What to ask an agency before it touches your salon reviews

Late February is when salon owners finally have an hour to take an agency call. Stylists quoted by NAILS Magazine describe November and December as fully booked and January and February as the drop that follows, and Square’s guidance for beauty businesses calls these two months traditionally slower as clients rein in their spending.

The pitches that arrive now are mostly written for any storefront. A salon or barbershop is different in three ways that decide whether an agency helps or hurts: the review rules that apply when clients sit in a stylist’s chair, the way clients book, and the fact that many of the people behind the chairs run their own businesses.

Six questions to put to any agency, including us

How will you ask my clients for reviews?

Google’s Maps content policy speaks directly to two habits common in salons. It says merchants should not require or pressure people to leave reviews while on the premises, and it bars merchants from asking staff to solicit reviews that include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member. Offering anything in exchange for a review is banned outright.

The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials has been in effect since October 21, 2024. It covers fake reviews, review suppression and rewards conditioned on a positive review, and the FTC’s own guidance names an owner who asks employees to get reviews from relatives as a red flag.

A good answer: one plain request, sent by text after every visit, from the salon, to every client, with nothing offered for it. A worrying one: a tablet at the front desk, cards with each stylist’s name on them, or a free blowout for a five-star rating.

What happens to our reviews when a stylist leaves?

Stylists change chairs, and reviews age faster than most owners think. BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, published this month, found 74% of consumers only care about reviews written in the last three months, and BrightLocal adds that older reviews may no longer be relevant, especially if the business has changed staff. The same survey found 47% of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews.

Whitespark’s 2026 ranking factors survey, released last November, puts recency of reviews eleventh among map pack factors and a steady flow of reviews over time, rather than bursts, fourteenth.

So the answer you want is a routine, not a campaign: requests going out after every visit, all year, so the reviews describe the team you have now.

Who writes the replies, and how fast?

BrightLocal found 80% of consumers are more likely to use a business that responds to all of its reviews, and 32% now want a response by the following day, up from 18% a year earlier.

Ask the agency to draft three replies on the spot:

• a five-star review praising a stylist who left in December;
• a one-star review about a color correction that went wrong;
• a complaint that the appointment started twenty minutes late.

Each reply should sound like the owner, thank the person, and move any argument off the page with an invitation to call. None should name a client’s service history beyond what the reviewer wrote.

Can a client book with us at ten at night?

Zenoti, which sells salon software, surveyed more than 1,000 salon and spa clients and published the results in November. Among regulars, 71% said they had decided not to book because it was too hard to reach someone or book online. Across the survey, 35% said they already need to manage appointments outside normal business hours, and 48% would be much more likely to return to a salon that let them book or change appointments at any time. It is a vendor’s survey, so weigh the exact figures accordingly.

Ask where the Book button on your Google profile goes. Google adds one through a booking provider and says it shows on the profile within a week. Then ask how they will count bookings: Google provides no performance data for custom links, so a booking partner connected through Google usually reports more than a plain link to your website.

Whose clients are these if my stylists rent their chairs?

IRS Publication 4902 describes a booth renter as someone who leases space from an existing business and operates their own business as an independent contractor, with signs such as their own phone number and business name and setting their own prices. OSHA’s guidance adds that when the owner or receptionist makes the appointments for all workers, those workers may be more likely to be considered employees.

An agency that wants to put every renter’s clients through one booking link and one review stream is proposing something with tax and classification consequences, not only marketing ones. A good agency asks which chairs are rented before it proposes anything, markets the building itself, and leaves each renter’s own link alone. Your accountant has the last word.

What will you do with our slow months?

An agency that asks about your calendar before your budget is worth a second meeting. The NAILS stylists recommend prebooking and express services for the quiet period. That points to work done in November and December, not January: the next appointment booked at checkout, gift card buyers followed up, and clients who have passed their usual interval contacted before anyone reaches for a discount.

A flat monthly ad budget and a January coupon blast is the answer of someone who has not run a salon account.

What the first report should show

By the end of the second month, expect a one-page report with:

1. New clients by source, and how many came back for a second visit.
2. The share of visits that ended with the next appointment booked.
3. Reviews this month and over the last three months, with every reply.
4. Taps on the profile’s Book button and calls from the profile.
5. Marketplace fees paid, set beside bookings from your own profile.

Ask too how they will check what ChatGPT and other assistants say about your salon. BrightLocal found use of generative AI tools for local recommendations rose from 6% to 45% in a year, and an assistant can only repeat the services and hours it finds.

What to do this month

• Search your salon’s name and count the reviews posted in the last three months.
• Read your review request message and strip out stylist names, discounts and any line that asks for five stars.
• Open your Google profile on your phone after closing time and try to book.
• List which chairs are rented and which are staffed, and who owns each booking link.
• Pull last November and December’s rebooking rate, and compare it with the gaps in this month’s book.

None of these takes more than an evening, and together they give you the facts to judge every answer an agency offers. To see how we would answer the six questions ourselves, start with how we work with hair salons and barbershops, then how we run review requests and replies inside Google’s rules.