How to Monitor Google Reviews and Get Alerts
Set up Google review alerts, assign every review to an owner, and keep one response queue from falling behind across one or many locations.
The simplest way to monitor Google reviews is to turn on Business Profile customer-activity notifications, then give every new review an owner and a visible status. An alert tells you a review exists. A working queue tells you whether somebody has read it, replied, or let it sit.
Turn on Google review notifications first
Google’s current notification settings include a customer-activity option for new reviews and customer photos. Google says those notifications may arrive by email, in Search, or in Maps. To change them in Search, open your Business Profile, choose More, then Notifications, and switch the relevant setting on. In the Google Maps app, open Business and tap the notification icon. See Google’s Business Profile notification instructions (checked September 1, 2026).
Make sure the person receiving the alert still works on the account and can reach the profile. A notification sent to an old owner, a shared inbox nobody checks, or a phone with disabled app alerts is the same as no notification at all.
An alert is not a review-monitoring system
A business can receive every alert and still leave reviews unanswered. Monitoring needs four simple states: new, being handled, waiting on internal information, and complete. Each review also needs one owner. Without those basics, two people may write competing replies while a difficult review gets passed around for days.
Google lets a verified business read and reply to reviews from its Business Profile. Once a reply is approved and posted, it appears publicly beneath the customer’s review, and Google notifies the reviewer. Google’s review-management instructions explain the current native flow.
Build a review queue that shows what needs attention
Start with a single list, even if the first version is a spreadsheet. Record the location, star rating, review date, reviewer name, owner, status, due date, and a link to the review. Add an escalation note only when a case needs facts or authority that the normal responder does not have.
- New: the review has arrived and nobody owns a final response yet.
- In progress: a named person is checking the review or preparing the reply.
- Waiting: the reply needs a verified fact, manager decision, or offline customer follow-up.
- Complete: the approved reply is live, or the team made and recorded a deliberate no-reply decision.
Do not use star rating as the only priority signal. A one-star complaint about a wait may be routine; a three-star review mentioning safety, discrimination, privacy, a legal threat, or an employee allegation may need immediate escalation. The owner should be able to stop the ordinary workflow rather than force a public answer.
Route reviews by location and responsibility
For one location, the owner may handle every review. Once several people or locations are involved, write the routing rule down. A useful rule identifies the primary responder, the backup, and the person who handles sensitive cases. It should also say what happens on weekends and holidays.
Multi-location teams should keep the location attached to the review from the moment it arrives. Central teams can protect brand standards, while local managers confirm what actually happened. The separate multi-location review-management workflow covers ownership and escalation in more detail.
What to do when Google review alerts stop working
If alerts disappear, do not assume customers stopped reviewing you. Open the Business Profile directly and check the review list. Then verify the signed-in Google account, customer-activity notification setting, email spam rules, Google Maps notification permission, and the device’s operating-system settings.
For a shared operation, schedule a manual review check until alerts are reliable again. The backup can be brief, but it needs a named owner. Do not let a notification failure quietly become a week of unanswered reviews.
How ReviewRobot handles monitoring and response work
ReviewRobot monitors reviews from connected Google Business Profiles and brings them into one queue. Each review arrives with a personalized reply draft, so the owner can focus on the customer’s experience instead of staring at a blank box. A person can edit or regenerate the draft, and nothing publishes until that person approves it.
That narrower workflow is the point: see the review, decide what it needs, approve the right reply, and keep an accountable record. It does not replace your internal investigation or decide whether a sensitive claim is true. See how ReviewRobot works or read the broader guide to Google review automation.
A weekly review-monitoring check
Once a week, filter the queue for anything still open. Confirm that every location is connected, every new review has an owner, waiting items have a next action, and completed replies really posted. Then test one alert route. Five minutes of checking is cheaper than discovering a month later that a location went silent.
Turn your next Google review into your next customer. See ReviewRobot in action.
Open your Google Business Profile in Search, choose More, then Notifications, and turn on the customer-activity setting. Google says Business Profile notifications may arrive through email, Search, or Maps. In the Maps app, open Business and tap Notifications.
Notification delivery depends on the Google accounts that manage the profile and each person’s settings. For a team, do not rely on alerts alone. Put each review in a shared queue with one named owner and a visible status.
Check often enough that a missed notification cannot leave a review unattended for days. Many local teams use alerts for speed and a short manual queue check as backup. The right cadence depends on review volume and staffing.
Yes. ReviewRobot monitors connected Google Business Profiles, creates a personalized reply draft, and keeps the response in one approval queue. A person reviews the draft before anything publishes.
Add ReviewRobot as a preferred source on Google
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