Monitor & respond to Google Maps reviews using AI, Apify, Slack, and Sheets

This workflow automates reputation management for physical stores (restaurants, retail, clinics) by monitoring Google Maps reviews, analyzing them with AI, and drafting professional replies.

It acts as a 24/7 customer support assistant, ensuring you never miss a negative review and saving hours of manual writing time.

Who is this for?

• Store Managers & Owners: Keep track of customer sentiment without manually checking Google Maps every day.
• Marketing Agencies: Automate local SEO reporting and response drafting for multiple clients.
• Customer Support Teams: Get instant alerts for negative feedback to resolve issues quickly.

How it works

1. Schedule: Runs every 24 hours (customizable) to fetch the latest data.
2. Scrape: Uses Apify to retrieve the latest reviews from a specific Google Maps URL.
3. Filter: Checks the Google Sheet database to identify only new reviews and avoid duplicates.
4. AI Analysis: An AI Agent (via OpenRouter/OpenAI) analyzes the review text to:
   • Generate a short summary.
   • Draft a polite, context-aware reply based on the star rating (e.g., apologies for low stars, gratitude for high stars).
5. Alert: Sends a Slack notification.
   • Low Rating (<4 stars): Alerts a specific channel (e.g., #customer-support) with a warning.
   • High Rating: Alerts a general channel (e.g., #wins) to celebrate.
6. Save: Appends the review details, AI summary, and draft reply to the Google Sheet.

Requirements

• n8n: Cloud or self-hosted (v1.0+).
• Apify Account: To run the Google Maps Reviews Scraper.
• Google Cloud Platform: Enabled Google Sheets API.
• Slack Workspace: A webhook URL or OAuth connection.
• OpenRouter (or OpenAI) API Key: For the LLM generation.

How to set up

1. Google Sheets: Create a new sheet with the following headers in the first row: reviewId, publishedAt, reviewerName, stars, text, ai_summary, ai_reply, reviewUrl, output, publishedAt date.
2. Configure Credentials: Set up your accounts for Google Sheets, Apify, Slack, and OpenRouter within n8n.
3. Edit the "CONFIG" Node:
   • MAPS_URL: Paste the full Google Maps link to your store.
   • SHEET_ID: Paste the ID found in your Google Sheet URL.
   • SHOP_NAME: Your store's name.
4. Slack Nodes: Select the appropriate channels for positive and negative alerts.

How to customize

• Change the AI Persona: Open the AI Agent node and modify the "System Message" to match your brand's tone of voice (e.g., casual, formal, or witty).
• Adjust Alert Thresholds: Edit the If Rating < 4 node to change the criteria for what constitutes a "negative" review (e.g., strictly < 3 stars).
• Multi-Store Support: You can loop this workflow over a list of URLs to manage multiple locations in a single execution.