When a Google review lands, Mucka writes a reply for you. You read it, change anything you want, and send it — it posts to Google from inside Mucka, so you never have to go and find the review yourself.
Reply to a review
- Open Reviews.
- Find the review and tap Reply. Mucka's draft appears in the box.
- Change any of it you like — it's your reply, and nothing sends until you say so.
- Tap Post to Google.
That's it. The reply appears on your Google listing under your business name.
If you'd rather paste it in yourself, Copy instead copies the text and leaves the review alone.
If something goes wrong sending it — Google having a moment, or your connection needing renewing — the reply stays in the box so you can try again. You won't lose what you wrote.
Reply from your phone
On the phone's new look you can do all of this away from the computer.
- Open Reviews. The card at the top shows your Google rating, worked out from the Google reviews Mucka has brought in, and how many new ones are waiting for a reply.
- Tap that line, or Reply on a review under New on Google. Mucka's draft is already in the box.
- Change anything you like, then tap Post to Google.
Write it again asks Mucka for a fresh draft, Copy instead copies it so you can paste it into Google yourself, and Skip leaves that review without a reply.
If Mucka couldn't tell who a review is from, tap Whose is it and pick the customer. It then sits with that customer's other reviews.
Which customer a review is from
Mucka matches each Google review to a customer on its own, by the name on the review:
- If the name on the review is exactly one customer's, and nobody else on your books is close, it's linked to them for you. That includes reviews from before you connected Google.
- If it's only nearly a match — just an initial and the surname, or the same surname with a different first name, which is often the husband or wife — Mucka doesn't guess. It shows Looks like and the customer's name under the review (with their postcode), and one tap links it. If it's somebody else, tap Someone else and pick them.
- If lots of your customers share the surname, or the review only has initials, there's nothing worth suggesting and you pick the customer yourself.
A customer you add later is matched the next time Mucka checks Google, and a review you've linked yourself is never changed.
Once a review is linked to a customer, whether Mucka did it or you did, Mucka stops chasing them for one. Any Google review request still going to them is closed, and so is a request for another site that went out before they left the review. A request for another site sent after the review carries on.
Replying and choosing a customer need the permission to send review requests. Without it you can still read every review.
Reply from your action list
Reviews waiting on a reply also turn up as cards in Actions. Open the card and you get the whole thing on one screen: what the customer wrote, and the reply Mucka has drafted, in a box you can type in.
- Read the review at the top of the card.
- Change the reply however you like — it's a normal text box.
- Tap Approve Reply. It posts to Google, publicly, under your business name.
If you leave the draft alone and approve it, Mucka sends the latest version of that reply — so if you've since rewritten it on the Reviews page, that's the one that goes, not the one the card was showing.
Just ask Mucka
You don't have to open the Reviews page at all. Ask Mucka and it'll tell you:
- "Any reviews today?"
- "Have I had any bad ones this week?"
- "What did Karen say?"
- "Anything still needing a reply?"
You can get it to answer one too — "reply to Karen saying thanks, glad I could get it sorted". Mucka reads the reply back to you first and only posts it once you say go. If you'd rather word it yourself, say it and it goes out exactly as you said it, no rewriting.
Over the phone Mucka will read your reviews out, but it won't post a reply — there's no screen to check the wording on, and a reply goes public on your listing for good. Ask it in the app for that.
Getting them written your way, every time
Tell Mucka how you want a reply worded and it uses it for that one:
"Keep it short and warm." "Write it first person, I'm a one-man band."
If that's how you want all of them from now on, say so, and Mucka saves it:
"And do that with all of them from now on, please."
Every reply it drafts after that follows it without you asking again. Ask for something different on a one-off and that wins for that reply, and your saved wording stays put for the next one. To change it, just say how you want them from now on again.
This one is for the whole business, not just you, because a review reply goes out under your business name on a public listing. Whoever drafts the next one gets the same voice.
"I" or "we"?
A reply from a one-man band should say "I fitted your boiler", not "we". A reply from a firm with four engineers should say "we".
Mucka works this out from how many people are on your account: on your own, your replies say "I"; with a team, they say "we". You don't have to set anything up.
If it guesses wrong — say you've a mate who works with you but isn't on Mucka — you can tell it outright:
- Open Settings → Your Mucka.
- Scroll to With your customers.
- Under Who your replies come from, pick "I" — just me or "We" — the team.
Leave it on Work it out and Mucka goes on your account size, which is right for nearly everybody.
This changes new drafts, not ones already written. To redo an existing one, tap Re-draft on that review.
Reviews you've already answered
If you replied on Google directly, Mucka knows and won't ask you to do it twice — those show as Posted and sit quietly in the list.
The example reviews
A new workspace comes with four example reviews, so the page and your quotes aren't empty before Google is connected. They aren't on Google, so they can't be replied to. The first time Mucka brings in your real reviews from Google, the examples go.
If replying isn't working
If your Google connection says Needs reconnecting, Google has stopped letting Mucka see your profile. That happens when somebody removes Mucka from the Google account, or the Google password changes. Until you reconnect, no new reviews come in and no replies can go out. Open Reviews, tap the settings cog, tap Reconnect Google, and pick your business again when Google asks.
Otherwise, the most common reason is that your Google Business Profile is connected but no location was ever chosen, so Mucka can't tell which listing is yours. Open Reviews, tap the settings cog, and check your Google connection names an actual location. If it doesn't, disconnect and connect it again, picking your business when prompted.