Google reviews

The person who has just left you a Voicegram sees their own message written out as text on the confirmation screen. They can edit it, then tap one button that copies the text and opens the Google review page for that location in a new tab. Choosing a rating, pasting, and posting stays theirs to do, and closing the tab without posting is always an option.

Senders also find the same text and link on their playback page, and senders who verified by email get them in their delivery email as well, so the offer survives a closed tab. If you have turned the verification code off for a widget or campaign, its senders get no delivery email, so for them the offer is on the confirmation screen and the playback page only.

See it for yourself

Record a test message on your own site, or on a campaign page, from a widget whose location is set. After you send it, the confirmation screen turns your message into text within a few seconds and offers one tap that copies it and opens your Google review page. The same text and link are on the playback page, and in the delivery email when you verified by email.

Add your locations

Google reviews lives under Integrations, Google Reviews. It is your list of locations: every Google Business Profile you want visitors sent to, each with a short name you choose. Adding and editing locations is for workspace admins and editors, on all paid plans. You accept the review policy acknowledgment once, and that is what opens the add controls. There is no switch to turn on: choosing a location for a widget or campaign is what turns Google reviews on there.

There are four ways to add:

• Search by name. Where the search is offered, type your business name into the first field and pick it from the list that appears. The list comes from Google Maps, and the line beneath it says so. Give the location a name of your own, then add it. Only Google's place ID is kept; the business name and address from the list are never stored.
• Paste a link. Paste the Google review link for one profile and give it a name, like "Downtown" or "Airport". The link is checked before it is saved.
• Add one from the widget or campaign you are setting up. Anywhere you choose a location, the + beside the Location box opens a small window that searches or takes a link, asks for a name, and adds it to this list, then chooses it for you. It is for the location you want right now, on the page you are already on; renaming, removing and adding many stay here.
• Add many at once. Open "Add many", then either paste or type one location per line, link and name in either order, or choose a CSV file with two columns. A comma, a semicolon or a space can separate them, quoted cells are fine, and a name can contain spaces and commas, so a spreadsheet export works as it is. Up to 10,000 lines and about a megabyte at a time; for anything larger, split the list and add it in parts. You see exactly what will happen before anything is saved: the counts first, then any lines to fix, then the rest. Nothing is written until you press the button at the bottom. If a link is already on your list, its name is updated rather than duplicated. There is a template to download if you would rather start from one.

Your locations are listed with each name beside its link on a wide screen, and stacked on a phone. The link opens your review page in a new tab, so you can check it lands where you expect.

The search box beside your list searches the locations you have already added, not Google.

Names are required, can be up to 80 characters, and have to be different from each other inside your workspace, so you can tell them apart when choosing; two names that differ only in capitalization count as the same name. Each link appears once in a workspace. Two workspaces can hold the same name and the same link.

Choose a location for each widget and campaign

Choosing which location a widget or campaign sends people to happens in Global Configurations and on each widget and campaign page. Global Configurations holds two defaults, one for widgets and one for campaigns, and every widget and campaign starts out using its default. Any of them can pick its own location instead, or be set to Off, whatever the default says. On a free plan you can still set anything to Off.

Find your Google review link

In your Google Business Profile, open Read reviews, then Get more reviews, then Copy. This is easier on a computer. Google's instructions for that screen assume a desktop browser, and the QR code offered alongside the link cannot be generated on a phone.

Where the search is offered, searching by name on the Google Reviews page finds the link for you, so most people never paste one. If you do paste, any of these three shapes is accepted:

• The Business Profile link above, which looks like https://g.page/r/<code>/review.
• A https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=<id> link.
• A https://www.google.com/maps/place/... link that opens the write-a-review form. A Maps link that opens your business's page instead is refused, and so is one that opens a review form naming no business at all, because saving either would leave your settings looking configured while sending people somewhere they cannot post from.

Two links that often get pasted are refused:

• A shortened maps.app.goo.gl link. This is what the Share button in Google Maps produces, and it hides where it points, so we cannot check it. Open the short link in a browser, let it finish loading, and copy the full address out of the address bar. If it was a write-a-review link, that full address is one we accept.
• A maps.google.com link. Copy the address from the www.google.com version of the same page instead.

The link is checked before it is saved, and what is saved is a tidied version of it. If yours is refused, the message on screen tells you where to find the Business Profile link.

Print a flyer

A flyer belongs to a campaign, not to a location, so start by creating a campaign for the place you want people to scan at. In that campaign, open the Voicegram to Google Reviews section and pick the location it should send people to. Then open the campaign's Share tab and use Printable flyer: pick a layout, and download the one-page PDF with the QR that points at that campaign's page.

Why the visitor pastes it themselves

Google's review form does not accept text from a link, and Google provides no way for another company to post a review on someone's behalf. So the last two steps are always the visitor's: they paste their words and press Post.

That is the point as much as it is a limitation. The review has to be the customer's own, or it is not a review.

Where the text comes from

The text is the visitor's message exactly as it was transcribed, not something written for them. The only automatic changes are that card numbers and Social Security numbers spoken aloud are masked, and a very long message is shortened to the length Google's review form accepts. If we spot a phone number, an email address or a web link in it, the visitor is told that Google does not allow those in reviews, and they can edit anything before they copy it.

The rules, and who carries the risk

You can put your Google review link or a QR code on receipts, table tents, and thank-you emails. Google suggests exactly that. What Google bans is pressure to review while someone is on your premises. In practice that means:

• Do not hand a customer a store phone or tablet to post from.
• Do not stand with them while they post.
• Do not make posting a condition of anything, and do not give anything in return for a review: no discount, no free item, no giveaway entry.
• Do not ask for particular wording, a particular rating, or a mention of a member of staff by name.
• Do not set review targets for your staff.

If a customer scans a code while they are in your store, that is fine. Whether and when to post is their decision.

Two more, both easy to do by accident:

• Do not send an old customer list the link all at once. A burst of reviews looks like manipulation even when every one of them is real.
• Do not follow up about reviews with some senders and not others. Following up only with the happy ones is review gating, and it is one of the things Google acts on. Voicegram does not do it for you either: the review step is offered to every sender in the same words, nothing on this path reads whether a message was happy or angry, and there is no setting that would change that.

The acknowledgment you accept before adding your first location is this list in short form. Accepting it records that you have read it. It is not a shield: if Google decides you crossed a line, it is your profile that carries the consequence.

What gets counted

Voicegram records that the visitor acted: they copied their text, or they opened your Google review link. Either one counts as taking the review step. Each tap shows in the message's activity, with the time. The tag on the message in your inbox shows the furthest they got: copied, opened, or copied and opened. A visitor who copied and also opened the link, in any order, shows as copied and opened.

Google does not tell us, or you, whether a review was actually posted. Taking the step is a sign of interest, not a review in hand. The count of reviews you have is the one on your own profile.

Your webhooks, the API, and Zapier also get the review step with each Voicegram, under google_review: whether it was on for that widget or campaign, the review link, and the text the sender was offered. The taps above happen after delivery, so they are not included there.

What happens after you add a location

Adding a location only saves it to your list. Choosing that location for a widget or a campaign, in Global Configurations or on its own page, is the moment Voicegram starts preparing review text: from then on, every Voicegram recorded there is written out as text, in the sender's own words, ready for them to copy into your Google review. Set it back to Off, or take the location out of every default and page, and nothing more is prepared.