Answer every review in your voice
Reviews land, you mean to answer them that evening, and three weeks later eleven of them are sitting there with nothing underneath. The quieter cost is the customer who'd have written a review and never got asked. Below is the workflow I built: it drafts a reply to every new review in your own words, holds back anything risky, and asks every customer for an honest review once a job is done.
Open the template on n8n The template, on n8n
The question
this build answers
How do I reply to every Google review in my own voice and ask every customer for a review after the job, without doing it by hand every evening?
From the first trigger
to the finished job.
The working version, step by step.
Watch for new reviews
The trigger polls your Google Business Profile once an hour. Anything that already carries a reply is dropped right here, so no review ever gets a second reply from the workflow.
Draft in your house style, then check it in code
A model drafts a reply in the house style you wrote into Settings, and when the customer wrote something, it names the specific thing they mentioned. I wrote plain code to read the draft after that. It holds back three kinds of draft: one that runs over your length limit, one with a phone number or email address in it, and one that promises a refund or a discount.
A low rating always goes to a human
I put that rule in the code rather than the prompt, so it overrides whatever the model decided. Two things have to be true before a reply goes public: it passed the guardrails, and you've switched automatic posting on.
Keep a record either way
Every draft gets written to a sheet, posted or held back, with the reason attached if it was held. I built that log so you'd have something to read before trusting the workflow with the next one.
Ask after the job, not before
A separate webhook fires when your job system marks a job complete. Every customer with a finished job gets the same request for an honest review, whatever they thought of the job. I kept the rules in plain code: an opt-out, a job that wasn't completed, a missing email address, or a customer already asked this quarter stops the request. Outside your chosen hours nothing sends by itself, and the request waits in the sheet for you.
The template, on n8n
Draft Google review replies with AI and request reviews after completed jobs
It's a paid template on n8n. You buy it from its n8n page, and the download holds the workflow and a setup guide.
Open the template on n8nWho this is for
Owners of small service businesses with a Google Business Profile: a trades firm, a clinic, a garage, a small agency. If you have more reviews than you have evenings, this is the one to run.
Why both switches ship off
A safe draft only posts once you've switched automatic posting on, and a written review request only sends once you've switched that on too. I left both off on purpose, so the first move out to the public is always yours, after you've read a week of drafts.
What it costs to run
I count one model call per new review for the reply draft, on top of whatever your Google Business Profile, Slack, Sheets and Gmail accounts already cost you.
Before you spend anything
The fit matters.
Who should not build this
If you already reply to every review the same day and never miss one, there's no backlog for this to clear.
If you don't have a Google Business Profile you can manage, the trigger has nothing to watch, and this doesn't apply yet.
Yours to keep
What lands
on your desk.
- The workflow set up in your own n8n, on your own Google Business Profile
- Your house style, your escalation rating and your review link written into two Settings nodes
- The guardrail checks wired in: length, banned words, contact details and the low-rating override
- Both switches, posting and sending, left off until you've read a week of drafts
See the work
Open the proof.
Published case studies of running systems. Each links to the thing itself.
A few useful
answers.
Does it post replies automatically?
Only once you switch automatic posting on. It ships off, so out of the box every draft lands in Slack for you to read. Approving one means pasting it under the review in Google yourself.
What stops a bad reply going out?
Plain code holds back a draft that runs over your length limit, carries a phone number or email address, or promises a refund or a discount. A low rating always goes to a human, whatever the model decided.
Does it ask every customer for a review?
Every customer with a finished job gets the same request for an honest review, good job or bad. I skip anyone who opted out or was asked in the last 90 days. I also skip a job that wasn't completed and a customer with no email address.
How does it know I asked someone this quarter?
Only if your job system sends the date you last asked them, as lastReviewRequestAt. I made the workflow write every request to the Review requests tab with its date, so that tab is where the date can come from. Without it, the once-a-quarter rule has nothing to check.
Can I read what it would have said before switching anything on?
I'd run it a week with both switches off and read the sheet first, exactly how I set it up myself.
A little further down
the same path.
Related builds for the rest of your business.
Make this work for you
Your tools.
Your working version.
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