A museum store asked Square a simple question in November. They were getting warm feedback on their receipts and wanted it on their Google listing. Square's community moderator answered the next day.

The answer is no, and no setting changes it. Feedback left inside Square stays inside Square.

Two more sellers turned up on that thread, one in January and one three weeks ago, asking the same thing in almost the same words.

The second one is the sentence that matters. Some customers only respond to the Square survey. Those are your happiest customers, they have already taken the trouble to say so, and Google will never see it.

Square is not ignoring this. There is a real feature, and it is the first thing you find when you search for any of this.

Read the "Before you begin" paragraph slowly. The automation sends when a customer becomes a regular, meaning three purchases in the last year, or when a customer leaves positive feedback. Those are the only two ways it fires.

"Positive feedback" means Square Feedback, the smiley face on the digital receipt. Square is clear about what that is.

So the automated ask goes to people who bought three times in twelve months, and to people who already tapped the smiley. Everyone else is asked only if you build a campaign and send it by hand, which the same page does let you do.

Now do the arithmetic for your own business. A restaurant, a barbershop, a plumber, a museum shop. How many of last month's customers bought three times in the last year? For most Square sellers the automation is asking a small minority of the people who walked in.

Search "reviews" in Square's App Marketplace and you will find apps that fix the gap. Some of them fix it by deciding for the customer.

That is Goodreviews, listed in Square's own marketplace since 2022. Rate under 7 out of 10 and you get a different message. Amazely sells the same thing and puts "shield negative reviews" on its free plan.

Google's rating manipulation policy names the practice: "Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers."

Both of those are quotes, and we will leave the conclusion to you. What we do is ask every customer once, send them all to your Google listing, and never look at what they are likely to say first. Podium, Birdeye and Swell publish the same position, so this is a practice to avoid rather than an industry.

Square tells us three different things, and each one is its own switch.

The middle row is the one worth understanding. Square appointments have no "completed" status at all, and nothing fires when the clock passes the booking. So we take the start time, add up the service durations, and wait. A prepaid facial is not asked about when the card is charged. It is asked about when the facial is over.

A refunded customer is never asked. Neither is a no-show.

Square knows who took the payment and which staff member is on each segment of an appointment. We read both, so a two-provider appointment credits both.

Nobody has to be told to ask customers to mention them. The review comes in and is matched to the visit by name and date. Nicknames, initials, reversed names and different spellings are resolved by a model rather than by string matching, which is why it works whatever language the customer wrote in. Anything short of a confident match goes to a human queue instead of being credited to the wrong person.

NiceJob attributes to the team member on Square too, and it is worth knowing where: their own documentation says it works off invoices, and that a cash sale needs an invoice raising to count. A card tapped at your counter does not carry it.

Which brings us to the honest part.

A card tapped at a counter often carries a cardholder name and nothing else. No email, so nobody can be asked. We put that number on the screen rather than quietly counting those sales as sent, and we keep the order anyway, so a review from that customer is still matched to the right day and the right person.

Square's own numbers are published, which is more than most of this category manages.

Monitoring your Google reviews is on the free plan. Sending the requests is not: that needs Square Plus, $49 a month per location, before a single message goes out.

The bolt-on market runs from about $26 a month up to Podium at $399 and $599, billed annually in advance on a twelve-month minimum by its own terms. Birdeye publishes no price at all, asks 90 days' notice before you can leave, and adds an 8% "innovation fee" on renewal.

You do not need any of that to ask a customer for a review after they have paid you.

Can my existing Square reviews be moved to Google? No. Square's own moderator confirmed it: Google only accepts reviews written directly on your Business Profile, and feedback left in Square cannot be exported. The only way forward is to start asking for Google reviews from here on.

Does Square's Google campaign not already do this? For two groups. Customers who bought three times in the last year, and customers who left positive feedback on a receipt. If most of your customers visit once or twice a year, most of them are never asked automatically.

Most of my customers just tap a card. What happens to them? There is usually no email or phone attached, so they cannot be asked, and we show you how many that is each month. The sale is still recorded, so if that customer does leave a Google review it is matched to the visit and to whoever served them.

Does this work with Square Appointments and Square Invoices? Yes, and they are separate switches. An appointment is asked about once its time has passed, an invoice once it is paid in full.

Is it allowed to ask every customer? Asking is fine and Google encourages it. What is not allowed is choosing who to ask based on what they are likely to say, or routing unhappy customers somewhere private instead. We ask everyone once and send them all to the same place.