How to get more client reviews as a migration agency

Most people looking for a migration agent are making a high-stakes decision about something they don't fully understand, often in their second or third language, and often from overseas. Registration tells them an agent is legally allowed to charge. Reviews are what tell them what it is actually like to be a client: whether calls get returned, whether fees matched the quote, whether the agent explained the risks honestly.

Reviews also do practical work on your listing. Your rating and review count are two of the signals in how we rank agencies, and a profile with very few reviews is kept out of search engine indexes until it has a handful. A steady flow of genuine reviews is one of the few things that improves your visibility and your conversion at the same time.

Pick one or two fixed points in a matter and ask every client at those points. A fixed point keeps you honest — you are not choosing who to ask based on how you think the review will go — and it turns asking into a routine rather than something someone has to remember.

Visa matters can run for months or years, so waiting until a decision arrives means many clients are never asked at all. Lodgement is often a better moment: the client has just seen the bulk of your work, and they know how the engagement felt regardless of what the department later decides.

Reviews on migrationagent.review come from invites, not from anonymous visitors. You send an invite from the Reviews page of your agency dashboard, we email the client a personal link, and the review they leave is published on your profile with a "Verified client" label. They don't need an account. Because each review is tied to an invite, a client can only review your firm once.

Invites only work from a claimed listing, so check where yours stands first. Search for your agency below to see whether it is claimed and how complete it is.

Tell the client the invite is coming before you send it. A one-line heads-up in your lodgement email or at the end of a call — "We'll send you a short link to review our service; it's optional and takes a couple of minutes" — means they recognise the email when it lands instead of ignoring it.

Keep it neutral. Ask for an honest review, not a good one. Don't mention star ratings, don't suggest what they might write, and don't tie the request to anything you are still doing for them.

Review practices sit under two sets of rules. The Australian Consumer Law, enforced by the ACCC, prohibits fake reviews and review practices that create a misleading impression — including paying or rewarding people for reviews, writing reviews yourself, and only inviting people you expect to be positive. Registered agents are also bound by the Code of Conduct for registered migration agents, which expects you to act with integrity and not to mislead. A review programme that would embarrass you in front of OMARA is not worth the extra stars.

Your profile also shows reviews from your Google Business Profile, as long as we have matched your listing to it. Google and site reviews are blended into a single rating weighted by how many each source has, so a healthy Google presence helps your listing too. If your dashboard shows no Google reviews and you have them, the match may have failed — usually because the business name or address on Google differs from the OMARA register. Get in touch through the contact page and we will look at it.

You can ask a client to review you on Google as well as here; the same rules apply. Just don't ask the same client for so many reviews that it starts to feel like a chore.