How to reply to restaurant reviews on Google and Tripadvisor
Review Reply adds an RR button beside the platform's own Reply or Respond action. You click a diner review, edit the draft the extension prepares, run Truth Check, and then post through the platform's native reply form with your own final click. Yelp and other sites use the paste-a-review path.
The steps below cover each supported platform, the path for a review the extension cannot read in the page, and how the extension pairs with your RR account. Nothing is posted without your explicit final action.
Shared flow
What happens when you click RR on a review?
On an approved review page, the extension verifies the live review surface and shows a circular RR icon beside the native Reply or Respond button. Clicking RR reads the review you selected — its text, the displayed reviewer name and rating — and asks the Reputation Systems API for a draft. The draft opens in your chosen workspace: a Chrome side panel, a compact toolbar popup, or an in-page card.
You edit the draft, switch tone or language, and run Truth Check, which reviews the text for unsupported concrete details, unverified promises, missed clear complaints, and confident language that does not match the review. It can replace a flagged sentence with a safer acknowledgment; if findings remain, posting needs a second Post anyway click.
When you click Post reply, that final click fills the platform's own response field and submits its native form. Navigating away, changing a review, or changing a filter invalidates the active draft and posting context, and unrelated tabs cannot retain the RR side panel.
How do you reply to Google reviews for a restaurant?
- Open Google Business Profile and go to the review list at business.google.com/reviews, or open the owner-review dialog from Google Search.
- On Search, make sure the owner-review dialog is visible with recognized review markup and response controls. The /search URL alone never enables the extension.
- Click the circular RR icon beside the review's native Reply action. The extension reads that row's reviewer name, rating and review text.
- Edit the draft in your workspace, run Truth Check, then click Post reply to submit through that row's own Reply or Edit editor.
How do you reply to Tripadvisor reviews for a restaurant?
- Open the diner review in Tripadvisor for Business and expand it first if it is unanswered.
- Click the circular RR icon beside the native Respond action to draft a reply.
- Edit the draft and run Truth Check, then click Post reply to submit through Tripadvisor's own response form.
Pasted reviews
How do you reply to Yelp and other restaurant review sites?
Yelp is not an approved host, so the extension adds no button there and reads nothing from its pages. For Yelp and any other review site the extension does not support, you paste the review instead.
On a page RR does not support, the review box is shown directly in the panel. Paste the review text, and type in the optional rating and reviewer name beside it if you have them.
Click Draft reply. The draft appears with Copy and Regenerate, and without a Post button. A pasted draft can be edited, Truth Checked, and regenerated just like a page draft. This path drafts only: the reply is copied out and pasted into the site's own reply box by hand, the panel says so, and the extension never posts it. The pasted review is sent with the fixed platform label manual, and the extension reads no page address on that path.
Connection
How does the extension connect to your RR account?
An RR account is required. Click the extension's toolbar icon and choose Log in / Sign up. That starts a ten-minute pairing request bound to the tab the extension opens; after sign-in or signup, RR activates a private extension-session credential without copy and paste. While the request is open, the account interface shows a countdown with Reopen the RR tab and Cancel.
The connection lasts 30 days and can be renewed through the same pairing flow. Disconnect revokes the session on RR before clearing the extension's local connection data. An expired, revoked, or unauthorized session is also removed when detected.
In the connected panel you choose the reply language, tone, and optional manager signature, then click Save reply settings. The first time the connected view opens it offers Side panel, Toolbar popup, or On the page as a one-time choice; until you pick one, RR drafts on the page. Settings → Theme offers Light, Dark, and Black. The panel also shows whether the active tab is a supported review page and the platform-specific tip for it; this check reads the tab URL locally and sends nothing.
Keep exploring
More restaurant pages
Restaurants: Overview Platforms Reply guides Google Business Profile Tripadvisor for Business Yelp
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Install Review Reply, connect your RR account, and answer diner reviews without leaving the page.