Google Reviews Across Every Branch: Multi-Location Review Management

A group with eight showrooms does not have one reputation. It has eight, and a customer in one town only ever sees one of them. That is the thing most multi-location owners miss when they look at reviews. The flagship has hundreds, head office is pleased, and the branch in the town where the new competitor just opened has eleven. This guide covers how review management works across branches: one profile each, central rules, local sending, and a league table that tells you where to look first. The systems are described on our review management system page.

Why does every branch need its own Google profile?

Because Google shows the listing nearest the person searching, and a customer in one town does not see the profile in another. A single head-office Google Business Profile with every review on it looks impressive on a screenshot and does nothing for the branch a customer is actually standing near. Each branch needs its own profile, with its own address, hours, photos and reviews, and ideally its own page on your website.

This is also how customers behave. They are not comparing your group with another group. They are comparing the branch nearest them with the competitor nearest them. A thin branch profile loses that comparison however strong the brand is.

Why does the gap between branches matter more than the average?

Because the average hides the branch that is losing. A group with a strong average can still have one branch being beaten by a local independent with more recent reviews. The gap between your best and worst branch is the real measure of how the group is doing locally, and it is usually larger than anyone at head office expects.

The practical consequence is that review management for a group starts with a table, not a campaign. Review count, rating, photo count and last post date for every branch, ranked. The bottom of that table is where the first month’s effort goes. Our guide to why local businesses lose enquiries covers what a thin profile costs at a single site.

How should the request rules be set across branches?

Centrally, once, and the same for every branch. One message, one trigger, one follow-up, one tone. This is the part a group gets right that an independent cannot: a decision made at head office applies everywhere, so a strong branch and a weak branch run the same process. The rules are simple and they do not vary by how busy the branch manager is.

The rules also cover what is not allowed. Every customer gets the same request. No rating question first, no selecting the happy ones, no incentives. Review gating breaks Google’s policy and, since the DMCC Act 2024, UK consumer law, and in a group one branch doing it puts every profile at risk.

Why should sending be local?

Because the review has to land on the right profile. The request to a customer who bought a kitchen in one branch has to carry that branch’s review link, come from that branch’s name and refer to the fitting they had. Pooling all customers into one request flow with one link sends reviews to whichever profile the link points at, usually the flagship, and the branch that did the work gains nothing.

Local sending from central rules is straightforward with the right setup: each branch’s customer list feeds its own flow, the message is the same template, and the link and sender name are the branch’s. Head office sees all of it in one place.

Who should reply to reviews?

The branch, in the branch’s name, with head office able to see every reply. A reply from the manager who dealt with the customer reads as a real business. A reply from a central team using the group name reads as a call centre. Replies to difficult reviews can be drafted centrally and approved by the branch, which keeps the tone consistent without taking the voice away from the person the customer met.

Reply speed is a freshness signal on the profile, so unanswered reviews at a branch show up in the league table alongside the count.

What about duplicate and closed listings?

Find them before launching anything. Groups accumulate stray profiles: a listing created by a previous manager, a profile left behind when a branch moved, a duplicate someone set up without checking. Each one is a place reviews can go and get stranded. Google does not move reviews between profiles, so reviews on a closed or duplicate listing stay there.

The audit in step one surfaces these. Where a branch has moved, the listing is updated rather than closed and reopened. Where a true duplicate exists, it goes through Google’s merge or removal process, and the group accepts that reviews on the duplicate may not carry across. Doing this first means the request campaign builds the right profile from day one.

Who owns the profile when a franchisee leaves?

Whoever created it, unless the agreement says otherwise, and this catches franchise groups out regularly. A franchisee sets up the branch profile under their own Google account, builds a hundred reviews over five years, then leaves and takes the profile with them. The new franchisee in the same premises starts from zero.

The fix is structural. Every branch profile sits under the franchisor’s Google account, with the franchisee added as a manager. The agreement states that the profile and its reviews belong to the brand. The same applies to any group where a branch is run by someone who might leave.

How does this differ by type of group?

Group type	Where reviews are usually lost	First fix
Showroom groups (flooring, kitchens, bathrooms)	Past customers across years never asked; weak branches hidden by the flagship	Reactivation campaign at the bottom-of-table branch
Clinic groups	Requests sent blindly rather than timed around treatment; compliance differs by sector	Timed requests and sector-safe copy, per clinic
Franchisees	Profile ownership; inconsistent process between operators	Ownership fixed, one central rule set

For sector detail, see the pages for flooring and carpet shops, kitchen and bathroom fitters and aesthetic clinics. The method for a single site is in our guide to getting more Google reviews.

How to set up review management across a group

1. Audit every branch listing. For each branch, record the review count, rating, photo count, last post date and whether it has its own page on your site. Note any duplicate or closed profiles.
2. Fix ownership and access. Every profile sits under one company Google account with managers added per branch. Confirm who owns each profile before anything else.
3. Set the request rules once. One message, one trigger, one follow-up, same for every branch. Every customer gets the same request.
4. Connect each branch’s customers to its own profile. Requests go from the branch the customer dealt with, to that branch’s review link.
5. Run the branch league table monthly. Review count and rating per branch, ranked, with movement since last month. Start with the branch at the bottom.

The bottom line

Review management for a group is one set of rules and many local profiles. Head office decides the message, the timing and the standards. Each branch sends to its own customers, lands reviews on its own profile and replies in its own name. The league table shows where to look, and the audit beforehand stops reviews being stranded on listings nobody meant to create.

If you run a group and want the branch table built for you, book a call and we will go through every listing with you.