How to: respond to online reviews

How to: respond to online reviews

Manage and respond to your social reviews in the Hub – in the way that’s best for your brand - giving you more flexibility, efficiency, and control over your brand voice.

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What are the benefits?

Streamline your review management process
You can respond to reviews from Google and Facebook directly from The Hub, making it easier and faster to respond to reviews. For other sources, you can get a direct URL to the review location, saving you time.

Improved review scores
Studies have shown sites can expect a 12% increase in review volume, and a 0.12 improvement in average review scores once they start responding to reviews.

Improved visibility 
Venues with 4 or 5-star reviews are placed 9% higher on search listings, which increases footfall and makes it likelier for your customers to leave even more reviews.

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What are the response options?
Note these are applicable for only Google, Facebook and Booking.com

1. Respond by using:
- Free text.
- Response templates. Choose from your saved templates for consistent, brand-approved replies.
- AI generated responses. Let our AI create five tailored replies for you in seconds. Simply choose your favourite, review, and edit before posting​​​​​.

2. Customise Your AI Tone of Voice (TOV)
Our AI can be tailored to sound just like your brand. You can define your TOV whether it’s warm & friendly, polished & professional, or somewhere in between. All AI-generated responses will then automatically reflect your brand personality. 

3.  Automate Responses by Score Level 
Take efficiency one step further with automation. You can set up automatic replies based on review scores. Each automation can use a template or an AI-generated response that’s already matched to your Tone of Voice. You’ll save time while ensuring guests always receive timely, brand-approved replies. Perfect for: Brands wanting to scale up response efficiency without losing authenticity.

4. Let HGEM respond for you. Prefer not to manage replies yourself? You can outsource review responding to HGEM’s support team. We’ll take care publishing responses on your behalf, maintaining your brand’s tone and ensuring consistency across all platforms. Perfect for: Busy teams who want peace of mind that every review receives a timely, thoughtful reply.


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Process

Respond with free text (Google and Facebook only): 
- Type your freeform message in the 'respond to review' box 
- Select 'post response' to publish the response to Google/Facebook

Respond with a template (Google and Facebook only): 
- Select 'Use Template'
- Select the template that you would like to use (templates are suggested based on the score of the review)
- Select 'Select'
- If you would like to amend or add to the template text, this can be done from the 'Respond to review' box once you have selected your response
- Select 'Post Response' to publish the response to Google/Facebook



- You can also create your own bespoke response templates, which allow you to respond to your customers with your own specific tone of voice - see here for more information. 

Respond with AI Generated responses (Google and Facebook only): 
Please note this feature is only available for reviews with a comment that is more than 4 words in length.
- Select 'Generate AI Responses'
- Hover over the generated responses to view full text
- Select the response you would like to use (all responses will start with "Hi GuestName".
- If you would like to amend or add to the suggested text, this can be done from the 'Respond to review' box once you have selected your response
- Select 'Post Response' to publish the response to Google/Facebook




Respond to reviews in the source portal: 
- Select 'View or respond in [Source]'
- Chose whether you would like to view or respond to the review - the link will open the review in a new window
- Selecting 'Respond' will take you to the relevant owner pages to respond to the review
- Note that you will need to the correct permissions to respond on the relevant source platform.



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Getting started

- All our in app response tools are included for free as part of our review management module. Get in touch if you'd like to explore pricing for HGEM responding on your behalf.

- To respond to Google and Facebook reviews directly from The Hub you'll need to ensure that these are integrated - see instructions for this here (Google) and here (Facebook).

- To set up custom response templates, see further instructions here.

- To configure your AI tone of voice or set up automation rules, reach out to your Client Success Manager or contact our support team. Our team will guide you through setup and ensure your review management runs smoothly.

To configure your preferences or set up automation rules, reach out to your Client Success Manager or contact our support team.
Our team will guide you through setup and ensure your review management runs smoothly.

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