Google Reviews

What it is

Google Reviews is the page where you point Joby at your business listing on Google and let it do the asking for you. Once it is switched on, every time a job moves into a status you have chosen — "Done", "Paid", "Completed", whatever you call it — the customer gets a short text or email with a link to leave you a Google review.

You find it at Settings›Connections & AI›Integrations, then click the Google Reviews tile. The tile button reads Connect the first time and Manage once you have saved a review link. On a phone the page opens with a back arrow that takes you to Integrations.

The page is built from four cards:

Nothing is posted to Google on your behalf and Joby never writes or edits a review. All it does is send the customer a link and count the clicks.

When to use it

• You want a review request to go out automatically the moment a job is marked finished, instead of relying on someone remembering to ask.
• You want to know which customers actually opened the link, so you know who to follow up with by phone.
• You want to ask one particular happy customer right now — that is the Send now button.
• You want your star rating and your latest reviews visible inside Joby without opening Google.

This is not the place for general marketing texts to a whole list of customers — use Bulk SMS for that. And if you want something more elaborate than "one message when the status changes" — several messages, branching, waiting on other conditions — build it in Visual Workflows instead.

Before you start

• Your business needs to be on Google Maps. Joby finds your listing by searching Google for it. If your business does not show up on Google Maps yet, there is nothing for customers to review and nothing for this page to link to.
• You need the Integrations permission. It is set per role under Settings›People›Team Roles, in the Admin & Settings group, and it is called Integrations. Without it the whole Integrations page is hidden.
• Only the account owner and admins can change anything. Everyone else with the Integrations permission sees the listing, the star rating and the request history, but the Settings card is not shown to them and Send now / Resend will refuse with "Only an owner or admin can perform this action".
• Your statuses have to exist first. The trigger statuses you tick come from your active statuses under Settings›Pipeline›Lead Statuses. If you have not created a status that means "the work is finished", make one before you start. With none set up the card just says "No active statuses found for this organization."
• For text messages: you need at least one active sending number under Settings›Channels›Phone Numbers, and that number has to be cleared for texting — see Phone Registration. Leave the From number box blank and Joby uses your default sending number.
• For emails: either use your default sending account or pick one of your own mailboxes from Settings›Channels›Email Accounts.
• The customer needs contact details on the job. A text needs a phone number on the record and an email needs an email address. Jobs missing that detail are skipped silently — no request is created for them at all.
• Your company may use different words. "Lead" can be renamed for your account, so the buttons on this page may say "Job", "Customer" or something else instead.

Step-by-step

1. Open the page

1. Click your name at the bottom of the left menu and choose Integrations, or go the long way round: Settings›Connections & AI›Integrations.
2. Find the Google Reviews tile — the search box at the top of the Integrations page and the category buttons underneath both help.
3. Click Connect (or Manage if you have been here before).

2. Link your Google listing

1. In the Your Google listing card, type your business name and town into the search box — it suggests the format itself: Search your business — name + city, e.g. Joe's Plumbing Austin. Press Enter or click the magnifying-glass button.
2. Up to six matches come back, each showing the business name, the address and its current star rating. Check the address carefully — chains and similarly named businesses look alike. Click Use this on the right one.
3. You get a message reading Linked — click Save to apply. That is a reminder, not a confirmation. Click Save at the bottom right of the card.
4. The card now shows the saved link, a Place line underneath it, a Test link button and a Change button. Click Test link — it opens your Google review window in a new tab. That is exactly what your customer will see.

3. Decide when and how it sends

Everything below lives in the Settings card on the right-hand side (on a phone it sits below the other cards). It is only shown to the account owner and admins.

1. Turn on Send review requests. The description under it explains the deal: "When a lead enters a trigger status, automatically ask for a review."
2. Pick a Channel — SMS or Email. It is one or the other for everybody, not per customer.
3. Under Trigger statuses, click the statuses that should set a request off. Each one turns into a highlighted pill with a tick. Click again to switch it off. Most businesses pick exactly one — the status that means the work is finished and paid.
4. Write your Message template. Leave it empty and Joby uses the wording shown in grey. See Writing the message below for the pieces you can drop into it.
5. Set Delay (minutes) — "Wait this long after the status change before sending." 0 sends straight away. Something like 120 gives your team two hours to spot a mistake before the customer hears anything.
6. Optionally turn on Send a 2nd request if not opened and set After how many days (3 if you leave it alone). Anyone who never clicked the first link gets one more nudge. People who did click are left alone.
7. If you chose SMS: fill in From number (optional) only if you want the messages coming from one specific number. "Leave blank to use your default sending number."
8. If you chose Email: set a Subject (leave it empty and it goes out as "How did we do?") and choose a From email. The list offers Default sending account plus every mailbox you have connected.
9. Click Save at the bottom of the card. You should see Settings saved.

4. Send one by hand

1. Scroll down to the Review requests card and click Send now at the top right of it.
2. A search box appears. Type at least two letters of the customer's first or last name — until you do it says "Type at least 2 characters to search."
3. Click the name in the list. The request goes out immediately, you get Review request sent, and the picker closes.

Send now ignores the trigger statuses and the delay completely, and it works even when Send review requests is switched off — the only thing it insists on is a saved review link, otherwise it answers "No review link is configured". It also ignores the once-per-customer rule, so you can send to the same person again if you really mean to.

5. Chase someone who never clicked

1. Find the row in the Review requests table. The Opened column shows a dash for people who never clicked.
2. Click Resend at the end of that row. You get Review request re-queued and a fresh row appears at the top of the table with its own link.

The resent message goes to the same phone number or email address as the original, and points at the same review page. The old row stays where it is as a record.

How to check it worked

The full end-to-end test, on your own details, takes about two minutes:

1. Create a job for yourself with your own mobile number and email address on it, then use Send now and pick it.
2. Wait a moment and refresh the page. A row appears with your name, the channel and a Sent time.
3. Open the message on your phone and tap the link. You should briefly see "Taking you to leave a review…" and then land on your own Google review window.
4. Back on the Google Reviews page, refresh. The Opened column now shows a green tick with the time, Opens reads 1, and the Opened count above the table has gone up.
5. Then do it for real: move a genuine finished job into one of your trigger statuses and watch a row appear on its own.

If you chose Email, the message you sent also turns up in your Email Inbox as an outgoing message, so you can read exactly what the customer received.

Common mistakes

• Taking the link out of the message. If you delete {{Review.link}} from your template the message still goes out — just with no link in it, so nobody can leave you a review. Always keep it in.
• Reading the counts as a total. The Sent, Opened, Failed and Queued badges count only the 50 rows on the page in front of you, not your whole history. Use Prev and Next to move through the rest.
• Assuming "Opened" means "reviewed". A tick in the Opened column means the customer tapped your link and reached Google. It cannot tell you whether they actually wrote anything, or what they said.
• Changing the review link and expecting old requests to follow. Each request remembers the review page it was created with. Messages already waiting to go out will still point at the old one — send fresh ones after you change the listing.
• Setting the delay too short. With a delay of 0 the customer can be asked for a review while your worker is still packing up the van. An hour or two reads far better.
• Testing on a real customer. Put your own mobile number on a test job first. A review request is a real message to a real person and it cannot be unsent.
• Nothing sends and every row says Failed. On SMS that almost always means no active sending number, or a From number typed in by hand that does not belong to your account. Clear the box to fall back to your default number, or check Settings›Channels›Phone Numbers.