3 numbers to check on your Google listing every Monday

Three numbers on your Google listing deserve a check every Monday: how many new reviews arrived last week, how many reviews are sitting unanswered, and where your star rating stands. Ten minutes with a coffee covers all three – and each number tells you something different about how the practice looks to the people deciding whether to join it.

Why a Monday routine beats an occasional panic

Most practices only look at their Google listing when something goes wrong – a bad review someone spotted, a patient mentioning an odd comment. By then the review has been public for weeks. A fixed weekly check turns the listing from an occasional shock into a managed channel, which matters when 71% of patients check online reviews as the first step in finding a new doctor (Software Advice) and, since NHS.uk closed its public star-ratings in 2025, Google is the main public rating UK practices have. Put a recurring ten-minute slot in the practice manager’s Monday diary; the routine below fills it exactly.

Number 1: new reviews since last Monday

Count the reviews that arrived in the past seven days. The absolute figure matters less than the pattern week to week.

If it’s zero, week after week: your asking system has stalled. Check the basics – are post-visit texts still going out, are cards still on the desk, does the link still work? A silent week is almost never about unhappy patients; it is about a broken or forgotten ask. The fix is process, never shortcuts: keep inviting every patient, and never resort to incentives or to hand-picking happy patients (review gating) – both breach Google’s review policy. Under the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act – in force for reviews since April 2025, with CMA guidance in CMA208 – hiding negative reviews or selectively soliciting positive ones is a banned practice in its own right, not just a Google-policy issue.

If reviews are arriving: skim what they praise. Recurring compliments tell you what to protect; recurring niggles, even inside four-star reviews, tell you what to fix before it becomes a one-star story.

Number 2: reviews still waiting for a reply

This is the number to drive to zero every single Monday. Businesses that respond to reviews are seen as 1.7× more trustworthy (Google/Ipsos), and with 76% of consumers regularly reading online reviews (BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2023), every reply is read by far more people than the reviewer. Work oldest to newest. For positive reviews, two warm sentences: “Thank you for taking the time – we’ll share this with the team.” For critical ones, stay calm, never confirm the reviewer is a patient or mention anything about their care, and offer a private route: “We’re sorry to read this. We can’t discuss details here, but please call our practice manager on [number] so we can look into it.”

Number 3: your star rating – and the direction it’s moving

Note the headline rating in the same place each week – a simple spreadsheet column is enough. One week’s movement means little; the three-month direction means a lot. A drifting-down rating usually signals that only frustrated patients are finding their way to the review box, which sends you back to number one: widen the invitation so the rating reflects everyone you see, not just the loudest week. While you are there, glance at the listing itself – hours, phone number, photos – because a wrong opening time generates angry reviews all by itself.

Make it the same ten minutes every week

Write the three numbers down each Monday – new reviews, unanswered, rating – and within a couple of months you have something few practices possess: an actual trend line for their public reputation, plus an early-warning system for problems while they are still fixable. No routine can promise what next week’s number will be. What Monday-after-Monday attention guarantees is that nothing on your listing catches you by surprise again.