Responding to customer reviews is one of the highest return-on-investment actions any brand can take. By responding to customer feedback businesses are:

1. Making certain that the individual knows you have heard their feedback and you are prepared to act to resolve the issue or sincerely appreciate the praise.
   
2. Demonstrating publicly that you’re listening/hearing the voice of your customers and making actionable changes to improve your business.
   
3. Demonstrating to Google that you are actively engaging with customers, triggering signals to improve local search positioning and LCR (local conversion rate).
   
4. Encouraging more future customers to engage with you via the reviews, causing an increase in future review volume (a positive search ranking signal), an increase in the number of words used by customers in future reviews (more user-generated content to be index by Google), and an increase in average review scores (the previously “silent” satisfied majority is engaged to leave positive reviews).

Despite the incredible benefits derived from “engaging with the most engaged”, we know that businesses and agencies of every size have a strong desire to make responding more efficient. Addressing this need has been at the core of the LocalClarity offering.

Saved Reply Templates

Saved Replies allowed users to respond to reviews with pre-built templates, improving productivity while also making certain that responses remain on-brand and use approved language. Saved Reply templates can be used to respond to Google, Facebook, TrustPilot, and other direct integration platforms. Every new profile is launched with 26 saved reply templates immediately available.

Auto-Insert Variables

To make the Saved Reply Templates even more powerful, we made available a set of six content blocks that can be used to insert variables — both Google review-based, and location-based — directly into the response templates.

Users simply need to select the associated template based on the review stars and all the details will flow into the response edit area of the ReviewsInbox. Users can then tweak the response as necessary before sending it directly to the review platform. The location-based variables can be assigned individually or via bulk uploads.

Review Variables
{{locationName}} : Official location name provided by GBP
{{reviewerFullName}} : Reviewer full name provided by GBP
{{reviewerFirstName}} : Assumed reviewer first name (characters before the first space in the reviewerFullName)

Location Variables
{{replyLocationName}} : Friendly location name in the event that the official location name is not ideal for a response
{{replyGeoLocationName}} : Friendly name of the city, state, suburb, or neighborhood of the location
{{signature}} : Signature name or phrase to add to the responses based on the location

To access a selection of 30 sample templates populated with review and location variables, you can visit our knowledge base article.

Intelligent Auto Response

Please see the video below for instructions on how to create your first campaign to automatically respond to your Google reviews. (Or continue reading)

The following will show to build campaigns to automatically respond to Google reviews while still following all of the best practices for timely, personalized, on-brand responses.

When a new review is received, the platform will compare it against a set of assigned triggers (star rating, content, store location, test campaign, and response ratio targets), select randomly from campaign assign response templates, and then send the response with the preferred timing delay and even during standard customer service hours. The goal is to allow brands to respond professionally and personally with responses that are indistinguishable from those sent manually. To do so head to the Auto Response Tab and select Create Campaign, and follow these steps:

Step 1: Create Campaign

‍Name your campaign to make it indistinguishable from other efforts. Set the time period you want this auto response campaign to run for. CC any applicable parties and add any internal notes.

Step 2: Set Triggers

‍Here you can customize which  reviews in particular you want responses to. Note that this is only available for review sources in which we have a direct API connection, currently (as of December 2022) Google, Facebook, and Trustpilot. You can also select the star rating(s) to respond to and whether or not the review has a comment or not.

Step 3: Set Audience (Optional)‍

This step is if you want to filter your responses by Groups you have set up, countries, areas, and/or locality.

Step 4: Set Schedule

This a key step, as this determines the timing and frequency you will be auto responding to reviews.

‍Response Rate:
What percentage of the reviews within your criteria you want to respond to. Typically this is set to 100%, but sometimes users will set it lower and manually respond to a small number of reviews.

‍Set Response Count:
‍This is dependent on how many templates you have created for this criteria. For example if you have 4 templates (we recommend having more than just 1) and you select 3 here, the system will rotate through 3 of the 4 templates. This ensures that in Google there isn't the same response to multiple reviews in a row, which makes it look automated.

‍Set delay before sending auto response:
‍Once again, it could look bad if you respond to three reviews all at once, so this allows you to space out the responses in order to look more human. ‍

Set Hours of Operation:
‍You don't want to be responding to reviews at 2 in the morning if your store closes at 9 pm. Setting your hours allows the system to only respond to reviews within working hours.

Step 5: Assign Responses‍

This calls back to Step 4 when you selected Response Count. If you selected four in Response Count, this is where you choose the four you would like rotated. (In this example account only two templates are shown).

‍Step 6-Confirm‍

An overview of your settings. Confirm everything looks correct before selecting. Done.

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Your campaign is now set up and will appear on the main page of the Auto Response tab.

*Each profile can currently hold up to 200 distinct templates for each of the five star rating designations for a total of 1000 templates.

For additional assistance please contact [email protected]

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