Can you publish feedback without the customer’s permission? Like comments in an email or provided on Facebook? Are there restrictions in this area?

NEVER post a review online on behalf of a customer.
First, ideally you want that customer to go online and leave the review themselves. That makes it truly genuine. Second, the review sites can tell where the online reviews are coming from. This means if you start typing in a bunch of customer reviews from your office computers on Google, Insiderpages, Yelp, etc., Google and the other review sites will know that (they can see your IP address and other details) and will either penalize you or delete the reviews. It’s NOT worth the risk.

Always ask your customers to leave reviews for you. You can do this many ways:

• Send them a thank you email saying how great it was to work with them, and ask for a review
• Send them a physical letter thanking them and asking for a review
• Include a line at the bottom of your invoice asking for a review
• Add “How are we doing?” with a link to a review site in your email signature line
• Call a happy customer, and just ask

NOTE: Always provide customers with the DIRECT URL to your review site’s page (i.e. “Tell us how we did! Please leave a review for us on facebook.com/CompanyName.” Don’t just say, “Please leave a review for us on Facebook.” Give them the direct page to your business on a review site, so they don’t have to search and hunt for it. Make it easy for customers to leave reviews. (If they have to search and work at it, the chances of them actually leaving a review are diminished.)