Review reply discipline

Overview

Reply to every review, including the bad ones, within ~7 days.
Review reply behavior is a load-bearing identity signal for both google-business-profile ranking and ai/chatgpt-citation-signals systems — and most agents leave it on the floor.

Importance of Replying to Reviews

Why models read replies as a signal: the reply pattern is hard to fake at scale. A practice that replies thoughtfully to bad reviews and warmly to good ones is doing the work that distinguishes a real local business from a drop-shipped listing. The reply text itself is read by the model, not just the existence of a reply.

What Thoughtful Replies Look Like

• Bad reviews: acknowledge the specific complaint, propose a path forward off-platform, do not litigate. The model reads "let's discuss" reply patterns favorably.
• Good reviews: name the deal context if it can be done without PII (closing month, neighborhood). It reads less like a template.
• Templates: the model can spot identical openings across a feed. Vary the first sentence.

Conclusion

This is one of the cheapest moves a Managed agent can make. The gbp/posting-cadence guidance doesn't replace it — reviews are a separate axis.