Reputation Engine FAQ: Straight Answers, No Sales Fluff

No — and here is exactly why. A single SMS sent 30–60 minutes after you finish a job, from the business that customer just paid, is a normal follow-up. That is not spam. Spam is a bulk blast to 500 numbers who last heard from you eight months ago. This is not that.

The system sends one message, tied to that specific job, referencing the service just completed. You are catching the customer while the experience is fresh and they are still satisfied — not two weeks later when they have forgotten who replaced their water heater. If they do not respond, no second blast fires.

What actually feels spammy to customers:

• Three texts in one week asking for a review
• A generic "How'd we do?" with zero context
• A message from a number they don't recognize
• A request that arrives two weeks after the job

What does not feel spammy:

• One text, sent promptly, from your business number
• A message that references the specific job ("Thanks for letting us handle your AC tune-up today")
• A simple ask with a direct link — one tap and they're done

One well-timed message from a business that just did good work gets reviews. Bulk blasts get opt-outs.

Here is the honest answer: a review request does not cause a bad review. The experience causes it — the request just gives the customer a channel. If they are unhappy, they were already going to tell someone. Better you hear about it on Google, where you can respond, than on Facebook or Yelp, where the story runs without you.

That said, the system has a triage layer. When a review comes in at three stars or below, the agency is notified before any response is posted. The owner gets a heads-up first, and a response only goes live after a quick back-and-forth to understand what happened. No auto-fire responses on negative reviews — period.

Two honest observations worth sitting with. First, a 1-star review sometimes reveals a real problem — a technician who left a mess, an invoice that wasn't explained, a no-show that wasn't followed up. That is worth knowing. Second, how you respond publicly to a bad review matters more to future customers than the review itself. A calm, specific response that acknowledges the problem and offers to make it right tells every prospective customer who reads it that you stand behind your work.

Reviews you cannot see don't help you improve. Negative reviews you respond to well can actually win jobs.

Disclaimer: Nothing on this page is legal advice. TCPA compliance depends on your specific business practices, your jurisdiction, and how you collect customer consent. Consult your own attorney before deploying any SMS marketing system — this disclaimer is not a formality, it is a real financial risk if you get it wrong.

With that said, here is how the system is configured to align with TCPA requirements:

Consent is captured at booking. When a customer books a job — by phone, online form, or in person — they are informed they may receive follow-up messages from your business, including a review request. No documented consent, no message goes out. The system does not send to contacts who have not agreed to receive texts from you.

Every message includes an opt-out keyword. Per TCPA requirements, each outgoing SMS carries instructions like "Reply STOP to opt out." The system honors opt-outs immediately — that number is suppressed and will not receive future messages. There is no lag, no second message after an opt-out fires.

Quiet hours are enforced. Messages only go out between 8 AM and 9 PM in the recipient's local time zone, consistent with FCC quiet hour guidance.

Transaction-triggered, not promotional. A review request sent shortly after a completed service job is a different regulatory category than a promotional blast campaign. Your attorney can advise on exactly how this applies to your consent workflow.

The short version: the system is built to follow the rules. But every business's intake process is different and the rules can change. Get your own legal eye on it before you go live.

Yes — you see and approve every template before the first message goes out.

Before launch, the agency presents the exact SMS text that will go to your customers. You can read it, change the wording, adjust the tone, ask that specific services be named differently, or request a more casual or more formal register. Nothing deploys until you sign off.

After launch, templates can be updated anytime via a simple email to the agency — "Can you change the sign-off?" or "Can we mention our 24-hour emergency line?" — and the update is in place within one business day. You do not log into a platform or navigate a settings page. You send one email.

This matters because your name is on every message. The agency operates the system, but you own the customer relationship. You should know — and control — exactly what goes out under your business name. Done-for-you does not mean handing over your voice. It means you stop spending time on the mechanics and stay focused on the outcome: more reviews, a better reputation, more booked jobs arriving without you lifting a finger.

The AI-drafted review responses are professional, trade-appropriate, and tied to what the specific review actually says — not copy-pasted boilerplate.

If a customer writes "The tech showed up on time and fixed our furnace in under an hour," the response does not say "Thank you for your feedback!" It says something like: "Really glad we could get your furnace sorted quickly — staying on schedule matters, especially when the heat goes out. Thanks for the call." Warm, specific, and human-sounding.

For a 5-star review with no text, the response is brief and appreciative. No padding, no keyword stuffing, no "We're so glad you chose [Business Name] for all your home service needs."

Set realistic expectations: the response sounds like your business, not necessarily like you personally at your most articulate. If you want responses that sound exactly like your voice — your specific phrases, your sign-off — the agency can build a custom voice profile during onboarding. Raise it on the setup call.

What the responses are not: generic, sycophantic, or stuffed with keywords for their own sake. The goal is a response a real professional would write — produced consistently at scale on every review, positive and negative, without you reading them all yourself.

You know it is working when your Google Business Profile review count goes up. That is the primary signal and you can see it without touching any dashboard — open Google Maps and count.

Beyond that, the agency sends a monthly summary covering: new reviews collected that month, average star rating, response rate, and any flagged negative reviews plus how they were handled. One email, readable in two minutes. No login required.

The 60-day performance guarantee gives you a concrete benchmark. The system needs to help your business recover at least $5,000 in value in the first 60 days. More reviews improve your local map pack ranking, a higher ranking drives more inbound calls, more calls convert to booked jobs. If that recovery threshold is not hit, you do not pay. The math is not complicated: two extra jobs a month at $500 each is $1,000 per month, and the effect compounds as your review count grows and your ranking climbs.

If you are tracking your call volume and booked jobs monthly, you will feel it working before any report tells you.

Honest answer: if you are pulling in ten or more new Google reviews per month and you are sitting in the top three spots on the local map pack, you may not need this. You have already solved the problem.

If you are not in that position — if you are running sixty jobs a month and getting two or three reviews — the gap is compounding against you. Every month without reviews is a month a competitor is climbing above you on Maps while you stay invisible to customers who never scroll past the top three results.

The question is not whether reviews matter. The question is whether your current collection rate is keeping pace with your market. Check the ROI math to see what a ranking improvement could be worth in your area before you decide.

If the numbers say you are fine, you are fine. If they say you are losing $3,000 a month to competitors with fifty more reviews than you, you know what to do.