> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.dmly.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Reputation overview

> Reputation is a real Google Business Profile engine — read and reply to reviews, publish posts, edit your listing, and ask customers for reviews on WhatsApp.

Reputation connects your Google Business Profile to DMLY and manages it from inside the app.
It is not a review widget that shows ratings you collect yourself. It reads your real Google
reviews, posts your replies back to Google, publishes updates and offers to your listing,
edits your business details, and pulls your Google performance numbers. It also does the one
thing Google can't do for you: ask your customers for a review on WhatsApp.

Reputation lives under **Reputation** in the sidebar and has five tabs — **Performance**,
**Reviews**, **Request reviews**, **Posts**, and **Business info**.

<Note>
  Reputation is plan-gated. If your plan doesn't include it, you'll see
  **Reputation & Reviews isn't included in your plan. Upgrade to connect a Google Business
  Profile.** and connecting a profile is blocked. See [Plans](/billing/plans).
</Note>

## What you can do

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Connect your profile" icon="plug" href="/reputation/connect-google-business-profile">
    Connect a Google Business Profile as a channel — one per location.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Reviews" icon="comment-dots" href="/reputation/reviews">
    Read your Google reviews and post public replies that go back to Google.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Review requests" icon="whatsapp" href="/reputation/review-requests">
    Send customers a tracked review link on WhatsApp, SMS or email.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Posts and performance" icon="chart-line" href="/reputation/posts-and-performance">
    Publish updates, offers and events, and see how people find you.
  </Card>
</Columns>

## Before you connect

Every tab works before you connect, but the numbers and reviews on it are made up. You'll see
a **Preview** badge and a banner reading **Connect your Google Business Profile to manage
reviews, posts and performance. The data below is a sample.** Nothing you see in that state is
your business — it's there so you can look around. Select **Connect Google Business Profile**
to start the real connection.

Reputation is one of the few areas that opens with no channel connected at all, so you can
reach it before you've set up WhatsApp.

## How it connects

A Google Business Profile is a **Channel** in DMLY, exactly like a WhatsApp number or a
Telegram bot. You add it from **Integrations → Channels** with the same **Add account** flow
as every other channel, and DMLY caches the ids it needs to talk to Google. Full steps are in
[Connect Google Business Profile](/reputation/connect-google-business-profile).

Because it's a channel, it's also a *product* channel — but a limited one. Google Business
Profile is not a social channel and does not support [broadcasts](/broadcasts/overview). It
carries no DMs. Reviews are the only conversation it has.

## More than one location

Connect one profile per location. When you have two or more, a **Switch location** picker
appears in the page header and everything below it — reviews, review requests, scheduled
posts — follows the location you pick. Your choice sticks for the rest of your session. With a
single location the picker doesn't appear at all.

## Reviews reach you two ways

Reviews land in the [Inbox](/inbox/overview) as well as on the **Reviews** tab. DMLY polls
Google and opens each new review as a one-shot thread you can reply to from the inbox, and the
**Reviews** tab syncs the same reviews on its own schedule. You also get a bell notification
when a genuinely new review arrives — not for the historical backfill on first connect.

Replies posted from either place end up on Google. A reply written in the inbox appears on the
**Reviews** tab once the next sync pulls it back from Google, so don't be alarmed by a short
lag between the two.

## What Google doesn't let you do

<Warning>
  You cannot delete a Google review from DMLY, and there is no hidden way to. Google doesn't
  allow it. You also get exactly one public reply per review — posting a reply again replaces
  the one that's there rather than adding a second.
</Warning>

Business details are the same story: you can edit your **Phone**, **Website**, **Description**
and **Opening hours** from **Business info**, but not your business name, address or category.
Those go through Google's own verification.

## Asking for reviews is the WhatsApp part

**Request reviews** is the only part of Reputation that never talks to Google. DMLY takes your
Google review link, wraps it in a tracked short link, and sends that link to your contacts —
WhatsApp first, with SMS and email as alternatives. When someone opens the link they land on
your Google review page and DMLY records the open.

Review requests go out on the `dmly_review_request` WhatsApp template, which is what lets them
deliver outside the 24-hour window — but only once Meta has approved it. While the template is
still **Pending**, a request to a customer who hasn't messaged you in the last 24 hours is
dropped silently and still counted as **Sent** and **Delivered**. Check the template's status
before you run a campaign — see [Message templates](/broadcasts/message-templates).

A contact is marked **Failed** if they have no identity on that channel (or no valid email
address), or if they've opted out. Beyond that, a WhatsApp request only actually sends to
contacts who have a phone number on file and whose own channel is WhatsApp (or who have no
channel yet) — others are dropped silently and still counted as **Sent**.

Every send fires the **Review request sent** automation trigger, so you can chain a follow-up.
See [Triggers](/automation/triggers).

<Tip>
  There's a ready-made template for this: **Post-chat CSAT → Google review**. After an agent
  replies, it waits an hour, asks for a star rating on WhatsApp, routes 1–3 stars to a human,
  and asks 4–5 star customers for a Google review. See
  [Flow builder](/automation/flow-builder).
</Tip>

You can also drop the **Request Google review** step into any flow yourself. It never ends the
conversation — whether the request sends, is skipped, or fails, the flow carries on.

## Two stats that don't mean what they say

<Warning>
  On **Request reviews**, the **Responses** card is always **0** for a connected workspace.
  Nothing links a review back to the request that asked for it. Judge a campaign by **Opened**
  instead — that number is real, and it's measured by the tracked link.
</Warning>

**Delivered** records the moment DMLY handed the message to the sending channel, not the moment
it reached the phone. It will always match **Sent**. Nothing feeds real delivery receipts back
into it.

## Where to go next

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Connect Google Business Profile" icon="google" href="/reputation/connect-google-business-profile">
    Start here — everything else needs a connected profile.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Setup checklist" icon="list-check" href="/getting-started/setup-checklist">
    The wider set-up order, including WhatsApp.
  </Card>
</Columns>