Connect Your Booking System to Google Reviews

A booking system knows everything a review request needs about each visit: name, contact, the end time of the booking and the type of service. When you connect it to automatic sending, the request goes out to every customer at the same time after the visit and nobody has to remember it.

This guide shows what to find out from your booking system vendor, three ways to connect, and how to write a message that meets Google’s rules and the commercial communications rules.

Why It Matters When the Request Arrives

Manual outreach fails for three reasons:

• You forget. With five bookings a day you quickly lose track of who you have contacted and who you have not.
• You reach out too late. After a week the customer no longer remembers the details they would write in a review.
• You are inconsistent. You approach satisfied customers while avoiding unhappy ones. That also goes against Google’s rules, which prohibit businesses from “selectively solicit[ing] positive reviews from customers”.

Your booking system gives you the exact end time of the visit. That is your trigger. The request then goes out a few hours after the visit, or the next morning if the visit ended in the evening. Always the same, and to everyone.

How to word the request is covered in the article how to ask customers for a review the right way.

What to Find Out About Your Booking System

Systems such as Reservio, Bookio, Reenio, Fresha or Planyo differ in what they offer, and the offer changes. Instead of relying on old guides, ask the vendor or go through its documentation:

1. Does it have an API or webhooks? A webhook sends a message to another tool when a booking changes, for example to “completed”.
2. Does it support Zapier or Make? Then you can handle the connection without a developer.
3. Can it export completed bookings to CSV? That is a fallback that always works.
4. Can it record consent to messages at booking? Without it you have nobody to send to.
5. Does it distinguish a completed visit from a cancelled or no-show one? Only someone who actually came should get the request.

Reputive has a direct connection to Altegio (the request follows a visit where reception marked “Client arrived”) and Wix Bookings (contact hand-over after a chosen event, for example after the end of the visit). For other systems we are happy to check the options for connecting.

If you run a restaurant, see the article how to collect Google reviews for a restaurant. For salons the same logic applies, more in the guide Google reviews for beauty salons and cosmetic studios.

Three Ways to Set Up the Connection Technically

1. Direct connection

If your system is one of the directly connected ones, you do not have to export manually. Altegio is set up individually according to the access of your branch. For Wix Bookings you set up the contact hand-over in Wix Automations, for example at the scheduled end of the visit. You then set the delay and the wording of the messages in the campaign in Reputive.

2. Connection via API or Zapier

If there is no direct connection, the API or Zapier will do the job. The general procedure:

1. As the trigger, choose an event from the booking system, ideally “booking completed”.
2. Add a filter: only completed visits and only customers who consented to messages.
3. Pass the name and contact to Reputive (through Zapier or the API).
4. You set the delay after the visit and the wording of the messages in Reputive.

If you want to send messages entirely without Reputive, for example through Make and your own SMS gateway, you have to look after the opt-out, the marking of messages and who has already been sent one yourself.

3. CSV export

This suits you if your system can export the necessary contacts to CSV. Once a week (or daily) you export the list of completed bookings to CSV and upload it to Reputive, which sends out the messages. There is just one risk: you are relying on the regularity of the export. If you skip it on Friday, customers from Friday will not get a request.

How to Write a Message That Meets the Rules

In the Czech Republic, a review request is, according to the Office for Personal Data Protection (ÚOOÚ), a commercial communication. You may send it to someone who gave consent, or to a customer under the customer exception. But the ÚOOÚ does not explicitly say that the exception covers a review request, so the safest route is a consent checkbox directly in the booking form. Every message must be marked, name the sender and offer an opt-out. Anyone who writes “I do not want this” disappears from the mailing. Other countries have their own rules on electronic marketing, so check the ones that apply to you. I am not a lawyer, so have the templates checked.

SMS Template

OS: [Venue name] ([registered company name of the operator]) thanks you for visiting. You can write a Google review here: [link]. Free opt-out: [link] or call free of charge on [toll-free number].

“OS:” is the Czech abbreviation for a commercial communication and the Czech requirement; elsewhere, mark the message as the local rules require. The link should lead directly to the review form. You create it in your Google Business Profile.

Email Template

Subject: Commercial message – thank you for visiting [Venue name]

Hello,

thank you for visiting us on [date of visit].
If you would like to tell us how it went, you can add a Google
review here:

[button or link: Write a review]

[First name and surname or the [Venue name] team]
[registered company name of the operator], [address], company ID [ID], [phone]

This email is a commercial message. Do not want to receive more?
You can unsubscribe free of charge here: [unsubscribe link]

A few extra principles:

• Do not ask “if you were satisfied”. The request must be the same for everyone.
• Do not ask for five stars and do not offer anything for a review.
• Do not apologise for reaching out.
• Do not send messages at night.

More on choosing a channel is in the article SMS vs email for collecting reviews and on tone in the article how to ask for a Google review without annoying your customer.

What to Do When a Customer Visits Repeatedly

A regular customer who comes every month should not receive a request after every visit. Set a rule: anyone who has written a review gets no further request, and others you contact at most once in a longer period.

Reputive recognises a written review by the author’s name. When the name matches the customer, further messages in the sequence stop. If the name does not match (a nickname, another account), the match fails, so it pays to keep the sequence short.

How to Track Results

After launching the connection, watch three things:

• How many customers actually received a request compared with the number of completed bookings. A big gap means the connection or consents are dropping out somewhere.
• How many reviews arrived per month. Regularity matters more than a one-off jump.
• What repeats in complaints. A repeated complaint is a reason to fix operations, not the message text.

Do not expect your average to rise with automatic collection. When you approach everyone, weaker ratings arrive too. It is a truer picture of your operation and exactly what Google wants. Why each review has real value is explained in how reviews affect revenue.

Launch the Connection This Week

Three steps are enough: find out what your booking system can do, set a trigger on a completed visit and prepare a message with all the required elements.

Reputive sends the request by SMS and up to three emails, stops the sequence when a review arrives, and prepares reply drafts for new reviews that you approve before they are published. Try it free for 14 days, no credit card required.