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How to answer and watch your Google reviews

Connect your Google Business Profile, let Otto draft a reply to each review, see your rating and how fast you answer, and ask every customer for a review by email or text.

Updated 2026-10-28

Reputation puts your Google reviews in one place. Otto reads them every few hours, drafts a reply to each new one, tells you straight away about a low rating, and shows how your reviews are going month by month. It is under Marketing → Reputation. Owners and managers connect Google and post replies.

Nothing is posted on Google until you approve it. A reply is public, under your business's name.

Connect Google

  1. Press Connect Google.
  2. Sign in with the Google account that owns or manages your business on Google Maps, and allow Otto to manage your Business Profile.
  3. Back in Otto, open Reputation again and press Show my Google locations.
  4. Press Use this one beside your business. If you have not set a review link for review requests yet, Otto fills in your Google "write a review" link for you.
  5. Press Check now to read your reviews. After that Otto reads them by itself every few hours.

The first read is your history: Otto does not draft replies or send alerts for reviews that were already there.

Answer a review

  1. Under Waiting, find the review.
  2. Press Let Otto write a reply, or Write it myself.
  3. Change the words if you like, then press Post reply.
  4. The reply waits in Reviews. Approve it there and it is posted on Google.

If a review needs no answer, press No reply needed. Answer it after all brings it back.

Otto's replies are short and in your voice. They thank the reviewer, and for a complaint they say sorry for the experience and invite the customer to get in touch. They never mention anything about the customer that is not in the review, never promise money, and never offer anything for changing a review.

Let Otto draft every new review

Under How Otto helps, switch on Draft a reply to every new review. Each new review then gets a draft that waits in Reviews. Drafting uses your monthly AI allowance.

If you set the rule for Replying to a Google review to Auto under Settings → Rules, drafts are posted without waiting.

Alerts for low ratings

Under Tell me straight away about a new review of, choose 1 star, 2 or fewer, 3 or fewer, 4 or fewer or Never. A new review at or below that line shows as a notice at once.

Your figures

  • Google rating and the number of reviews are Google's own figures.
  • Waiting for a reply counts the reviews with no reply yet.
  • Answered is the share of the reviews Otto has read that have a reply.
  • Typical time to answer is the middle time from a review to its reply.
  • Reviews a month shows the last 12 months. Point at a month to see its average rating, or press Show as table.

Ask for reviews

If you use Jobs, press Review requests to ask each customer for a review after a job is finished. Under Ask by, choose Email or Text. Text needs your business number connected on Calls & support, and every text ends with "Reply STOP to opt out." Each request waits in Reviews like any message to a customer.

Every customer with a finished job is asked the same way, with the same public link. Google's rules and US law don't allow asking only the customers you expect to be happy, or steering unhappy customers away from the review page, so Otto never does either.

If it doesn't work

  • "Reading Google reviews isn't switched on for this server yet." Otto's team is still setting up Google access. Review requests after a job already work.
  • "Google has not opened its Business Profile API to this server yet…" Google is still approving Otto's access. Nothing is wrong with your profile.
  • "…the account you connected does not manage this location." Connect the Google account that owns or manages the business on Google Maps.
  • "This Google account doesn't manage any business locations." You signed in with a different Google account. Disconnect Google under Settings → Integrations and connect again.
  • A reply stays in Reviews with a message from Google: read the message, change the reply if needed, and approve it again.