Responding to customer reviews is a business best practice, but it’s also time-consuming and all too easy to let it slip. Someone has to monitor the reviews that come in and respond appropriately to the context and sentiment of each one. If your business or agency has limited resources, review replies are an added cost and responsibility for already-busy teams and individual staff members.

That’s where the use of AI review responses is a smart move. AI-generated responses are fast and easy to create. They can also be personalized to match the sentiment of the review and include specific details that are mentioned. In many ways, AI review responses are a more appealing choice for some businesses, or agencies that represent business clients, than using templated responses.

In this how-to guide for AI review responses for small businesses and agencies, we’ll take a closer look at the benefits of using generative AI, how to fit an AI tool into your review management workflow, and how to use it responsibly. We’ll also answer the all-important question: can AI be used to respond to Google reviews?

Benefits of using AI review responses

Generative AI is a tool, like many others, that can be put to excellent use in a business setting — if it’s approached in the right way. 

The benefits of using AI review responses include:

• Creativity: It can be frustrating to have to sit down and write a review response when you just don’t know what to say. Not everyone is a writer — and for many, it can be downright stressful. Getting response suggestions from AI removes the creative burden and can make the review response process much less tense.
• Efficiency: Review management is undoubtedly a critical part of doing business these days, but it also takes time and commitment. Enlisting AI to respond to reviews is an efficient way to handle an important task, while also freeing up you or your team to redirect your time to other valuable activities.
• Scalability: As your business receives reviews, it’s easy to get behind on responses. But delayed responses or failing to respond at all ends up hurting your brand. AI review responses help your team stay on top of review management and scale it effectively as the number of reviews grows or accelerates.
• Personalization: Instead of churning out impersonal, robotic-sounding text, AI review responses actually work in the opposite way. Reputation management platforms with built-in AI capabilities can identify the reviewer’s name and other details from the feedback — such as specific products or services — and match the sentiment (positive, negative, or neutral). The responses are human-sounding and personalized, helping customers feel seen and heard.
• Cost-effectiveness: The upfront investment in a reputation management platform with AI might seem like a risk. But because AI review responses generally don’t require a lot of human oversight (with a few exceptions, which we’ll discuss below), business resources and salaries can be better spent in areas such as business growth, improving the customer experience, and product or service innovation. In effect, the efficiency and productivity of AI and automation pay for themselves many times over.

Can AI be used to respond to Google reviews?

The answer is yes. But first, here’s a little more context:

Google reviews show up in your Google Business Profile and are also searchable on Google Maps. Local businesses tend to place a lot of importance on Google reviews because they’re so prominent when potential customers search online for a particular business, category, or location. That means responses to Google reviews are also important, since potential customers can see those too.

Two big points of caution, though: 

• Google warns against using AI-generated content to manipulate search rankings as it violates their spam policies. However you generate the response — whether you use AI, a human, or a combination of both — you need to make sure it reads naturally and is relevant to the review, so you can avoid tripping Google’s spam filters. 
• If you operate a healthcare or medical business that serves patients, don’t rely on AI review responses as you could get yourself into hot water with HIPAA. More on that later when we talk about how to use AI responsibly.

You can use the generative AI tool of your choice to create the AI review response. Remember, the quality of what generative AI produces can vary widely. Some tools and models are going to be better than others, and the quality of the output also depends on the prompts, rules, and customizations you use. 

With both your brand image and Google’s policies around AI-generated content to keep in mind, you always want to proofread to ensure the response reads the way you want it to and includes any pertinent details that are helpful for the reviewer as well as your audience in general.

Once you have the review response ready to go, just copy it and follow Google’s step-by-step instructions for responding to a Google review:

1. Open Google Maps and enter your business name
2. From your business profile, click “Search” or hit “Enter”
3. Scroll to “Reviews” and click “Reply”
4. Paste the text of the AI review response you generated and submit it

You can follow this process for any Google review. 

How to fit AI review responses into your workflows

There are a few different ways to use AI review responses — and they’re dependent on the types of reviews you get as well as your particular business or agency needs.

If you get a lot of positive reviews

Engaging with happy customers who take the time to leave a positive review is a great way to strengthen the connection you already have with them. Most positive reviews don’t require a lot in the way of a response — just a simple  “thank you” is all they really need. 

Having said that, don’t assume that because you can get away with a simple response, you may as well just skip over responding at all. This might feel tempting, especially if you have a lot of reviews coming in and not a lot of time to spend on them. But it’s not a good look for your brand to ignore positive reviews — and you could end up disappointing otherwise loyal customers who expect some kind of acknowledgment. 

AI review response workflow for positive reviews: 

1. Use an AI tool that automatically replies to any positive review that comes in. 
2. The AI can generate an authentic, human-sounding response that’s personalized to the reviewer and doesn’t require much oversight from a human. 

If you get occasional negative reviews

It’s pretty uncomfortable when you have an upset customer venting online about a negative experience with your business. You know you need to engage with the feedback, but you don’t want to inadvertently make a bad situation worse by saying the wrong thing.

Responses to negative reviews require a bit more time and thought than positive reviews. You need to understand the specifics of the complaint and make sure you can adequately address the customer’s concerns. The response itself also needs to convey empathy and avoid defensiveness. That’s where it’s helpful to have the efficiency of generative AI while still retaining some control over the actual response to ensure that you’re handling the negative feedback appropriately. 

AI review response workflow for negative reviews: 

1. Use an AI tool to generate tailored responses to negative reviews. 
2. The AI can come up with a suggested response, then notify a human user so they can look over and approve it before posting. 
3. When it’s ready to go, the user can post the AI review response with a single click. 
4. Importantly, a human is still involved, but the initial legwork of crafting the response is taken care of by the AI.

If you’re fully sold on an AI-assisted review strategy

When the flow of reviews starts building in velocity and volume, it can be a strain on your resources to try to keep up with them. Every review is different, which means every response needs to be different too. In the midst of a busy day or week, review responses can quickly become a dreaded time suck.

If this sounds like your business or agency, you need an all-encompassing, automated workflow to respond to any review — positive, negative, or neutral — and save your team significant time and effort. Humans can still be involved in the review response process to ensure what’s being generated is accurate and appropriate, but they don’t have to spend enormous amounts of time manually creating, editing, and posting responses.

AI review response workflow for a robust review strategy:

1. Use an advanced AI tool that can analyze review sentiment and craft a customized, human-sounding response that references the details of the review.
2. Human users always have the option to fully edit any AI review response.
3. Customers get timely, personalized responses that make them feel seen and appreciated. 

How to use AI responsibly

Last but not least, we need to talk about AI review responses in terms of the responsibility you have to your customers and to your own business reputation. 

As the use of generative AI continues to proliferate, and more businesses rely on it for various aspects of customer engagement, communication, and workflow automation, it’s important to take a step back and set some clear usage boundaries. 

Here are some important do’s and don’ts for using AI review responses:

DO:

• Use it to respond quickly and easily to positive reviews.
• Use it thoughtfully when responding to neutral or negative reviews.
• Use a reputation management platform with AI-generated response functionality. A good platform worth its salt will also be built with high security standards, follow AI best practices, and provide routine updates that continually improve upon AI capabilities.
• Use human oversight and edit responses whenever necessary — recognizing that, other than for positive review responses, AI is not yet a set-it-and-forget-it type of tool.
• Be transparent with your customers about your use of AI.

DON’T:

• Use it for patient review responses if you operate in the healthcare industry, as you could very easily violate HIPAA and patient privacy regulations. Generative AI isn’t appropriate yet for patient and healthcare reviews — not without heavy editing. If you decide to use it in a limited capacity for patient reviews, be sure to involve a human who can ensure HIPAA compliance by completely removing any protected health information (PHI) from the AI review response before posting publicly.
• Use it to collect customer information without their knowledge or consent.

Another important thing you can do is to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in generative AI. Use cases and ethics around AI will continue to evolve, sometimes at breakneck speed. And while you don’t have to be aware of every single zig or zag as it happens, having some general idea of how AI is changing and the impact it can have on your customers, clients, or overall business just makes good sense. That way you can adapt your AI policies and communications appropriately, and minimize risks to your brand.

Getting the most out of your review strategy with generative AI

Whether you’re totally on board with AI review responses, or hesitant to try it, the reality is that more businesses and agencies are shifting their review response workflows to AI and automation to save time and costs. As long as customer reviews play an outsized role in new customer acquisition, using efficient, effective strategies to manage reviews and review responses will be necessary.

A few final tips and reminders:

• Start slow. Try AI for positive review responses first, then add it to your other review workflows when you’re comfortable with how it works and the results you get.
• Keep it “real.” Remember that Google is on the alert for spammy-sounding content, so make sure what you’re creating with the AI tool not only passes their test but your customers’ too. The goal is always to generate content that’s useful, relevant, and people-focused.
• Use it wisely. AI review responses can feel like a relief with the amount of time and burden it can lift from your shoulders. But it still needs human oversight — along with a healthy respect for what AI can do well right now, and what it can’t.
• Choose the right tool. For the best and broadest capabilities, find a reputation management platform with built-in AI that allows you to use AI review responses for a variety of scenarios, so you can scale it up or down as needed depending on the amount and type of reviews you get.

To learn more about GatherUp’s comprehensive reputation management platform with built-in AI review responses, schedule a demo today.