a customer who complained. Give the front desk or the practitioner a one-tap "do not request for this visit" and honour it. This is not gating (you are not selecting for positive reviews); it is not asking someone for a review of a bad day.

Measuring

Reviews posted per hundred requests, by industry-appropriate timing. Try one timing for a month, then another, and compare. The difference between "same day" and "next day" for a repair business is usually visible in a month.

Frequently asked questions

Should we ask at the desk instead?

Asking in person and then texting the link works well: the person says "we will text you a link", and the text arrives. The text alone works; the desk alone rarely does.

What if the customer has not consented to texts?

Then email, with the same wording and the same timing. Or ask at the desk and add the consent for next time.

Can the AI set the timing?

It can apply the rule per service that you set. Choosing the rule is yours, and the exceptions are a person's.

What Frontiva does here

Frontiva sends review requests: after a completed appointment, by hand for one person, or as a step in an automation, throttled per contact so nobody is asked twice in a season. Three hours after the visit is the default, and you can choose one hour, three, the next day, or two days later. They go by email, not by text. The reviews page has the rest, and asking for Google reviews by text covers the message itself.