How a business in Chiang Mai gets Google reviews
The slowest lever in local search, and the one that decides whether a stranger picks you or the shop next door.
Reviews · 2026-08-19
Reviews carry about 20 percent of what decides local ranking in Google Maps, and both the count and the recency are among the ten strongest single factors. You may ask every customer for a review. You may not offer anything in return, and you may not ask only the happy ones. The fastest honest method is a short link handed over at the moment the customer is most pleased, which is when they pay.
Where you stand against the shop next door
- 20 % of local map ranking comes from reviews alone
- 60 % more likely that a Thai customer picks a business with Thai-language reviews
- 10 recent reviews from this year count for more than thirty from two years ago
Ask in Thai, and ask Thai customers to answer in Thai
A business with reviews written in Thai is chosen 60 percent more often by Thai customers than one with the same star rating in English only. That costs nothing to fix. When a Thai customer agrees to leave a review, ask them in Thai and they will answer in Thai. For an agency in Chiang Mai serving both markets, a review wall in one language is half a wall.
The rules, because a suspended profile costs everything
Google forbids incentives of any kind, including a discount, a free drink or a raffle entry. It forbids review gating, meaning you may not filter for satisfied customers before asking. It forbids buying reviews, and detection has been good enough for years that it is not worth discussing. Asking everyone, plainly, with a link, is allowed and is what works.
The moment of asking decides the answer rate
Asking a week later by email gets very few replies. Asking at the counter while the customer is still holding the receipt gets many. The short link from your Google Business Profile fits on a card, on the receipt, or in the LINE message that confirms the booking. Give it to the person who serves the customer, not to the person who does the marketing.
Nine finished projects, six reviews
We are not writing this from a position of strength. miraTEQ has six Google reviews and the agencies ranking above us in Chiang Mai have 23, 36 and 42. We know exactly what it costs to leave this until later, because we did. If you have finished work with ten happy customers, ask all ten this week, and ask the Thai ones in Thai.
We set the review process up
Profile, short link, the wording of the request in Thai and English, and where it goes in your booking confirmation. Part of the marketing plan.
See what marketing includes