Reviews that nobody owns
A one-star Google review about a forty-minute wait for mains sits at one site for a fortnight with no reply. At another site the GM replies to every review personally, some in ways head office would rather he did not. A third site has had several comments about cold chips on Deliveroo, but nobody has put them together.
The marketing manager checks the flagship's reviews on a Monday when there is time. The ops director hears about bad reviews when a friend forwards one.
Ask any area manager what guests say about their sites and you get an honest guess. Ask for evidence and there is none, because the reviews are spread across a dozen logins and nobody has ever read them side by side. The same complaint can appear every week at one site for months before it reaches someone who can change the rota, the pass or the packaging.
Why reviews go unmanaged in a group
- Reviews are spread across Google Business Profiles, TripAdvisor, booking platforms and delivery apps for every site.
- Access to each profile is held by different people, some of whom have left.
- GMs are busy during the hours reviews arrive and reply inconsistently.
- Nobody reads reviews for patterns, only for the dramatic ones.
- Head office has no measure of how each site is doing beyond star averages.
What unmanaged reviews cost
Unanswered negative reviews stay at the top of a site's profile, where prospective guests read them before booking. Replies written in a hurry, or in anger, can do more harm than silence. The biggest loss is the information: guests are telling the group exactly what is going wrong at each site, and it is not reaching the people who could fix it.
How we bring reviews together
- We collect reviews from each site's profiles on the main platforms, through their APIs where available and approved integrations elsewhere.
- Every review lands in one inbox, tagged by site, platform and star rating.
- A draft reply is prepared using your tone of voice guidelines, using a language model such as OpenAI or Anthropic Claude, for the GM or marketing to check, edit and send. Nothing is posted without a person approving it.
- Reviews mentioning themes such as wait times, temperature, staff, cleanliness or allergens are tagged, and anything sensitive goes to the ops team rather than being answered by the site.
- A monthly report shows each site's themes, response rate and trend, so area managers can see what guests are saying.
| Theme | Example comment | Usually goes to |
|---|---|---|
| Speed of service | Waited ages for mains | GM and area manager |
| Food quality | Chips were cold | Head chef |
| Delivery | Missing side, soggy packaging | Kitchen and packing |
| Sensitive | Illness or allergen claims | Ops team, not the site |
Reviews as a weekly habit
GMs open one inbox and deal with their site's reviews using drafts they can adjust in a minute. Head office sees response rates across the estate. Sensitive reviews are handled by the right person. In the monthly ops meeting, each site's themes are on the table, and a pattern of complaints about slow mains at one site leads to a look at its kitchen staffing or pass setup.
Could this be your group?
- Many reviews at some sites have no reply.
- GMs reply in very different tones.
- Profile logins are held by people who have left.
- Nobody reviews complaints for patterns by site.
- Delivery app feedback is never read centrally.