Reputation & Review Management
Online review management that gets you more reviews, the safe way
Online review management that gets you more real reviews without breaking platform rules. We build the asking into your routine and reply properly to criticism.
In every planIncluded in Local or Growth, from $149 a month. Every plan has every feature; they differ by size.
Compare plansBefore anything else
The line we work to, stated first
Here the ethics are the service, not a footnote. Everything below follows from this list, and we won’t bend any of it.
What we will do
- Ask every real customer, at the point they’re most likely to say yes, through a route that fits each platform’s own rules.
- Reply to reviews in your voice, including the critical ones, usually within a working day.
- Report reviews that breach a specific platform policy, and follow up when the first automated response declines it.
- Tell you plainly when a review is accurate and the right response is to fix the thing it describes.
- Keep a record of who was asked, how and when, so the process survives a staff change or an audit.
- Give you a realistic chance of any removal request working, including when that chance is close to zero.
What we will never do
- Buy reviews, or work with any service that supplies, trades or generates them.
- Write reviews, or ask staff, family, friends or suppliers to write them.
- Offer a discount, a prize entry, a credit or anything else of value for a review.
- Gate requests so only customers we expect to be satisfied get asked.
- Set staff review targets, ask customers to name an employee in their review, or hand them a tablet or kiosk at your premises to review on.
- Try to bury or suppress real criticism, or report a review just because it’s unflattering.
- Promise a rating, a review count, a velocity or the removal of any particular review.
What an audit usually finds
Five patterns behind a weak review profile
Almost none of these come down to service quality. They come down to nobody owning the process.
- Reviews arrive in bursts and then stop.
- Someone pushes for reviews before a busy season, thirty arrive in a fortnight, then nothing for eight months. Platforms and readers both notice the dates. Consistency comes from a process, not campaigns.
- Nobody replies, or one person replies when annoyed.
- An unanswered critical review reads as agreement. A defensive reply fired off in anger is worse, because it becomes the permanent record of how the business handles complaints. Replies need an owner, a tone and a cooling-off rule.
- A reply reveals something it shouldn’t.
- This is serious in regulated sectors. Confirming that a reviewer was a patient, a client or the subject of a matter can breach confidentiality even when the reviewer said so first, and regulators in some places have penalised providers for it. Our rule: a reply never contains anything the reviewer didn’t already make public.
- The same automated request goes to every platform.
- One integration fires review requests everywhere because it was convenient to switch on. Google expects you to ask; Yelp tells you not to. The same request to both helps one profile and damages the other.
- Three months are spent chasing one removal.
- Huge energy goes into a review platforms were never going to remove, while satisfied customers go unasked every week. The fastest way to shrink one bad review’s weight is more recent good reviews, not fighting it.
What buyers read
The rating is the smallest part of what a profile says
A prospective customer sees more than a number. They see when the reviews arrived, what the critical ones say, and how you answered them. Any one of these missing undoes the rest.
- The dates on the profile
- Thirty reviews in a fortnight, then eight months of silence. Anyone scrolling can see it.
- The reply to the worst one
- The only evidence a stranger has of how you behave when something goes wrong.
- Recent real volume
- Enough recent reviews that one poor experience gets read in context, not as the whole picture.
- Replies that read as human
- The same sentence under every five-star review reads as automation and helps nobody decide.
How the asking works
Building the request into the job, not into a campaign
Find the moment
Every business has a point where the customer is happiest and least busy: handover on a finished job, the day after a procedure, a case resolved. The moment matters more than the wording.
You get: The moment identified and documented per service line
Decide which platforms, and how each is treated
Google first for most local businesses, then the industry platforms your buyers use, plus a clear call on platforms where asking breaks the rules. Those are handled differently, not ignored.
You get: A per-platform request policy
Make the ask part of the work
A short message from a real person at the right moment, a card or QR code for in-person work that customers scan with their own phone, and a script your team can say without awkwardness. If it depends on someone remembering, it stops within a month.
You get: Request process and staff scripts in use
Respond as a matter of routine
Critical reviews first, within a working day, with a cooling-off rule before anything goes out. Templates are a starting point, never the final text. Sign-off follows your sector’s rules.
You get: Response process with named owners and sign-off path
Monitor, report and feed it back
Alerts across the platforms that matter, a monthly read of what reviews say beyond the score, and issues passed to whoever can fix them.
You get: Monitoring, monthly reporting and an issues log
When something damaging appears
A bad review, a policy breach and a legal matter are not the same
Most wasted effort comes from treating all three the same. The right response, and the right person, differs each time.
| Dimension | A bad review | A review that breaches platform policy | A review that may be defamatory |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | An accurate account of a poor experience, or an unfavourable opinion held | Content the platform prohibits: spam, conflict of interest, off-topic, a personal attack, or a review from someone who was never a customer | A false statement presented as fact, published, and capable of real reputational harm |
| Will the platform remove it | No, and it shouldn’t | Sometimes, if reported precisely against the policy it breaches, not as a complaint about the rating | Only if it also breaches a platform policy. Platforms don’t adjudicate defamation |
| What helps | A calm, specific public reply, and enough recent real reviews that one poor one reads in context | A precise report, documented evidence, and escalation when the first automated response declines it | A written record of the facts, proper legal advice, and usually a measured public reply meanwhile |
| What makes it worse | Arguing publicly, or replying with details the reviewer never disclosed | Reporting it just because you dislike the rating, which teaches the system to ignore your reports | An angry public response, or a threat sent in writing before you’ve taken advice |
| Who should handle it | Us, in your voice, with your sign-off where the sector needs it | Us, with access to your profiles and your account of the facts | Your lawyer first. We handle the public-facing side once you have advice |
Questions
What owners ask about reviews
Can you get a bad review removed?
Not if it’s just unflattering. Platforms remove content that breaches their policies: conflict of interest, off-topic content, personal attacks or spam. They don’t remove a real account of a poor experience, and they shouldn’t.
We can report a review precisely against the policy it breaches, follow up when an automated first response declines it, and tell you the likely outcome. Anyone promising removal is guessing or planning something you wouldn’t want linked to your business.
Why not offer a small reward, or ask only our happy customers?
Both breach the policies of the major platforms, and both are now regulatory matters in several markets. The platforms ban offering anything of value for a review. Gating, where you only invite people you expect to give five stars, is a form of review suppression.
A profile built that way is also fragile. Get caught, and the reviews come down, the profile can be penalised, and your local search spend was resting on it. We won’t put a client in that position, and we’ll say so if a previous provider already has.
Should we reply to every review?
Reply to all the critical ones and a good share of the positive ones. The same sentence under every five-star review reads as automated. A specific thank-you reads as human.
The critical ones matter most. Prospective customers read those replies closely, because they’re the only evidence of how you behave when something goes wrong.
Someone who was never our customer left a one-star review. What now?
Under most platform policies that’s a conflict-of-interest or off-topic issue, one of the more reportable kinds. We document what you know, report it against the specific policy it breaks, not the rating, and escalate if the first response is automated.
Meanwhile, post a short, factual reply saying you have no record of them as a customer and inviting them to get in touch. It’s written for the next reader and never accuses anyone.
Can we ask for reviews on Yelp the same way we do on Google?
No. Google expects businesses to ask customers for reviews. Yelp’s content guidelines tell businesses not to solicit reviews at all, and its software treats solicited reviews differently.
So the process runs per platform. Ask where asking is expected, and make it easy to find you where it isn’t. Never send one automated request to every site because an integration made it convenient.
What if the review says something that just isn’t true?
Split it into two questions. Does it breach a platform policy, which we can report? And is it a legal matter, which is for a lawyer, not us or the platform?
Platforms don’t adjudicate defamation, and an angry reply or written threat sent before you’ve taken advice tends to make things worse. Post a measured public reply for the next reader while you take legal advice on the rest.
Get a clear read on your review position
We’ll look at your velocity, rating trend, how competitors compare and whether anything on your profiles is reportable. If a previous provider cut corners, we’ll tell you the exposure.
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References
Sources for online review management
The official documents and research this page is based on. Platform rules change, so check the source before you act on a detail.
Related
More on reputation & reviews
- how to measure marketing ROIHow this work gets judged, and the numbers you need first.
- local search visibilityReviews feed local ranking as well as conversion.
- getting more reviews, properlyThe same problem, from the buyer’s side.
- the rules we hold ourselves to
- law firms and professional practicesWhere confidentiality changes what a reply can say.
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Last updated · Published by Zubair Afzal, responsible editor