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Reviews courseModule 1 of 7: Start HereLesson 1.3

Your Free Toolkit and Review Baseline (Set This Up First)

Almost every test in this course uses the same few free tools, so set them up once, now. It takes about 90 minutes and makes every later lesson faster. For Search Console and analytics, see the SEO course's toolkit (lesson 1.3). This lesson adds the review-specific parts.

5 min read

By Morgan King, founder of Reyse Facts checked October 2026

01What it is

Before a football season, a good coach marks out the pitch, counts the balls and writes down the starting score. This is that: setting up, and writing down where you start, so you can tell later whether you’re winning.

The free tools to set up now

1Your review baseline sheet

Free

Where you stand today, so you can compare later instead of trusting memory. A Google Sheet or Excel file, one row per platform per branch.

Illustration
Illustration of a review log spreadsheet for a made-up agency: 11 of the last 20 reviews have a reply, the newest review is six weeks old, and slow repair updates come up three times. Your baseline sheet: one row per review, whether it has a reply, and its theme. Fifteen minutes now gives you the three numbers every later lesson tries to move. Made-up agency and reviews.
How to set it up
  1. 1Columns: date checked, branch, platform, public profile link, review link, review count, average rating, date of newest review, response rate, top three themes, login owner, backup owner.
  2. 2Response rate: count how many of your last 20 reviews have a reply (14 of 20 is 70%).
  3. 3Add a review log tab (one row per review: date, platform, branch, rating, client type, theme, replied, hours to reply, owner).
  4. 4Add a request log tab (date, branch, client type, channel, requests sent, reminders sent, reviews received).
  5. 5Collect as little personal data as you can, and never put a client's name next to a complaint in a sheet everyone can open.
Open Your review baseline sheet (opens in a new tab)

2Your Google review link and QR code

Free

A direct route into your review box, for every branch. Each branch has its own profile, so each needs its own link.

How to set it up
  1. 1On a computer, go to business.google.com, choose Read reviews, then Get more reviews.
  2. 2Copy the link, or right-click the QR code and choose Save image as. Google says the QR code can only be made in a computer browser.
  3. 3Open the link on your own phone, ideally signed out of Google, and see what a client sees.
  4. 4Save every branch's link in your sheet so nobody has to hunt for it.
Open Your Google review link and QR code (opens in a new tab)

3A short link that counts clicks

Free plan

A Google review link lands on Google, so your own analytics never see it. A link shortener counts the clicks and QR scans instead.

How to set it up
  1. 1Make one short link per branch and per channel (email, text, the QR code in the office).
  2. 2Record them in your request log, then compare requests, clicks and new reviews.
Open A short link that counts clicks (opens in a new tab)

4A shared reviews inbox, and Google's notifications

Free

So a new review reaches a person the day it's posted, not whenever someone remembers to look.

How to set it up
  1. 1Create one shared address, such as reviews@youragency.co.uk, that reaches at least two named people.
  2. 2On business.google.com, go to More, then Notifications, and make sure review alerts ("customer activity") are on and going to that address.
  3. 3Use the same address for every other platform's notifications.
Open A shared reviews inbox, and Google's notifications (opens in a new tab)

5Google Alerts for your name

Free

Emails you when new pages mention your agency. A net for news, forums and blogs. It won't catch reviews inside Google Maps or most review sites.

How to set it up
  1. 1Set an alert for your agency name in quotes, and one for each branch name.
Open Google Alerts for your name (opens in a new tab)

6An AI assistant, for themes and first drafts

Free

Reads a pile of reviews faster than you can and suggests themes, or drafts a reply for you to edit. Free versions are enough.

How to set it up
  1. 1Remove names, addresses, property details, staff names and reference numbers before you paste anything.
  2. 2Never paste CRM exports, client emails or private messages.
  3. 3Never let AI post anything. A person reads and approves every reply.
  4. 4AI can invent details. Don't accept a theme you can't see in the reviews yourself.
Open An AI assistant, for themes and first drafts (opens in a new tab)

Check you control every profile

Find out now, not in a crisis, who can log in. For each platform in your sheet: can you log in? Is the account tied to a company address rather than a former employee's personal one? Is it verified or claimed? On Google, a profile must be verified before you can reply to a single review. Trustpilot creates a profile automatically when people search for your web address, so you may have one you never set up. If you can't log in somewhere, that's your first problem to fix.

Rules for who owns the logins

  • The business owns every profile, not a person. Use a company or role email address, never a negotiator's personal Gmail.
  • At least two people have owner or admin access on each platform, and one of them is a director or the owner.
  • Never create a new Google profile for a branch that moves or rebrands. Google says reviews stay with the profile, and move with it when you keep the same name.
  • Keep logins in a company password manager, not a spreadsheet or a chat, and turn on two-step verification.
  • When someone leaves, remove their access the same day and change any shared password.
  • Decide who covers the inbox and replies when the usual person is on holiday.
Go deeperPaid tools, when you outgrow the free ones

You can do this whole course for free. Paid tools automate requests and monitoring: some property CRMs (Street, for example) send review requests automatically, and tools such as Reviewflowz, Grade.us, Whitespark Reputation Builder, BrightLocal, Feefo and Trustpilot's paid plans add sending, alerts and reports. Check current prices on each tool's own site, and be wary of any provider that promises a rating, filters who gets asked, or offers incentives (lesson 7.1 has the questions to ask).

Reading your baseline

  1. 1Which platform has the most reviews, and which will a customer see first? Start there.
  2. 2Is the newest review recent, or has the profile gone quiet?
  3. 3What share of reviews have a reply? If it's well below 100%, you've found your easiest fix.
  4. 4What are the top themes? A repeated complaint is a service problem, not just a reply to write.
  5. 5Can you log in everywhere, and could someone else? If not, fix access first.

Sources

  1. 1.Prohibited and restricted content · Google Maps user contributed content policy
  2. 2.Guidelines for businesses · Trustpilot

Facts checked October 2026, and re-checked every quarter. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.

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