Can you ask only happy customers for reviews?

Short answer

No — that practice, called review gating, is discouraged and can violate Google's policies. Screening customers so only the satisfied ones are sent to Google (and unhappy ones diverted) misrepresents your reputation.

What to do instead

• Ask all customers for honest feedback, not a filtered subset.
• It's fine to have a private feedback channel too — but you can't use it to block unhappy customers from the public review while funneling happy ones in.
• Let the reviews reflect the real range of experiences.

Gating can get reviews removed and erodes trust if exposed. A genuinely strong average comes from great service plus honest, unfiltered asking.