Google Reviews
Auto-Response Pipeline
A fully automated review management workflow built for a local business. Polls Google for new reviews, routes by rating, generates AI responses, handles first-run initialisation automatically, and queues responses for human approval before anything goes live.
Responding to Google reviews promptly matters — Google's algorithm notices, and so do potential customers. Reputation management platforms exist, but for a small operation they bring unnecessary cost and complexity. The client needed something purpose-built: a pipeline that fits their workflow, not a subscription product designed for someone else's.
The additional constraint: Google provides no native auto-reply feature, so both review ingestion and reply publishing require direct integration with the Google Business Profile API. There is no button to press — the integration had to be built from scratch.
Diagnosed the workflow requirements, assessed available tooling, and designed an architecture that automates the routine while keeping a human in the loop for anything that needs judgement.
The key design decision was a three-tier rating system rather than a binary positive/negative split. Four and five star reviews get an AI-generated response queued for approval. Three star reviews — the ambiguous ones worth personal attention but not urgent — follow the same approval path. One and two star reviews skip AI entirely and go straight to a human alert. Nothing gets published without approval.
Polling, not webhooks
Google Business Profile doesn't push review events — there's no webhook to listen to. The workflow runs on a schedule, deduplicating against a Google Sheet. On first run, the sheet is seeded automatically with existing review IDs rather than processing them retroactively — no manual setup required.
Three-tier routing
Positive and borderline reviews are handled differently in tone but follow the same approval flow. Negative reviews always go to a human — an AI-generated response to a one-star review is a risk no client should take.
Approval before publish
Every AI-generated response goes through a Telegram approval queue. The owner sees the review, the proposed reply, and approves, edits, or rejects before anything is posted to Google.
- Technical proposal and architecture brief
- Fully configured n8n workflow (exportable JSON)
- Annotated workflow diagram
- Native n8n Google Business Profile integration (review ingestion + reply publishing)
- First-run initialisation — automatic sheet seeding to prevent retroactive processing of existing reviews
- Three-tier rating router with separate handling paths
- Claude API integration with prompt guardrails (no discounts, no commitments, language-matched)
- Telegram approval queue with APPROVE / EDIT / REJECT flow
- Google Sheets deduplication and audit log