Sample result
Positive Review Reply Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"I have 31 four and five-star reviews from the last two months across Google and the delivery platform, and I have answered none of them. I do not want to send the same sentence forty times."
① Triage of the 31 reviews
31 four and five-star reviews in 60 days: 19 on the Google map and 12 on the delivery platform. None answered. The queue is not ordered by date or by stars, but by what each review brings with it.
| Type | How many | What gets done | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Names a dish, a person or a moment | 9 | Long reply of 55 to 70 words, signed | It brings raw material: something concrete to repeat in front of the reader |
| Four stars with a "but" | 5 | Long reply, first in the queue | It is the only place a stranger sees that somebody here listens |
| Two lines, no content, under 45 days | 12 | One 20-word line, no dish and no ask | Spending the good reply on "All very good" throws it away |
| Two lines, over 45 days | 5 | No reply | Answering two months late tells the reader that nobody here is watching |
That is 14 long replies and 12 short lines. At six minutes for a long one and one for a short one, 96 minutes: an hour and a half of a Tuesday, not a project.
What was ruled out, and why. Three of the nine that name something are past 21 days, and the clock rule would send them to the short line. It gets broken here on purpose: what they bring —the server's name, a Sunday sancocho— still works today for whoever is comparing restaurants on the map, and the short line wastes it. They get the long reply, without pretending it happened yesterday.
Answering all 31 was ruled out too. Thirty-one replies in a row on the same screen, written on the same Tuesday, read like exactly what they would be: a batch. The two-line review with two months on it goes unanswered and nothing happens; last week's two-liner gets a line that differs from the one beside it.
② Five replies, written out
Three long ones and two short ones, so the difference shows. None opens the same way and no two are signed by the same person.
Google, 5 stars, 6 days ago. "The sancocho de tres carnes is on another level. We went on a Sunday with my mother and Yuli served us, very attentive."
Dona Claudia, Yuli read your review on Monday and it made her day. The Sancocho de tres carnes goes on the stove at six in the morning, which is why it runs out early on Sundays. If you come back with your mother, order the Trucha al ajillo on a Saturday at midday: there is a table with no wait and the kitchen is free for it. — Andres, Laureles location
Delivery platform, 5 stars, 3 days ago. "Arrived hot and well packed. The bandeja was loaded."
Thank you for the note on the packing: the rice and the egg travel separately exactly for that. The Bandeja de la casa is what leaves most through this channel, and the one almost nobody orders is the Trucha al ajillo, which takes the trip better than it looks. Thursday night it goes out faster, when the kitchen has room. — Andres
Google, 4 stars, 11 days ago. "Very good food, though we waited 25 minutes for a table at midday."
You are right about the 25 minutes: between 12:15 and 1:30, Tuesday to Friday, the room fills and we cannot turn tables fast enough. From this week we are writing down the arrival time of every table to see where it jams. If it helps, Saturday midday you walk straight in and the menu is the same. — Andres, Laureles location
No formal apology here and no comped courtesy: that lives with the negative review. A "but" inside four stars gets named with its hour and answered with a fact.
The two short ones, 20 words, no dish and no ask.
"Excellent, everything." → Thank you, don Jorge. We will be here. — Andres
"All very good." → Good thing to read on a Monday, Marcela. Thank you for writing it. — Yuli
③ The ask and its slot
The ask goes where people are missing, not where they already crowd.
| Review | Concrete ask | Proposed slot | How the return is verified | Review date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claudia, Google, 5 stars | Come back with her mother and order Trucha al ajillo | Saturday midday | Booking under her name in the floor book | 24 September |
| Order 8841, delivery platform, 5 stars | Try the Trucha al ajillo on delivery | Thursday 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. | Trucha on an order from the same address | 24 September |
| Jorge Ivan, Google, 4 stars with a "but" | Come back with no queue, same menu | Saturday midday | Table seated between 12:00 and 1:00 with no wait | 24 September |
| Marcela, Google, 5 stars, two lines | None | — | — | — |
The ask that got cut. The owner wanted to write "come back on a Tuesday". Ruled out: Tuesday-to-Friday lunch already fills on its own, and moving a guest from one full lunch to another adds no cover, it only changes the chair. The two slow slots in this house are Saturday midday and Tuesday-to-Thursday nights, and that is where the three asks land.
The dish is not chosen by taste either. The Bandeja de la casa and the Sancocho de tres carnes are the workhorse: they sell themselves. The reply line is menu space nobody pays for, and it gets spent on the Trucha al ajillo. Of the 14 long replies, the Trucha is named in 4: under the one-third cap.
SUPUESTO: that the Trucha carries the best contribution margin of the three comes from the price order and the declared ingredient cost, not from an industry margin: the house does not hard-code that figure. Confirm it against your recipe costing. If the Trucha turned out to be the worst margin, the quotable noun in all 14 long replies changes and this block gets rebuilt.
What gets counted at 30 days. If 4 of the 14 come back, that is 192,000 COP at an average check of 48,000 COP. Illustrative figures, built from the data you gave. The figure that really matters next month is a different one: how many of those who came back brought somebody with them.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.