This 2026 Google has updated its review policy on Google Maps introducing relevant changes that directly affect the way businesses manage and encourage customer reviews.
Among the most important new features, two key points stand out:
- You cannot ask your customers to mention an employee’s name in the content of their review.
- It is expressly mentioned that it is not allowed to incentivize employees to achieve a specific number of reviews.
This change is a major turnaround for many companies that were using direct mentions of employees as a way to measure the performance of their teams.
From now on, this approach not only loses effectiveness, but may result in reviews containing mentions of employees being filtered or deleted.
The end of mentions as internal KPIs
With the new Google Maps policy, it is no longer valid to ask customers to mention employees in their reviews as a form of measurement. If you were using in OPINAS this functionality to see mentions of your team in reviews to evaluate which employee requests more reviews, it is time to stop doing so.
However, with OPINAS you can continue to see mentions as they occur naturally, without the need to incentivize them.
The key now is to measure review requests, not content, and adapt without jeopardizing your reputation.
The alternative: measuring demand, not content
At OPINAS we have long been committed to a different approach: measuring the team’s effort in requesting reviews, and this is where our system of NFC cards and QR codes for requesting reviews makes the difference.
How the OPINAS system works
Our system is based on something simple but very powerful:
- Each employee has a unique NFC card and/or QR code.
- These cards can be easily purchased through Amazon.
- When a customer reaches for their cell phone or scans the QR and takes an action to rate your service, it is recorded as a review request attributed to that employee.
What exactly can you measure
Thanks to this system, you can make a daily and objective follow-up of:
- How many times each employee requests reviews.
- What level of involvement each team member has.
All this without conditioning the content of the review or asking for explicit mentions.
The OPINAS approach is fully compatible with Google’s new policies and maintains the authenticity of customer feedback.
