Reputation management

Open SEO, then choose Reputation. Reputation combines first-party patient feedback with Google Business Profile review monitoring and replies.

Owners and managers can configure the feature. The front desk can read reviews, send a request, recover private feedback and respond. Analysts see aggregate reputation results without patient-level or reviewer-level detail. Telesales have no reputation access.

Configure requests

First connect Google Business Profile and enable at least one location — see Manage Google Business Profile. Requests cannot be switched on until one enabled location exists.

Then open Setup and configure:

• Timing — the delay after a fulfilled appointment, from immediately to 72 hours (two hours by default); one optional reminder, from 24 hours to 14 days after the first request (72 hours by default); and the patient cooldown before the same patient is asked again, from 30 to 365 days (180 days by default).
• Quiet hours — the days and hours during which automated messages may send. Review requests respect this window on every channel, email included. It is the practice-wide send window, so changing it here affects every automation, not only review requests. Each day's window must be at least one hour long, so a held message can't miss it.
• Channels — which of email, SMS and WhatsApp to use and in what order, with fallback to the next enabled channel. Each enabled channel needs a request message, plus a reminder message when reminders are on. With Check in before asking on, SMS and WhatsApp need a check-in message instead of the reminder.
• Low ratings — the private-feedback threshold, from one to five (three by default).
• Check in before asking — start automatic SMS and WhatsApp requests with a short check-in, and ask for the review once the patient replies. See Check in before asking.

Setup shows exactly what is still missing before requests can be switched on, and lists it before you save rather than after.

Languages

Choose a Default language. Smileline writes to a patient in the language on their record, and uses the default when the record does not say. Only the default language's messages are required.

Switch Also send in on to add the second language. A patient whose record names a language you have not configured gets the default-language message rather than being skipped. Switching the second language off unlinks its messages when you save; the message templates themselves are untouched.

WhatsApp requests use an approved template.

Automatic requests are considered marketing messages. Smileline checks the patient's current channel preference and provider-level blocks immediately before delivery. Review requests sent by SMS are billed like every other text, per SMS part — see Text messages.

The cooldown normally starts after the messaging provider accepts the first request. If Smileline cannot prove whether the provider accepted it, the request shows Delivery unconfirmed and is not submitted again. An exact signed delivery callback can still confirm the outcome. Possession of the still-valid patient link is also delivery evidence: opening it activates the request without a resend and starts the ordinary expiry, reminder and cooldown clocks from that access.

If the provider later confirms that the first delivery failed before the patient opened the link or a reminder was accepted, Smileline invalidates the link and reminder and releases that request's cooldown. A patient access or a successfully accepted reminder proves the invitation reached them, so a late failure for the initial message does not revoke that evidence.

Who receives an automatic request

Smileline considers only appointments fulfilled after Reputation is enabled for that location. It does not solicit historical appointments imported from a practice-management system.

A patient is excluded when they are known to be a minor, are inside the practice's reputation cooldown, have already chosen Google from an earlier request, or have opted out or been blocked on the available channels. An unknown date of birth is not treated as proof that the patient is a minor.

You can also send a request manually to an eligible patient without relying on an appointment. The same consent, suppression, cooldown, quiet-hours and add-on checks apply.

Check in before asking

A patient who has just chatted with you is more likely to leave a review. With Check in before asking on, an automatic request sent by SMS or WhatsApp opens with a friendly check-in from your practice, such as "Hi Sarah, how did today go?", with no link. When the patient replies, Smileline answers and asks for a review, with the review link.

Email requests, and requests sent with Send request, are unchanged: they never start with a check-in.

Turn it on

Open Setup and switch on Check in before asking. Each SMS and WhatsApp channel you use then needs a check-in message in every language you send in, alongside its usual request message, and no longer needs a reminder message. Write check-ins in Settings → Templates — see Message templates.

• A check-in must not contain the review link: Smileline won't accept one that includes {{reputation.feedbackLink}}.
• On WhatsApp the check-in starts the conversation, so it must be a WhatsApp template approved by Meta, in the matching language — see WhatsApp templates and Meta approval. The answer to the patient's reply is sent inside WhatsApp's 24-hour reply window.

Keep the check-in warm and short, and don't mention reviews in it. For example:

• "Hi {{patient.firstName}}, it's {{practice.name}} — how did your visit go today?"
• "Ciao {{patient.firstName}}, qui {{practice.name}}: com'è andata la visita di oggi?"

What the patient receives

1. The check-in, at the time the request would normally go (your Timing setting).
2. An answer as soon as they reply, with the review link.
3. No reply? Your usual request message (the Initial message in Setup) goes 24 hours after the check-in was sent.

That is the only ask: SMS and WhatsApp patients get the check-in and one review message, with no reminder. Email requests still get their reminder.

The answer

With the AI Assistant add-on, AI writes a short answer to what the patient said, in their language, and asks for a review. It never asks for a positive or five-star review, never offers anything in return and never gives clinical advice. Fixed checks and a second, independent AI check reject anything else, and the standard answer goes instead.

Without the add-on, the patient gets the standard answer: "Thank you for getting back to us, Sarah! If you have a spare moment, a quick review would really help other patients find us."

Every answer includes the review link and ends with (Automatic message), or (Automatic message written with AI) when AI wrote it, so patients always know when a message is automated. If WhatsApp's reply window has closed by the time the answer would go, your request message goes instead.

When a reply needs a person

If the reply is unhappy, mentions pain or a problem, or asks for a call, nobody asks the patient for a review straight away. Your team gets an urgent follow-up task and an alert that opens the chat, and your request message goes automatically 3 days later. If someone from your team has already replied in the chat, Smileline stays out of the conversation, and the request message also follows 3 days later.

Every patient is still asked: Smileline only waits, so your team can help first. It never holds the review link back from an unhappy patient, because Google doesn't allow asking only happy patients for reviews.

If the review link could not be sent

When the review message can't go out — for example, the provider refused it — the request on the Requests tab says why. Click Send review link now to send your request message, with a new link if the old one has expired.

Sending hours and reporting

• The check-in and the review message both respect Quiet hours. Alerts to your team go straight away.
• For these requests, Requests sent on the Overview, and the sent status on the Requests tab and in the API, mean the check-in went out; the review link comes later.
• Recovery open on the Overview includes the follow-up tasks from unhappy or urgent replies.

The patient experience

Each request contains an opaque link that expires after 30 days. The active feedback page follows the request's English or Italian language. The patient sees two equal, neutral choices:

• leave a review on Google; or
• share feedback privately with the practice.

Smileline does not show or hide the Google option based on a score. Choosing Google permanently suppresses future automated and manual review requests for that patient in the practice.

Private feedback can include a one-to-five rating and comment. A patient can keep the feedback linked for follow-up or make it anonymous to practice staff. Feedback at or below the configured threshold creates a recovery task for the next business period.

After private feedback is submitted, reopening the same unexpired link shows a completed confirmation instead of the form.

Google reviews and replies

Connecting Google, linking locations and authorising reply publishing all happen on Manage Google Business Profile.

New Google reviews appear in the Reputation feed. A permitted team member can write a reply or, when the AI Assistant add-on is also enabled, generate a draft. AI output is always a draft: a person must review and publish it. If Google cannot publish a reply, Smileline keeps the attempted text in the editor, shows safe recovery guidance, and lets the team member edit or try again.

The first Google sync of a location, or the first after its reviews went more than 29 days without a sync, fills the feed with its existing reviews without alerting you or replaying each one through outbound webhooks. After that, each new review creates one new-review notification and one webhook event, whether Google's live notification, a manual sync or the daily refresh finds it first; a repeated sync of the same review version creates neither again.

If the add-on is disabled

Existing first-party request and feedback history remains readable. The current Google feed remains visible only for as long as Google's API-content rules permit it without a refresh. Smileline stops automatic and manual requests, reminders, Google synchronization and review replies, and outstanding patient links stop accepting submissions. Re-enable the add-on under Settings → Billing to resume operations.