Reading 200 Google Maps reviews of a competitor in one sitting

A competitor's Google Maps reviews are customer research they paid for and you get free. Customers write things there they never tell staff: how long they waited, which dish did not look like the photo, and which other venue they are comparing against.

Why reviews matter more than before

According to BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, 41% of consumers always read reviews when looking for a business, up from 29% the year before (BrightLocal, accessed 21/09/2026). The same survey recorded Google's share of review reading falling from 83% to 71%, as video and AI tools become alternative places people read them.

Those two numbers say the same thing: reviews matter more to buyers, and Google is no longer the only place they read them.

Getting the data

Google Maps reviews — 15 credits per run, 200 reviews (10 pages × 20), runs in the background — takes one location and returns reviews with ratings and text. Because it runs in the background, you submit and come back.

For most independent venues in Vietnam, 200 reviews is nearly all of them. For a chain, run it per branch rather than trying to collect everything in one go.

Run it for three venues: your nearest competitor, the best venue in the area, and your own. Total 45 credits.

Four groups to separate

Group 1 — one and two stars. Read these most closely. This is the group that states the real problem, and the group your potential customers are reading.

Group 2 — three stars. The most useful group and the least read: they are not angry, so they write in a balanced way and say clearly what worked and what did not.

Group 3 — four and five stars with text. Tells you a competitor's real strengths, which is what you have to match.

Group 4 — five stars with no text. Skip. There is no information in them.

Most people reading reviews only look at the average rating, which means skipping all four groups.

From reviews to work

Count how often each theme appears rather than reading for impression. The counting process is in grouping reviews into themes.

Three kinds of work usually emerge:

Theme	Work
long wait, slow service	operating process
dish not like the photo	photos and descriptions across channels
price against quality	positioning and portion size

Boundaries to remember

For review authors the tool returns only a display name and the text. No email, no phone number, no author profile. Phone numbers exist only for the business itself, because that is its own public line.

Anyone has the right to see, correct or delete data about themselves under Decree 13/2023/ND-CP at the data request page.

Frequently asked questions

Is reading a competitor's reviews a problem? No. It is public content any customer can read.

Are 200 reviews enough? For most venues that is nearly all of them. For a chain, run it per branch.

Can I get a review author's contact details? No, and this is a hard boundary at CIA.