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Review Request Automation with Smart Branching

Post-service SMS triggered by job completion, sentiment-branched: positive routes to Google review, negative routes to internal alert.

2024 GHL Workflow Engineer GoHighLevel
GoHighLevelSentiment BranchingGoogle ReviewsSMSInternal Alerts
taimoorakhtar.com/projects/review-request-automation
Review Request Automation with Smart Branching

Introduction

A home services client had a 4.6-star Google rating and 47 reviews. They wanted more reviews — but every previous attempt at automation had backfired. Either they got 1-star reviews from unhappy customers who they could've addressed privately, or the automation felt spammy and customers complained.

The Challenge

Review request automation has two failure modes. Asking everyone — you collect public 1-stars from the unhappy ones, tanking your average. Asking only obviously-happy ones — you miss a lot of would-be reviewers and your review velocity stays low. The middle path requires sentiment-detection before the routing decision.

The Solution

Built a two-step request flow in GHL. First message asks 'How was your experience?' with a 1-5 numeric reply. Responses 4-5 trigger a Google review link. Responses 1-3 trigger an internal alert and an apology-resolution sequence — keeping the dispute private while opening a fix loop.

Technical Deep Dive

1
Trigger from job completion. GHL workflow fires 24 hours after a job is moved to 'Completed' stage. SMS sent from the registered A2P campaign with the standard opt-out handling.
2
Sentiment capture via numeric reply. Customer replies 1-5. Workflow captures the reply via inbound webhook, parses the digit, branches accordingly. Non-numeric replies handed off to a rep for clarification.
3
Positive route — Google review link. 4 or 5 → second SMS with the direct Google review link for the location. Pre-fills nothing — customers write their own review. ~38% click-through rate, ~60% of clicks result in a posted review.
4
Negative route — internal alert. 1-3 → no public route offered. SMS reply thanks the customer and offers a manager call-back. Internal Slack notification fires with customer name, job ID, and rating. Manager reaches out within 4 hours.
5
Follow-up loop. Customers in the negative branch get a follow-up message 72 hours after manager outreach asking if things were resolved. Issue closure tracked in a custom field for trend analysis.

Key Features

Results & Impact

  • Google review count grew from 47 to 312 in 9 months
  • Average rating moved from 4.6 to 4.8 stars
  • Negative experience resolution rate: 73% (per follow-up tracking)
  • Zero customer complaints about review request spam

Lessons Learned

"Sentiment-branching is the only ethical way to automate review requests. Asking everyone is a 1-star factory."
"Negative-route customers often become loyal advocates after manager outreach — the 'fix it' moment matters."
"Track issue closure, not just review count. The internal signal is more valuable than the public one."

Related Work

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