Review Topic Prompts: Help Customers Know What to Say
Many happy customers freeze at the blank review box. Gentle topic ideas help them get started, without ever telling them what rating or words to use.
In short
Review topic prompts show a happy customer a few gentle ideas of what they might mention, like the team, the result, or timeliness, so the blank box is not so intimidating. They are only ideas: they never tell anyone what rating to leave or what words to use, which keeps every review genuine and within Google's rules.
A lot of reviews never get written for the most ordinary reason in the world: the customer is happy, they tap through to the review box, and then they stall. The cursor blinks, they cannot think how to put it into words, and they close the tab meaning to come back later. They never do. Review topic prompts are a small nudge that gets them past that blank-box moment.
The blank-box problem
Most people are not writers, and a review feels like a tiny essay they did not sign up for. They know they had a good experience, but turning that into a sentence on the spot is harder than it sounds. So a genuinely happy customer, the kind you most want to hear from, ends up leaving nothing at all. Not because they hesitated about your work, but because they did not know where to begin.
Topic prompts solve that with a light touch. As the customer heads to Google to write, you can show a short list of things other people often mention. It is a jog to the memory, not a form to fill in.
What a topic prompt looks like
Think of it as a few friendly suggestions sitting alongside the review box. For a home-services business, the ideas might be:
- What the team did and how they were to deal with.
- How the work turned out in the end.
- Whether things ran on time.
- How tidy the crew left the place.
- Whether it felt like fair value.
The customer reads them, one jogs a memory, and suddenly they have something to say. They write it in their own words, about their own experience. The prompt did its job the moment it got them started.
Where the compliance line sits, plainly
This is the part to be completely clear about, because it is what separates a helpful nudge from a problem. Google prohibits review gating and other practices that produce reviews which are not genuine, and ReviewGrowth is built to stay on the right side of that by default.
Topic prompts are idea prompts and nothing more. They never tell the customer what star rating to leave. They never hand them a script or exact words to copy. They never suggest the review should be positive. All they do is surface a few subjects the customer might want to touch on, leaving the rating and every word entirely up to the person writing. That is what keeps the reviews genuine, and genuine is what keeps them within Google's rules.
Prompts suggest topics, never ratings or words
A prompt that said "leave us five stars" or gave a customer a sentence to paste would be steering, and steered reviews are not genuine. ReviewGrowth never does either. Prompts only ever suggest what to talk about. The opinion, the rating, and the wording are always the customer's own. See Is this allowed? for the full picture.
Editable per location
A plumbing crew, a dental office, and a detailing shop do not do the same work, so they should not get the same prompts. You can edit the topic ideas for each location so they reflect what that team actually does and what its customers tend to care about.
- 1
Start from sensible defaults
Each location begins with a short, neutral set of topic ideas suited to its line of work.
- 2
Tune them to the work
Swap in the things your customers genuinely notice, the on-time arrival, the clean finish, the friendly tech, whatever fits.
- 3
Keep them about topics
Edit freely, with one rule: prompts stay as subject ideas. They never become instructions about ratings or wording.
More reviews, still genuine
When you remove the blank-box hurdle without touching what people actually say, you get more reviews and they stay honest. That is the whole idea. Pair this with your review funnel so the prompts appear right when a happy customer is on the way to Google.
For the words your team uses to ask in the first place, read how to ask customers for Google reviews. And once the reviews arrive, AI review replies help you respond to each one in your own voice. Want the full flow? See how it works.
Frequently asked questions
- Do review topic prompts tell customers what to write?
- No. Prompts only suggest subjects a customer might want to mention, such as the team, the result, or timeliness. They never provide a script, exact words to copy, or any instruction about what rating to leave. The customer writes their own review, in their own words, with their own opinion. The prompt simply helps them get started.
- Is showing topic ideas against Google's rules?
- No. Google prohibits review gating and reviews that are not genuine, such as scripted or incentivized ones. Suggesting topics a customer might cover is not any of those things, because it never dictates the rating or the wording. The review stays the customer's own, which is exactly what keeps it genuine and within the rules.
- Can I change the prompts for each of my locations?
- Yes. Topic prompts are editable per location, so each branch can show ideas that match the work it actually does. The only thing to keep consistent is that prompts stay subject suggestions and never turn into instructions about ratings or specific wording.