June 15, 2026
There is another clinic five minutes from you. Similar treatments, similar prices, similar photos.
She is going to choose one of you tonight, from her couch, in about ten minutes. Almost none of that decision is about the thing most owners obsess over.
The data below comes from BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2025, a representative panel of 1,026 US adults, which is one of the few pieces of research in this space with a published methodology.
1. Assume She Is Reading
Only 4% of consumers say they never read online reviews.
That is worth sitting with, because it means the review section is not a marketing channel you can opt out of. It is the room where the decision happens, whether or not you are in it.
2. Your Star Rating Matters Less Than You Think
Here is the finding that surprises people. The share of consumers saying star rating does not affect their decision at all went up again in 2025.
Consumers have also become more forgiving about volume. More of them are now willing to choose a business with fewer than 50 reviews than were in 2024, and expectations for 50 or more have dropped.
Recency is loosening too. Only 20% now say a review needs to be within the last two weeks to matter, down 7 points in a year, and nearly 10% say recency makes no difference at all.
What is going up instead: long, detailed reviews, and reviews with photos or video attached. She is not scanning for a number. She is reading for evidence.
Which changes what you should ask for. A five star rating with no words does very little. A patient describing what her first appointment felt like does a lot.
3. The Thing Almost Nobody Does: Reply to Everything
Only 7% of consumers say they do not expect a business to respond to reviews.
The survey measured how likely people are to use a business based on its response habits, and the gap is not subtle. Responding to all feedback, good and bad, performs enormously better than responding only to the positive, or only to the negative. Not responding at all performs worst of all.
There is a timing expectation too. 63% expect a response somewhere between two or three days and a week.
This is the cheapest thing on this entire list. It costs nothing, takes minutes, and most of your competitors are not doing it. If you only act on one paragraph in this article, make it this one.
4. She Is Checking More Than One Place
74% of consumers say they use two or more review sites before deciding.
That means your Google profile is not the whole story. If she finds you on Google looking excellent and then finds a stale Facebook page or an unclaimed listing with two old complaints and no replies, the mismatch itself is the problem.
You do not need to be everywhere. You need the two or three places she is likely to check to tell the same story.
5. Ask, Because She Will Probably Say Yes
96% of consumers are open to writing a business a review. Only about 29% wrote one in the last year.
That gap is not reluctance. The single biggest reason people gave for not writing one is that the experience simply was not noteworthy enough to write about. Another 10% said they did not think their review would make any difference.
Both of those are fixable. The first is a service question. The second is just a sentence: tell her honestly that reviews are how other people find you, because most patients have never considered that.
6. Ask at the Right Time, in the Right Way
Email is still the most effective request format, and it got stronger, rising from 32% to 40% of consumers saying they would be most likely to respond to it. Being asked in person came second at 27%. Text and phone requests both rose as well.
Timing depends on the industry, and this is where a lot of clinics get it wrong. For food and drink, people expect to be asked the same or next day. For beauty and entertainment, and again for healthcare and service businesses, consumers said the right window is roughly three days to a week after the experience.
That makes sense for aesthetics specifically. Ask her as she is walking out and she has nothing to report yet. Neurotoxin has not settled. Swelling has not gone down. Ask a few days later and she actually has something to say, which is exactly the detailed, specific review that section two says carries the most weight.
A practical combination: mention it in person at the end of the appointment, then follow up a few days later by email or text with the direct link.
7. Do Not Offer Anything In Return
This one is important, and a lot of clinics are quietly getting it wrong.
Offering a discount, a credit, loyalty points or an entry into a draw in exchange for a review is prohibited by most major review platforms, including Google. The penalties range from having reviews removed to having a warning displayed publicly on your profile.
It also backfires with patients. 42% of consumers said they would assume a review was fake if it looked like part of a paid or incentivised arrangement.
You can thank someone warmly. You cannot pay them, in any currency.
8. The AI Finding That Cuts Both Ways
Two things in this research sit awkwardly together, and both are useful.
46% of consumers said that a review reading as if it was written by AI would make them suspect it was fake, the top fake signal in the survey.
And yet, in a blind test where consumers were shown two responses to a five star review for a vet clinic, the majority preferred the one written by AI. Two years running, with two different industries.
The lesson is not "use AI for everything." It is that people are reacting to tone, not authorship. What reads as fake is generic, flat and templated. What reads as real is specific: her name, the treatment, something only your clinic would know.
One more finding worth knowing, since it is about how you get found at all. 48% of consumers said they read AI generated review summaries before reading a mix of positive and negative reviews themselves. And 18% said they would be willing to decide based on the summary alone.
Summaries are built from patterns across your reviews. Which means what your patients repeatedly mention, good or bad, is increasingly what a machine tells the next patient about you.
9. Do This Today
Reply to every review you have, oldest to newest. Yes, the old ones.
Write down your review request timing. If you are asking on the day of the appointment, move it to three to seven days after.
Remove any incentive from your review request wording.
Check the two or three other places you are listed and make them match your Google profile.
Then ask ten happy patients this week, in person, and mention that it is how other people find you.
The Numbers Worth Remembering
Only 4% of consumers never read online reviews.
74% check two or more review sites before deciding.
Only 7% do not expect a business to respond to reviews, and 63% expect that response within two to three days to a week.
96% of consumers are open to writing a review. About 29% wrote one last year.
The preferred window for a review request in beauty and healthcare is roughly three days to a week after the visit.
42% would suspect a review is fake if it appeared incentivised.
18% would decide based on an AI generated review summary alone.
Trust in reviews as equal to personal recommendations has fallen from 79% in 2020 to 42% in 2025.
Common Questions
How many Google reviews does a med spa need?
Fewer than most owners assume, and the bar dropped again in 2025. More consumers are now willing to choose a business with under 50 reviews, and expectations for 50 or more fell year over year. Detail and responses matter more than volume.
Should you respond to negative reviews?
Yes, and the data is emphatic. Businesses that respond to all feedback significantly outperform those that respond only to positive reviews, and both beat responding to nothing. Reply calmly, do not discuss any clinical detail publicly, and offer to take it offline.
When should a clinic ask for a review?
Roughly three days to a week after the appointment for beauty and healthcare. Same day is too early for aesthetics, because the patient does not yet know how she feels about her results.
Can you offer a discount for a Google review?
No. Incentivised reviews breach the policies of most major platforms and can get your reviews removed or your profile publicly flagged. Patients are also alert to it, with 42% treating apparent incentives as a fake review signal.
Sources
BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2025. Representative panel of 1,026 US adults, conducted via SurveyMonkey.
Google Business Profile review policies on incentivised reviews.
