Most businesses can't tell you which employees generate the most reviews, who has the best sentiment, or who needs coaching. With attribution, you can.
This changes everything about how you manage frontline teams.
What attribution enables
When each review ties back to the employee who served that customer, you can:
Identify top performers. See who consistently earns great reviews and generates the most volume.
Coach underperformers. Spot who's struggling with customer satisfaction or not asking for reviews.
Create accountability. Make reputation a personal metric that employees own.
Reward excellence. Base incentives on measurable outcomes, not just activity.
Improve hiring. Understand what characteristics correlate with strong review performance.
Important
None of this is possible when reviews are just attributed to "the company."
Building a review culture
The goal isn't just more reviews. It's a culture where every employee understands that reputation matters and feels ownership over their contribution to it.
Make metrics visible. Weekly leaderboards showing review counts and ratings by employee create healthy competition and awareness.
Celebrate publicly. When someone hits a milestone—100 reviews, best rating of the month—recognize them in front of the team.
Share feedback directly. When a customer mentions an employee by name in a positive review, show them. It's immediate validation.
Pro Tip
Address problems privately. If someone's getting negative reviews, coach them individually. Focus on improvement, not punishment.
Compensation structures that work
Review performance can factor into compensation in compliant ways:
Base incentives on volume, not ratings. Rewarding employees for getting more reviews is fine. Rewarding them specifically for 5-star reviews creates problematic incentives.
Use thresholds. "Everyone who collects 50 reviews this month gets X" is cleaner than per-review payments.
Combine with other metrics. Reviews should be one factor among several—customer satisfaction scores, productivity, tenure.
"Avoid negative consequences for negative reviews. Punishing employees for bad reviews creates incentives to avoid asking dissatisfied customers. Ask everyone."
Coaching with review data
Reviews are a goldmine of coaching material.
Sentiment analysis shows patterns. If one technician consistently gets reviews mentioning "explained everything" while another doesn't, that's a coaching opportunity.
Negative reviews identify specific issues. "Technician was late" is actionable. "Service was okay" is not. Look for specifics you can address.
Comparison illuminates differences. What are your top performers doing that others aren't? Review language often reveals the answer.
Pro Tip
Trends matter more than individual reviews. One bad review is noise. A pattern of similar complaints is signal.
Implementation
Start with visibility. Begin tracking reviews by employee and sharing the data with your team. Watch how behavior changes when people know their performance is measured.
Add recognition. Celebrate wins publicly. Create status for high performers.
Layer in incentives gradually. Test what motivates your team. Some respond to money, others to recognition, others to competition.
Integrate with existing management. Review performance should be part of regular one-on-ones and performance reviews, not a separate system.
The cultural shift
The businesses that nail this aren't just collecting more reviews. They're building teams that understand their role in the company's reputation.
Every customer interaction becomes an opportunity to strengthen the brand. Technicians take pride in their individual review profiles. Managers have real data to manage with.
Important
Attribution makes all of this possible. Without it, reviews are an abstract company metric. With it, they're a personal performance indicator that drives behavior.
Further Reading
- Local Consumer Review Survey 2025 — BrightLocal's data on consumer review behavior and expectations
- Google Business Profile Policies — Guidelines for compliant review incentive programs
- 40 Online Review Statistics — Data points on how reviews impact business performance
Dylan Allen is the CEO of Cheers, the GEO platform for local service businesses.