Monitor and reply to reviews

Reviews shape both your ranking and whether people choose you. SearchOps brings the reviews for your tracked locations into one place, from Google and, on Pro and above, Trustpilot and Tripadvisor, so you can spot new ones quickly and reply to Google reviews without hopping between accounts.

What you'll need

• A tracked location with a Google Place ID.
• To reply from SearchOps, or to have Google reviews arrive automatically, connect the location's Google Business Profile. See Connect your Google Business Profile.

See your reviews

1. Go to Reputation > Reviews in the sidebar.
2. Review Monitoring shows your Google reviews and Google rating across every branch, how many reviews are awaiting a reply (and how many of those are low ratings), and how many locations have review data. Needs a reply lists the locations with reviews waiting longest for an answer, low ratings first.
3. Below, a brand with several branches has its own panel: its Google rating across the branches, its Trustpilot or Tripadvisor rating, and a card for each branch. A business with one location has a card of its own. Press Check Google on any card to check that location now, or Brand view to see a whole brand at once. To change how locations are grouped, use the Locations page.
4. Open a location. Its tabs are Trends, Reviews (each review, newest first, with the rating, the reviewer and any reply already posted), Themes, Competitors (how your Google rating and review count compare with the businesses found in your scans) and Sources.

Reviews from a connected Google Business Profile sync automatically and don't use any allowance. Checking a location you haven't connected, or a Trustpilot or Tripadvisor page, uses one of your monthly review checks: 150 on Starter, 400 on Pro and 1,500 on Agency, reset on the 1st. Run a check from the location's page, or turn on Daily for a source in the Sources tab. Facebook reviews aren't tracked yet.

See what customers talk about

The Themes tab reads the text of your recent reviews and shows the topics people mention, such as Staff and service, Price and value or Cleanliness and comfort, with how many mentions each has and how people feel about it. Where there is an earlier period to compare with, each topic shows whether feeling has gone up or down, so you can spot a problem early. Sentiment comes from what the reviewer wrote, not their star rating, so the tab also points out reviews where the words and the stars disagree: a high rating with a real complaint in it, or the reverse. If some reviews haven't been read yet, select Read these reviews.

Reply to a review

1. Open Google Business Profiles > Reply Inbox and choose a profile. Awaiting lists the reviews without a reply, and Sync pulls the latest reviews from Google. You can also select Reply on a Google review in a location's Reviews tab.
2. Write your response, or select Generate reply to have the agent draft one, then edit it.
3. Select Post reply. Google checks every reply first, so it shows as Pending Google until it goes live, or Rejected with Google's reason.

Not ready to answer yet, for example a complaint that needs a manager's sign-off? Select Reply later to put it on your Tasks. The task clears itself once a reply is posted. To change a reply you've already posted, find the review under Replied, edit the text and select Update reply.

You can reply to Google reviews on a connected profile that is linked to a location. Trustpilot and Tripadvisor reviews can't be answered from SearchOps, but Add a reply task puts them in Tasks.

In the Reply Inbox you can set the tone and length of the agent's draft, whether it uses the reviewer's name, whether it may include an emoji, your sign-off, and anything specific to mention, so the result sounds like you rather than a template.

Staff names in replies

Reviewers often misspell the people who helped them. The agent's drafts spell your team's names correctly, even when the review doesn't, so "Jenifer was lovely" gets a reply that thanks Jennifer.

You don't need to set anything up. SearchOps builds each location's list of team names from:

• your website's team or about page,
• your own replies to reviews, where you named someone yourself,
• your reviews, once several reviewers name the same person.

When a review names someone the list can't confirm, the draft thanks the team instead of guessing at a name. Below the draft, Names in this reply shows what was corrected and what was left out. Select works here, pick who they meant, or choose Don't name them. Your answer is saved, so you're only asked once for each name. Select Generate again to redraft using it.

To see or change the whole list, select Team names in the Reply Inbox, or open the location and select Manage. You can correct a spelling, add someone, or mark a person who has left as Don't name so replies never mention them.

Automatic replies (Pro and above)

On Pro and higher you can set a rule that replies to new Google reviews on a connected profile for you. Open the location, select Manage, and use Auto-reply rules. To protect your reputation, automatic replies are deliberately conservative:

• They only apply to higher-star reviews, never to a 1 to 3 star review, which always deserves a personal response.
• You choose whether they cover 5-star reviews only or 4 stars and above, and whether to limit them to star ratings with no written review, which is on by default. Reviews that already have a reply are never touched.
• You control the tone, sign-off, whether the reviewer's name is used, and any guidance for how replies should read.
• They follow your team names list. If a review names someone the list can't confirm, the reply thanks the team instead. If a draft still names them, it isn't posted and the review stays in your Reply Inbox.

Writing good replies

• Thank the reviewer and keep it brief and human.
• Address specifics without sharing private details.
• For a poor review, acknowledge the issue and offer to make it right offline.

Next steps

• Want more reviews coming in? Audit your profile's review signals: Run a Google Business Profile audit.