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Reviews ​

Reviews are the single most-watched piece of any Google Business Profile. The platform centralizes every review across every client, with AI-suggested responses and saved templates for speed.

Two ways to access ​

  • Per-profile: open a profile → Reviews tab. You see only that profile's reviews.
  • Global (/reviews): every review across every profile you have permission to see. The fastest way for an account manager handling many clients.

The global view is feature-flagged (globalReviewsView) — if you don't see it in the sidebar, your org has it disabled.

The review list ​

Each row shows:

  • Star rating (1–5)
  • Author name and avatar (when Google provides it)
  • Review date
  • Snippet of the review text
  • Reply status (replied, awaiting reply, no reply yet)
  • Sentiment classification (positive / neutral / negative — AI-detected)

Filter by:

  • Star rating
  • Profile / business
  • Sentiment
  • Reply status
  • Date range
  • Has-photos / no-photos

Replying to a review ​

Click a review to open the response panel.

Two ways to draft a reply ​

  1. AI-generated — click Generate Reply. The AI uses the brand profile, the review text, and any saved guidance to draft a response in the brand voice. Edit before sending.
  2. From scratch — type your own.

Tone matching ​

The AI calibrates to the review's sentiment:

  • 5-star: warm thank-you, mention something specific from the review.
  • 4-star: thanks + light acknowledgment of the lower star.
  • 3-star: empathy + offer to discuss.
  • 1–2-star: apology, no excuses, invitation to a direct channel (phone, email).

Sending ​

Click Reply on Google. The reply posts to Google within seconds. The review row updates to "Replied" and shows your response below the original.

Editing or deleting a reply ​

You can edit replies in Google's interface (the platform doesn't expose edit-reply — Google's API limits it). To delete via the platform: review → ⋯ → Delete Reply.

Bulk reply ​

For an inbox of 40+ unanswered reviews:

  1. Filter to the batch you want to tackle (e.g. all 5-star, unreplied, last 30 days).
  2. Click Select All at the top.
  3. Bulk Reply with AI generates a unique response for each (in parallel).
  4. Review each draft inline; tweak as needed.
  5. Click Send All.

The platform spaces sends slightly (rate-limit safety) — typically 50 replies in ~2 minutes.

Negative-review playbook ​

For 1–2-star reviews, the standard workflow:

  1. Reply publicly, briefly and apologetically. Don't litigate.
  2. Move offline. Provide a direct phone or email in the reply.
  3. Open a case in the platform to track resolution.
  4. If the review violates Google's policies (fake, harassment, off-topic), flag for removal via Review → Report to Google.

Spam & policy violations ​

Click Report to Google on a review the platform suspects is spam. You'll select a violation reason; Google reviews the report (1–7 days typically). The platform tracks the report status.

Email notifications ​

Review events surface in the dashboard activity feed and the per-profile Reviews tab automatically. You can also opt in to email notifications for the review events that matter to you, set per-user under Settings → Personal Notifications → Reviews:

  • New review on any profile I manage — emailed whenever a new review lands on one of your profiles.
  • New negative review (1–2 stars) — emailed only for 1- and 2-star reviews. Independent of the toggle above: you can subscribe to negative-only without getting every review.
  • Review removed by Google — emailed when a review that was present disappears from Google.

How the toggles work ​

Each toggle is three-state:

  • Use org default — inherit whatever your organization set as the default for this event (shown next to the toggle). This is the default for every user.
  • On — always email me for this event.
  • Off — never email me for this event, even if the org default is on.

Org owners and admins set the organization-wide defaults under Settings → General (org-wide email notification toggles). All defaults are off (opt-in) unless an admin turns them on.

Who gets emailed ​

Emails go only to org members who manage the company the review belongs to — a member scoped to specific companies won't be emailed about reviews on profiles outside their scope. Owners and admins manage all companies, so they qualify for every profile. You'll get at most one email per review even if it matches more than one of your toggles (e.g. a 1-star review with both "new review" and "negative review" on).

Availability: Review email notifications are rolling out and gated per organization. If you don't see the Reviews section under Personal Notifications, the feature isn't enabled for your org yet — ask your administrator (or Simple SEO Marketing) to turn it on.

A fourth toggle — "Review reply approved by client" — is still on the Roadmap: it depends on a review-reply approval workflow that doesn't exist yet (replies post directly to Google today).

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