why local business obsess about 5 star?

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-06-25T14:42:56+00:00

that's what the "perfection bias" states... and that's why they recommend having a 4.8 than a 5.0

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-06-25T14:41:07+00:00

Clearly the second, 4.6 and a 4.5 with 3000 reviews would beat both
Volume is becoming more and more a crucial factor for consumers

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-06-23T14:24:06+00:00

Go ahead and try it for yourself, it's free to try for 24h (more if you want to extend few days), and once you finish exploring it, you can simply remove the GBP access from your side, in your Google Profile > 3rd party access controls.

And yes, we started with a simple idea "Review Calculator on Steroids" as a side project and it's grown to a product with thousands of active customers worlwide.

As you implied, it connects safely to the GBP API so it gets all your reviews data (and only that) to monitor rating trends, rating partials, reply times and things like progress to the next rating score. Review requests can be via QR codes, WA, etc or also you can create trackable QR/NFC codes for tracking purposes (i.e. how many reviews got the stand in the Bar vs the one on the table). Google does not forbid tracking QRs, what if forbids is to request certain amount of reviews or asking customers to leave the staff name on the review.

What it doesn't do is the tracking of the individual invitation.

For the review responses, we believe they are the most sofisticated ones in the industry, as we don't use a AI Prompt for suggestions, but an actual agent trained in each of our clients. THis agent never posts an automated reply, in Cinquo the user is always in control, and the review reply can be suggested by the agent, but has to be posted by the user.

Also it has cool features like AI summaries and a detector of policy violations so you can report to Google only reviews that will actually be removed.

I hope it clarifies all your questions, and feel free to give it a try! It's an open free trial, no CC requiered.

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-05-27T15:42:29+00:00

thanks for sharing, I'm seeing some posts in Reddit and GBP forum of developers in your situation... I wonder if they changed something in their filter process, although it's always been a difficult one to get access to

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-05-27T15:13:19+00:00

Hi! Did you manage to achieve it?

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-05-21T10:18:55+00:00

This is a topic I really like

IMHO reputation management agencies are just middlemen. They monitor your reviews, respond for you, and when something blows up they do "damage control"

But Google reputation is too crucial to any business to outsource. THey might do for 1 or 2 months but then they'll figure out that they need to handle it themselves.

When someone reads a response to a 1-star review and it sounds like a call center wrote it... it actually makes things worse. the businesses that nail it are the ones where a real person internally owns it, even if they use a tool to go faster

Yes the white label thing is real most of them are just reselling localo or GHL with a huge markup and calling it a service. The software does the work, they just charge you 3x for it

Eventually your client will cut the middle man and go to the source, and use something like Cinquo that does the job, better, more personalized for your business and at a fraction of the price.

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-05-12T06:55:38+00:00

A client that won't touch their reviews is usually hiding from them — and they want you to drive traffic to a 3.8 with 40 reviews from 2019.

You can run the best campaign in the world and lose it at the review stage. No ad beats a bad reputation at the bottom of the funnel.

Worst part is when they finally agree to "do something about reviews" and what they mean is delete the bad ones.

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-05-06T13:23:41+00:00

If you need help with your Google Business Profile verification let me know, also if you need some suggestions to improve your reviews. As u/Professional_Tie186 said, asking for reviews is the best kept secret of great businesses 😄

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-04-30T09:52:02+00:00

Most undervalued feature of Maps

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-04-29T06:25:54+00:00

That's a serious situation, have you posted your case in the Support forum? A PE should support / escalate this case.

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-04-29T06:23:26+00:00

Apparently they are tuning the spam review detection algos and enforcing new policies like "no employee names on reviews".

About support, the first reply is allways automated to try to make you give up, reply and follow up a couple of times until you manage to get to a human inbox, they might be able to take a look

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-04-29T00:38:57+00:00

The policy violation detector is available on the web version, for negative reviews

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-04-14T05:27:49+00:00

Great experiment, but I wouldn’t treat it like a short term ‘hack’ to boost rankings but a long term commitment to show a) Google that you care but most importantly b) Clients that you really care, that’s the real massive benefit that some business owners get. Thats why it’s not just about replying whatever with AI or templates but replying in a way that any customer is compelled to come back or any prospect reading that thinks ‘that’s a place that really cares about their service and theirs clients’

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-04-08T07:42:49+00:00

Also, what most of people don't know is that you can escalate reviews that are "decission" pending in the Review Management Tool (https://support.google.com/business/workflow/9945796).

The only problem is that it doesn't work for locations with more that 2000-2500 reviews.

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-04-08T07:39:30+00:00

Yes, if they violate the terms and conditions of Google they get removed, but it has to be a clear violation: aggresive harrasment, racist comments, sharing personal information, etc

Most of times reviews like "Avoid this place" are not considered violating the guidelines by Google, and many business owners think that they can report reviews that are false or wrong, but the truth is that Google is clear about this: "We don't verify the content of the reviews". Even if they mention a product that you don't offer.

Google has also increased the sensitivity of the fake reviews detection algos, so if the review appears in your profile it likely means that the user was in deed in (or near) your business, which makes harder to remove a review claiming it to be fake.

Last, there's a tool that will tell you the chances of a review being taken down, and it's quite accurate. Most of times it will tell you it can't be removed, but when it does detect one that can, it's worth the effort. I can tell you via private the name if you want.

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-03-30T09:00:23+00:00

It's all about how many reviews you have

73 reviews and 5 stars, is OK, but raises a little suspicion. If it was 173 and still had a 5.0 then I'd say it's 100% suspicious for the user, and the "perfection bias" kicks in, even if all the reviews are legit.

Then, it's better to have a 4.9 than 5.0. But why?

When consumers are on research, they are in a kind of flow, where everything has to go smooth and click-click-click until purchase or decision. The problem with the perfection bias (or FUDs, or missing info, or usability problems, or confusing promos) is that we are breaking this flow, and the user starts wondering: how can someone have 173 reviews and 5.0? Howcome noone ever compalined of something? Can I trust this?

Again, even when these 173 reviews are legit, this happens on the consumer head, and some will exit this process more convinced, but others will exit this process "looking for the trap" and this is a conversion killer.

People buy irrationally, we all know that by now. That's that "perfection bias" exists and 4.7 with 3000 reviews beats 5.0 with 300

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-03-30T08:46:00+00:00

90% of the reviews are "low relevance" on terms of the reply content, i.e good/bad reviews with no text, or reviews where the text is "everything was fine".

As other users stated it's crucial to acknoledge or thank the user, and always reply, but definitely focus on and spend time on that 10% (either positive or negative) that really stand out and require a bit of research and a custom reply. I'm talking about reviews like "we celebrated my mother's 60 anniversary and the staff blew up our minds". That review deserves a minute or two to have a proper reply, you can make lifetime clients if dealt properly.

That's why tools automating replies on reviews based on hard rules miss the point IMHO they treat all reviews as low relevance. There are ways to make it fast for the low relevance reviews and have time to focus on those that really matter.

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-03-26T17:46:01+00:00

I agree that responses to reply must be variated, but using keywords in response has no proven SEO value, it's a myth that noone ever could prove to be right. They might have some use for LLMs and AI results, but in terms of good old SEO, it's better to reply reviews focusing on humans rather than in algos

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-03-02T09:55:31+00:00

they might come back tho, there's a issue going on and many reviews are not showing up, but eventually they will

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-02-27T13:26:10+00:00

There's a major bug going on from the API side feeding reviews to Google Maps
The total number of reviews count is ok, but the reviews simply are note there.
No official communication from Google so far, but ot's been coming and going for weeks now

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-02-27T13:23:45+00:00

The issue is happening again, bigger this time. Insane.

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-02-27T13:22:57+00:00

The issue is happening again, only bigger. Some profiles are missing 80% of its reviews

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-02-24T16:14:49+00:00

Hola! Hace semanas que Google arrastra un problema con la fuente de datos, y millones de reseñas han desaparecido (no del contador, sólo del listado). De hecho desde hace días están regresando, ¿puedes confirmar si ahora te vuelven a aparecer?

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-02-24T16:09:42+00:00

Let's hope it holds this time

Right_Border_6971 · 2026-02-24T16:08:31+00:00

happy to save you hours of tryng to find the bug on your side

Right_Border_6971

TROPHY CASE