The 90-minute review window

The 90-minute review window

Meet a dentist in Manchester drowning in reviews she never answered. 240 of them. Beautiful average. Zero replies.

We didn't ask for more reviews. We built a response system instead.

The playbook:

— Reply to every new review inside 90 minutes during business hours (we set a phone alert)
— For five stars, name the service in the reply: "glad the Invisalign consult went smoothly" — that's a keyword Google reads
— For one-stars, answer in three sentences: acknowledge, take it offline, never argue
— Backfill the old ones at 20 per day so it looks organic, not panicked
— Track reply rate weekly, aim for 100 percent

Two weeks of silence on the rankings. The owner texted me "this is pointless."

Week three the listing climbed two spots and her conversion rate on profile views jumped — people read the replies before they call. Bookings up 28 percent with the exact same review count.

The lesson: Google rewards businesses that treat reviews as a conversation, not a scoreboard. The reply is content too.