A customer receives a satisfaction question after a purchase. A high score opens a public review link, while a low score opens a private support form. The business may describe this as helping unhappy customers, but it has also decided who gets the convenient route to public feedback.
That selective process is commonly called review gating. It matters because the public review record can appear more positive when dissatisfied customers are quietly directed elsewhere.
Look at the route every customer receives
Check the journey from both a satisfied and a dissatisfied customer's position:
- Do they receive the same optional public review link at the same relevant milestone?
- Does a low satisfaction score send someone only to a private form?
- Are staff choosing recipients because they expect a positive review?
- Can anyone ask for support without giving up the opportunity to publish feedback?
Private support is useful. The problem is using a predicted opinion to decide who gets the convenient route to public participation.
Google's guidance on Business Profile restrictions explains consequences of fake engagement and points to the applicable content policy. That policy includes selectively soliciting positive reviews. A request process should not make public participation easier only for people who have already expressed satisfaction.
Review the whole journey, including staff instructions. A neutral-looking email can still be selective if employees send it only to customers they expect to praise the business.
Separate service recovery from review selection
Offer help because the customer has a problem, without requiring them to keep the experience private. A useful message can provide both a support contact and an optional public review route without sorting people according to sentiment.
Do not make a remedy conditional on deleting or improving a review. Resolving a complaint and asking for a preferred public account are different activities, even when they happen in the same conversation.
The FTC's guidance on featuring online customer reviews explains concerns around review processing and misleading presentation. It is important to distinguish particular legal prohibitions from the broader question of whether a practice creates a deceptive impression; not every jurisdiction uses the same legal definition or rule.
Apply clear criteria to moderation
A review may contain private information, threats or material unrelated to the experience. Those are reasons to assess it against published content rules. Criticism of the service is a different matter.
The UK's guidance for online review sites addresses publishing genuine, relevant and lawful reviews. If your business operates a review system, understand the obligations that apply to that role and market.
Keep a record of why content was excluded and use consistent criteria. A policy that says “we remove abusive content” should not become an informal permission to remove every low rating.
Describe website selections accurately
A homepage can feature a small set of customer experiences without being a complete review database. The label needs to match that editorial choice. “Selected customer feedback” is different from a claim that the section contains every review received.
Mirror App's Reviews Widget offers ways to present supported feedback on your website. Use display choices responsibly and retain clear source information. Filtering a website collection should not be used to imply that criticism does not exist or to misrepresent an overall rating based on a selected subset.
