Review Reporting

We start by agreeing what you want to learn. Some owners want to know whether the rating is moving. Others want to find service problems, compare branches, check staff performance or prove improvement to a franchisor. We list all the platforms where customers review you: Google, industry sites, marketplaces, social pages and app stores. Then we gather the data. For each platform we collect star ratings, dates, review text, whether you replied and when. Most platforms allow an owner export or provide an official connection; where they do not, we record details by hand from the public page. We merge everything into one sheet with consistent columns: platform, location, date, rating, text, reply status and reply date. We clean it by removing duplicates, noting reviews that are removed or edited and flagging suspected fake reviews for the proper reporting route rather than ignoring or deleting them. Next we analyse the numbers. We calculate the average rating for the month and the last twelve months, the number of new reviews, the share of each star level, the response rate and the median time to reply. We compare with previous periods and, for several branches, with each other, taking care that a branch with ten reviews is not compared to one with two hundred without a warning. Then we study the text. We code reviews into themes that fit your business, for example for a clinic: waiting time, doctor behaviour, billing, cleanliness and results; for a shop: product quality, price, delivery, staff and returns. We tag each review with themes and sentiment, positive or negative, and count them. We read the low-star reviews closely for facts that can be acted on, and the high-star reviews for phrases customers use to praise you, which can inform your marketing; see customer feedback collection. We check how replies were handled: tone, speed, consistency and whether replies solved issues or invited offline resolution; see review response assistance. We note cases that need escalation; see negative feedback escalation processes. We look at where reviews come from, how requests are performing and whether a particular process produces better ratings; see Google review acquisition strategy. We then write the report. It opens with a one-page summary: headline numbers, three things going well, three problems and three actions. Charts show trends and themes; short, anonymised quotes illustrate points. We end with a ranked action list for owners and managers, such as fixing a recurring complaint, training staff on one issue, improving reply speed, asking more satisfied customers for reviews or updating a misleading listing. We present monthly or quarterly, with a short call, and keep a record of actions and later changes, so that the next report can show whether fixes worked. We cannot see reviews that platforms hide, nor control what customers write, and themes from a few reviews are only hints, but regular reporting turns scattered comments into clear priorities.