# HireAlfie > HireAlfie runs a managed system for small and mid-market businesses (US first; also UK and EU). Alfie is that system: software we build and run, with AI drafting and a person approving anything customer-facing. Clients describe one piece of repetitive work; HireAlfie maps it in a paid one-week Operations Audit, builds the workflow around the client's own systems, runs it in draft-and-approve mode for two weeks as a proof period, and then operates it monthly, priced per workload. Client records stay in the client's own platforms; Alfie reads only what a task needs. Character brand: "Alfie" is the digital butler who prepares the work for your approval. Tagline: "Alfie handles it." The full text of the site's pages and posts, in one Markdown file: https://hirealfie.com/llms-full.txt ## Company facts - Founder and operator: Rigers Qoraj, Tirana, Albania (LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rigers-qoraj-1a76461a3). Founded 2026. One-person company; no sales team or account managers. - Contact: hello@hirealfie.com. Support response time: one business day. - Proof: from July to September 2026 (deployment paused as of September 2026) the system ran review replies, per-location Google Business Profile posts and inbox drafts for a three-location restaurant group in the United States, plus a weekly staff-payout close at two of its locations. Client identity kept confidential. Replies to 3- to 5-star reviews were published under the owner's written standing approval; every one- and two-star reply was held for the owner and never published by the system. ## Rules of the house (the promise) - The promise, verbatim: "Alfie prepares, you decide." Nothing customer-facing goes out unless the client approved it, one item at a time or under a standing rule the client signed off in writing. - Anything sensitive (negative reviews, upset customers, refunds, money, legal judgment) is held for a person. - Client records stay in the client's own systems. On parting, every workflow is handed over documented and working. ## What managed means - We watch every run: Alfie leaves a one-line record of each one, and a person reads it. - When Google, the client's inbox or CRM changes something, we fix the workflow; that is part of the monthly fee. - The client gets a plain-English record of what went out and what is waiting for them. - The client hears from Rigers within one business day; no ticket queue. - On parting, everything is handed over documented and working. ## Services, at their honest status - Proven in production, July to September 2026 (currently paused): review replies with low-star holds; per-location Google Business Profile posts, checked and corrected before publishing; inbox replies drafted, never auto-sent; weekly payout close, archived and snapshotted before the board is cleared. - Built to order (designed, not yet run for a client): customer follow-up and review-request sequences; content drafts for approval; lead intake and after-hours acknowledgements; a weekly plain-English summary. - Verticals: restaurants and hospitality (proven on one three-location restaurant group); law firms, dental and medical practices, home services and trades (workflows mapped, built to order, not yet run for a client in those industries). ## By industry (home page, section "For your industry") - [Restaurants and hospitality groups](https://hirealfie.com/#industry-restaurants): Review replies, per-location Google posts and inbox drafts ran in production for a three-location restaurant group, July to September 2026, plus a weekly payout close at two of its locations; that deployment is paused as of September 2026. - [Law firms](https://hirealfie.com/#industry-law-firms): Per-office Google posts would reuse the engine proven on a three-location restaurant group (July to September 2026, now paused); review replies with confidentiality rules, per-office review requests, after-hours intake and follow-up drafts are designed only; nothing has yet run for a law firm. - [Dental and medical practices](https://hirealfie.com/#industry-dental-and-medical): Google profile posts would reuse the engine proven on a three-location restaurant group (July to September 2026, now paused); review replies that never confirm a patient, website facts for Google and AI assistants, and blog drafts for clinician approval are designed only; nothing has yet run for a dental or medical practice, and none of it touches patient records. - [Home services and trades](https://hirealfie.com/#industry-home-services): Review replies and fact-checked Google posts would reuse the engine proven on a three-location restaurant group (July to September 2026, now paused); the review ask after each job and quote follow-up drafts are designed only; nothing has yet run for a home-services company. ## How we work 1. Short call (free). 2. Operations Audit: US$750, fixed, one week, quoted in writing first; the plan lists every tool and AI service that would touch the client's data, a go-live date and the client's exact monthly fee; the audit fee is credited against the first monthly invoice if the client goes ahead. 3. Build the first workflow and run a free two-week draft-and-approve proof period before any monthly fee. 4. Managed monthly: one fee per workload (one recurring job for up to three locations; each location beyond three adds a small monthly amount), no setup fee, three-month minimum from go-live, then 30 days' notice. The monthly fee is quoted in writing in the audit plan and is not published on the site. Pricing page: https://hirealfie.com/pricing/ ## Core Pages - [Home](https://hirealfie.com/): Home page: what Alfie has handled in production, what is built to order, the workflows per industry (restaurants, law firms, dental and medical, home services), the reference deployment, how we work, who runs it, FAQs. - [About](https://hirealfie.com/about/): The HireAlfie origin story, what Alfie does, and the rules of the house (human approval, data residency, documented handover). - [Pricing](https://hirealfie.com/pricing/): The pricing model: Operations Audit US$750 credited against month one, free two-week proof period, one monthly fee per workload, no setup fee, three-month minimum, 30 days' notice, terms in plain words. - [Blog](https://hirealfie.com/blog/): Index of practical operational articles for business owners. - [Updates](https://hirealfie.com/updates/): Short, dated notes on what has changed at HireAlfie, newest first. - [Contact](https://hirealfie.com/contact/): Contact channel (email). No booking tool yet. - [Privacy policy](https://hirealfie.com/privacy/): Privacy policy: no tracking cookies, analytics or tracking pixels on the site; what happens to email and Ask Alfie chat messages; data rights and how to use them. ## Published Posts - [Can you block bad Google reviews? No — and the real problem is how you ask for good ones](https://hirealfie.com/blog/can-you-block-bad-google-reviews/): Google gives businesses no way to remove a review just because it is negative. But many businesses unknowingly run review gating — asking only happy customers — which is against Google's review policy, which the FTC has said may be unfair or deceptive, and which quietly caps their review growth. - [AI search is already choosing businesses. Is it choosing yours?](https://hirealfie.com/blog/ai-search-is-already-choosing-businesses/): How AI search engines and answer engines evaluate local businesses, and what operational steps make your company easier to recommend. - [Review automation without the cringe](https://hirealfie.com/blog/review-automation-without-cringe/): Why generic automated replies damage local business reputation, and how a human-in-the-loop review workflow builds authentic trust. - [What to automate first: a working rule for busy owners](https://hirealfie.com/blog/what-to-automate-first/): How small and mid-market business owners can choose high-return operational automations without risking customer trust or wasting team hours. ## Updates - [New website, privacy policy and AI-readable files](https://hirealfie.com/updates/new-website-privacy-and-ai-files/): The HireAlfie website has been rebuilt. It now has a privacy policy, two plain-text files that describe the business for AI assistants, and an updates page. ## Optional - [Full text of the site](https://hirealfie.com/llms-full.txt): the home-page FAQs and industry panels, the pricing page, a privacy summary, every blog post and every update in one Markdown file --- # HireAlfie: full text of the site Below is the text of the home-page FAQs and industry panels, the pricing page, the privacy policy, every blog post and every update. ## Home page (https://hirealfie.com/) ### Frequently asked questions **What does HireAlfie do?** HireAlfie runs a managed system for small and mid-market businesses. Alfie is that system, software we build and run for you: AI drafts the work, a person decides. We take one piece of repetitive work off your week — review replies, Google posts, inbox drafts, the weekly payout close — build it around the software you already use, run it, watch it, and fix it when a platform changes. **Do I need to understand the technology?** No. You describe the work in plain words. We map it, build the workflow around your existing systems, and run it. You approve drafts where they already live — your inbox, your Google profile, a shared sheet — and you get a plain-English record of what went out and what is waiting for you. **Does Alfie reply to unhappy customers?** Never on his own. Low-star reviews, complaints, refunds, and anything touching money or legal judgment are held for a person. Alfie drafts; a human decides whether it goes out. That is the rule the whole system is built around. **Will a review reply ever say that someone is a customer, patient or client?** No. Replies never confirm that a person is a customer, patient or client. For practices and firms that rule is written into the setup before anything is drafted. **How fast can something be live?** The Operations Audit takes about a week and ends with a fixed-scope plan and a go-live date. The first workflow then runs in draft-and-approve mode for two weeks before the monthly fee starts. We give you the date in the plan, not a promise on this page. **Who is behind HireAlfie?** One person: Rigers Qoraj, in Tirana, Albania. He built the system for a three-location restaurant group and then turned it into a service. The person who builds your workflows is the person who answers your email. **Do you work with businesses like mine?** The system was proven on one business: a three-location restaurant group. For law firms, dental and medical practices, and home services and trades we have mapped the workflows but not yet run them for a client in those industries, and we say so up front. If your business is not a fit, we will say so on the first call. ## For your industry: what Alfie would handle in your business (https://hirealfie.com/#industries) Four industries, each with the workflows we would set up first. One has run in production; the others are built to order from the same engines, and each panel says so. Status labels: "Ran in production, 2026" means the engine ran in production for a three-location restaurant group, July to September 2026, paused as of September 2026. "Engine proven on a restaurant group" marks the same engine on a panel for an industry where it has not yet run for a client. "Built, not yet run for a client" means configured and ready to deploy, with no client run yet. "We would build this" means designed from the audit, built to order, then run in draft-and-approve mode first. ### Restaurants and hospitality groups (https://hirealfie.com/#industry-restaurants) **Built for a restaurant group, one location at a time** Every location in a restaurant group creates the same small jobs each week: review replies, Google posts, reservation emails and the servers' payout totals. Each reply and post has to carry that location's facts, not a sister location's patio line or last season's offer. This is the one industry where the system has run in production: a three-location restaurant group, July to September 2026. That deployment is paused as of September 2026. #### Per-location review replies (status: Ran in production, 2026) - The work: Google reviews for each location got a drafted reply that spoke only about that location, even when the guest named another. A dish the guest mentioned was named back only if it was on the verified menu. Every one- and two-star draft was held unpublished for the owner. - Stays with you: You would decide every reply below the star line you set. The rest would need your approval, one at a time or under a standing rule you signed off in writing. - Access: We would need manager access to the Google Business Profile for each location. #### Google posts per location (status: Ran in production, 2026) - The work: A posting tool's AI drafted a post for each location. Posts the engine handled were edited against that location's own facts before publishing. A patio or service line borrowed from a sister location was cut. So was a reservations pitch in a season when none were taken. Posts that could not be fixed stayed unpublished. - Stays with you: You would set each location's facts and seasonal offers. No post would go out unless you approved it, one at a time or under a standing rule you signed off in writing. - Access: We would need manager access to each location's Google Business Profile and a shared sheet of its hours and seasonal offers. #### Reservation and event mail (status: Ran in production, 2026) - The work: Reservation, private-event and vendor emails got a reply saved in Drafts, written to the group's own booking and gift-card rules. Donation and sponsorship asks got no draft, just a short note for the owner. A thread was skipped if it already had a draft, or a reply sent after the guest's last message. - Stays with you: You would sign and send each draft yourself; complaints, refunds and event contracts would stay your call. - Access: We would need delegated access to the Google Workspace inbox where reservation and event mail arrives. #### Weekly server payout close (status: Ran in production, 2026) - The work: At two locations, managers keyed each server's daily payout figures from the POS into a board. Each week Alfie turned those rows into one total per server and filed a dated copy. The board was cleared only after that copy was confirmed. Servers sharing a first name were matched by full name. - Stays with you: Payments would stay with you: a manager would sign off the weekly totals, and the board would be cleared only under a routine you signed off in writing. - Access: We would need edit access to the shared sheet or board your managers already fill in, so each week can be archived and cleared. #### Industry rule: Allergen wording comes from your list Allergen and dietary wording in any reply, post or email draft would come only from a phrase list you approve. No draft would call a dish gluten-free or nut-free unless you have documented it. #### Questions from restaurants and hospitality groups **Will Alfie post something wrong about our menu?** For the three-location restaurant group, each post the engine handled was checked against the verified menu and banned-word list before publishing. That step existed because the posting tool's own AI broke the rules even with them written into its prompt. For your group, the verified menu and the banned words would come from you. Posts outside your written approval would wait for you. **We already use a review tool. Do we have to switch?** Not if it is clean. We would first check whether it sends only happy guests to the public review link. If it asks every guest, you keep it. If it sends only happy guests there, we would show you how to ask everyone before anything else is built. The rule we work by: Ask everyone. Respond to everything. Never condition the ask on the score. **Could our facts end up helping a competitor?** No. Your menu, word lists and the instructions written for your group are never reused for another restaurant. Only the working method carries over. Your records stay in your own systems; Alfie reads only what a task needs. ### Law firms (https://hirealfie.com/#industry-law-firms) **Your review replies should never confirm who your clients are** Each office's Google profile needs its own posts and its own reviews. A web inquiry sent on a Saturday can sit unread until Monday, and nobody chases the ones that go quiet. We have not yet run this for a law firm. These workflows are built to order from the engines proven on a restaurant group. #### Review replies with confidentiality rules (status: We would build this) - The work: We would build confidentiality rules, written with your firm, into the review-reply engine that ran for a three-location restaurant group. We would set up the rules so a reply never confirms a client relationship or mentions the matter, even if the reviewer did. - Stays with you: An attorney at your firm would approve every reply, and every negative review would wait for a person. - Access: We would need manager access to each office's Google Business Profile. #### Google posts for each office (status: Engine proven on a restaurant group) - The work: For a three-location restaurant group, each location got its own Google post with that location's hours and address. Posts Alfie handled were checked and corrected before publishing, including wrong-location details, and went out only under the owner's written standing approval. That deployment ran from July to September 2026 and is paused as of September 2026. - Stays with you: An attorney at your firm would approve every post before it is published. - Access: We would need manager access to each office's Google Business Profile. #### Review requests routed per office (status: We would build this) - The work: We would build a review request for each closed matter, linked to the Google profile of the office that handled it. We would set up the same ask for every client, with no incentive and no survey score deciding who receives it. - Stays with you: Your firm would approve every request before it is sent, and a person would handle any client who replies unhappy. - Access: We would need a delegated inbox in Google Workspace or Outlook, plus a shared sheet or read access to your practice-management tool. #### After-hours inquiries and follow-up (status: We would build this) - The work: We would build this on the inbox-draft engine that ran for a three-location restaurant group. We would set up an overnight run that logs each web or email inquiry and drafts a reply before your office opens. We would build follow-up drafts for inquiries that go quiet, none confirming that anyone is a client. - Stays with you: A person at your firm would send every reply, and any question about a case or a deadline would wait for an attorney. - Access: We would need a delegated intake inbox in Google Workspace or Outlook, where your inquiries already arrive, and a shared sheet for the log. #### Industry rule: Attorney review is non-negotiable Advice on a client's matter, the final word on any deadline, conflict decisions and anything that moves trust-account money are never automated. Attorney review of any legal content is non-negotiable. Alfie prepares, you decide. #### Questions from law firms **Can we start with just one thing?** Yes. We would suggest review replies first, because that is where a single reply can expose a client. An attorney at your firm would approve every reply before it is posted. We would write the confidentiality rules with you. The rules are built around common bar-advertising cautions, and your firm confirms which ones apply to you. **Can we keep our client satisfaction survey?** Yes, as an internal early warning, with a person calling anyone who is unhappy. The Google review request would go to every client, whatever their score. Ask everyone. Respond to everything. Never condition the ask on the score. **Would Alfie need to see our case files?** No. Review replies and office posts would work from your Google Business Profiles. Inquiry drafts would need only the delegated intake inbox your inquiries arrive in. Review requests would need each client's name, email, office and the date the matter closed. That could come from a shared sheet or read access to your practice-management tool. Your records stay in your own systems; Alfie reads only what a task needs. ### Dental and medical practices (https://hirealfie.com/#industry-dental-and-medical) **The public side of your practice, not the patient chart** Small public jobs slip at a busy practice, like a website nobody has touched in a while. Review replies and Google posts sit on the same list, and none of it needs a patient chart. We have not yet run this for a dental or medical practice. These workflows are built to order from the engines proven on a restaurant group. #### Review replies without confirming patients (status: We would build this) - The work: We would build this on the review engine that ran for a three-location restaurant group. We would set up one added rule: no reply would say someone is a patient or name a treatment. We would set up every negative review to wait, unanswered, for a person at the practice. - Stays with you: Each reply would need your approval, one at a time or under a standing rule you signed off in writing. A reply touching a treatment would always wait for a person. - Access: We would need manager access to the practice's Google Business Profile. #### Google profile posts (status: Engine proven on a restaurant group) - The work: This engine ran for a three-location restaurant group from July to September 2026; that deployment is paused. Its fixes included a made-up charity claim, removed before the post went up. For a practice, it would check each week's posts against your confirmed hours and services. - Stays with you: You would approve each week's posts, one batch at a time or under a standing rule you signed off in writing. Any post with a medical claim would wait for a person. - Access: We would need manager access to the Google Business Profile, the same access the review replies would use. #### Website facts AI can read (status: We would build this) - The work: We would build this from the website fix pack already built for a restaurant group. We would set it up with your confirmed hours, address and services, placed in the site's code where Google and AI assistants can read them. We would set it up to never invent a rating or an award. - Stays with you: You or your web developer would approve every change before it reaches the site. - Access: We would need editor access to the website CMS, or your web developer to apply the pack. #### Blog drafts for clinician approval (status: We would build this) - The work: We would build a monthly topic list with you, then draft each post in the practice's own voice. We would set up a check that would hold back any treatment or health claim, and send every draft to the clinician you name. - Stays with you: You would approve the topic list, and your clinician would approve each post before it goes on the site. - Access: We would need access to the website CMS only if you want approved posts published for you. #### Industry rule: Nothing medical is decided by software Any draft that touches a treatment or a clinical question would wait for a person at the practice. No automation would be the only check on anything medical. #### Questions from dental and medical practices **Would Alfie see our patient records?** No. This work would stay on public reviews, your Google profile and your website, and would not touch patient records. Your records stay in your own systems; Alfie reads only what a task needs. Appointment reminders would need patient details, so we would not build them until the data-protection question has a clear answer. **Our website was built by an outside developer. Can you still add the facts?** Yes. We would hand the fix pack to your developer to apply, or use editor access to your CMS if you prefer. You or your developer would approve every change before it reaches the site. It would never invent a rating or an award. **What would you look at first?** What any patient can already see. We would check your website for an old COVID notice, placeholder text, a stale copyright year and a blog that went quiet. The Operations Audit would then choose the first workflow with you. ### Home services and trades (https://hirealfie.com/#industry-home-services) **The follow-up nobody gets to after the van leaves** What tends to slip is the work after each visit: the quote nobody chased and the finished job with no review ask. Many trades websites also have a blog whose last post is more than a year old. We have not yet run this for a home-services company. These workflows are built to order from the engines proven on a restaurant group. #### Review replies (status: Engine proven on a restaurant group) - The work: For a three-location restaurant group, July to September 2026, this engine drafted replies to new Google reviews overnight. Under the owner's written standing approval, three- to five-star replies were published; every one- and two-star reply was held as an unpublished draft. That deployment is paused as of September 2026. - Stays with you: Replies below the star line you set would wait for you. All other replies would need your approval, one at a time or under a standing rule you signed off in writing. - Access: We would need manager access to your Google Business Profile. #### Google posts, checked before publishing (status: Engine proven on a restaurant group) - The work: For the same restaurant group, July to September 2026, this engine fact-checked the Google posts it handled against each location's own details. The group's posting software kept drafting invented claims and details from the wrong location. Posts the engine handled were corrected before publishing. That deployment is paused as of September 2026. - Stays with you: You would choose the towns and services each post covers. No post would go out unless you approved it, one at a time or under a standing rule you signed off in writing. - Access: We would need manager access to your Google Business Profile, the same as for review replies. #### Review ask after each job (status: We would build this) - The work: We would build an email review request, drafted for each customer once a job is marked complete in your field-service or CRM tool. We would set up each request with your own wording and your Google review link. - Stays with you: Nothing would reach a customer unless you approved it, one request at a time or under a standing rule you signed off in writing. - Access: We would need read access to your field-service tool, CRM or a shared jobs sheet, plus a delegated inbox in Google Workspace or Outlook. #### Quote follow-up drafts (status: We would build this) - The work: We would build a follow-up email for each open quote, drafted from a template you approve and left in your inbox. We would set up each follow-up to wait the days you choose and stop if the customer replies or books. - Stays with you: You would press send on every follow-up, and anything about price would stay your call. - Access: We would need a delegated inbox in Google Workspace or Outlook, plus read access to your CRM, field-service tool or quotes sheet. #### Industry rule: Ask everyone. Respond to everything. Never condition the ask on the score. We would build the review ask for every finished job, with no survey deciding who gets the link and nothing offered in exchange. A customer who replies unhappy would wait for a person. #### Questions from home services and trades **We are flat out all season. How much of my time would this take?** Alfie prepares, you decide. Your part is approving drafts one at a time, or signing off a standing rule in writing for the routine ones. Anything sensitive, like an upset customer or a question about money, waits for a person. The time depends on how many jobs and quotes you handle a week. We work that out in the Operations Audit rather than guess here. **Our jobs live in a field-service app. Can Alfie work from it?** It depends on the app, and we check that in the Operations Audit before anything is built. The review ask and quote follow-up would need to see when a job is marked complete and which quotes are still open. If your app cannot show that, a shared sheet your office updates would do. Your records stay in your own systems; Alfie reads only what a task needs. **Our blog stopped a while back. Can Alfie start it again?** We would build that as drafts for your approval: posts about the jobs you do in the towns you serve. Nothing would go on your site until you approved it. We do not promise rankings or a number of new jobs. ## Pricing (https://hirealfie.com/pricing/) ### One fee per workload. No setup fee. Proof before you pay monthly. HireAlfie runs a managed system for your repetitive work. You pay for a workflow that is running, not for a build you cannot see yet. Here is the whole model, in order. 1. A short call (Free). You tell us what keeps landing on your desk. We tell you honestly whether it is a fit. The notes are yours to keep either way. 2. The Operations Audit ($750, fixed). One week. Your current process mapped, the repetitive work ranked by what it costs you, the safest first workflow, every tool and AI service that would touch your data with its cost, a go-live date, and your exact monthly fee, all in writing. **If you go ahead, the $750 comes off your first monthly invoice.** If you do not, the plan is yours to keep. 3. Build, then prove it (No fee). We build the first workflow around the software you already use and run it in draft-and-approve mode for two weeks, on real tasks. Nothing customer-facing goes out unless you approve it. If it does not do what the plan says, you stop there and owe nothing beyond the audit. 4. Managed, monthly (One fee per workload). Billed monthly from go-live. No setup fee. Three-month minimum, then month to month with 30 days' written notice. Monitoring, fixes when a platform changes, and a plain-English record of what went out and what waits for you are included. Your fee is stated in the audit plan before you commit. ### What counts as one workload One workload is one recurring job for up to three locations. Each location beyond three adds a small monthly amount, listed in your plan. These are the jobs we price this way, at their honest status. - Review replies (Ran in production, 2026): drafted in your voice; low-star reviews held for you - Google Business posts, per location (Ran in production, 2026): checked against each location's facts before publishing - Inbox reply drafts (Ran in production, 2026): saved as drafts; a person presses send - Weekly payout close (Ran in production, 2026): totals computed, archived, then the board cleared - Customer follow-up and review requests (Built to order): we would build; ask everyone, never condition the ask on the score - Content drafts (Built to order): we would build; blog, newsletter and social drafts for your approval - Lead intake and after-hours replies (Built to order): we would build; logged and acknowledged, queued for your follow-up - Weekly plain-English summary (Built to order): we would build; what went out, what was held, what needs you "Ran in production, 2026": the engine ran for a three-location restaurant group from July to September 2026; that deployment is paused as of September 2026. "Built to order": designed, not yet run for a client; it would start from your audit and run in draft-and-approve mode first. ### Terms in plain words - Prices are in US dollars and exclude VAT and sales tax. In the EU and UK we quote in euros or pounds at the day's rate. - If a workflow needs a paid platform, the plan names it and its cost. You pay such tools at cost, itemised and capped; we do not mark them up. - Monthly billing starts at go-live, after the proof period, never at signature. - A price change needs 60 days' notice and never applies inside a minimum term. - You hear from Rigers within one business day, Monday to Friday. We are not a 24-hour service and do not pretend to be. - You own your data, your content and your configuration. If we ever part ways, everything is handed over documented and working. - The system is a tool that supports your process. It does not replace your own checks on anything financial, legal, or medical. ### Questions about the money **Why is there no setup fee?** Setting a workflow up is real work, so we fold it into the three-month minimum instead of charging it up front. You pay for a running workflow, not for a build you cannot see yet. **What if I only want the audit?** That is fine. The plan is written so that you, or any provider, can act on it. You keep it either way. The credit only applies if we go on to build the first workflow. **Is the proof period really free?** Yes. For two weeks the first workflow runs in draft-and-approve mode on your real tasks. Nothing customer-facing goes out unless you approve it. If it does not do what the plan says, you stop there and owe nothing beyond the audit. **Why is the monthly fee not on this page?** Because it depends on the workload, your number of locations and any platform the workflow needs. The audit plan states your exact fee in writing before you commit to anything. We would rather you see a number that is true for you than a number that is true for nobody. **Can I add a second workload later?** Yes. Each further workload on the same business is priced lower than the first, and the plan lists it. Each starts with its own two-week proof period. **What about more than three locations?** One workload covers up to three locations. Each location beyond that adds a small monthly amount, listed in your plan. ## Privacy policy (https://hirealfie.com/privacy/) Last updated: 2026-10-12. This page explains, in plain English, what happens to information about you when you visit this site, write to us or use the Ask Alfie chat. ### Who is responsible HireAlfie, run by Rigers Qoraj in Tirana, Albania, is responsible for this website. For any question about your data, write to [hello@hirealfie.com](mailto:hello@hirealfie.com). ### When you browse the site The site is hosted on Cloudflare (Cloudflare Pages). To deliver and protect the site, Cloudflare processes technical request data such as your IP address, your browser type and the page you requested. HireAlfie sets no cookies and runs no analytics, advertising or tracking pixels. The site loads its fonts from this site itself. If Cloudflare needs to check that a visitor is not a bot, it may set a strictly necessary security cookie (such as __cf_bm or cf_clearance); HireAlfie does not read or use it. ### When you write to us If you write to [hello@hirealfie.com](mailto:hello@hirealfie.com), we receive your email address and your message. Cloudflare forwards that mail to a Google mailbox. We use your address and message to reply to you and, if you ask, to prepare an audit proposal. The Send Email Now button on the contact page opens Gmail in a new tab, so Google handles that step under your own Google account and its own terms. To skip Gmail, use the link to your own email app or copy our address. We keep correspondence while we are talking. Afterwards we keep it only as long as needed for an ongoing working relationship, or for records the law requires. ### The Ask Alfie chat When the Ask Alfie chat is switched on, each message you send passes through our Cloudflare function to Anthropic, the maker of Claude, together with the recent turns of the conversation, so it can write the reply. Your IP address is not sent to Anthropic. Anthropic keeps messages for a limited time under its own data policy. HireAlfie does not store chat messages. To stop abuse and cap costs, we keep a daily counter in Cloudflare. It is keyed by a one-way, salted hash of your network address (IPv6 addresses are grouped by /64). Each counter deletes itself about 26 hours after your last message that day. The conversation itself is kept only in your own browser tab (session storage) and disappears when you close the tab. Please do not share personal or sensitive details in the chat. ### Clients Data we handle for clients under a contract is covered by that agreement. Client records stay in the client's own systems, and the audit plan lists every tool and AI service that would touch them. ### Legal basis (visitors in the EU and UK) We rely on our legitimate interests in answering you, running and securing the site, and preventing abuse; and on taking the steps you ask for before a contract. ### Transfers outside Albania and the EU Cloudflare, Google and Anthropic may process data outside Albania and the EU, including in the United States, under their own safeguards such as standard contractual clauses. ### No selling, no advertising We never sell personal data or use it for advertising. ### Your rights You can ask to access, correct or delete your data, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive it in a portable form. Write to [hello@hirealfie.com](mailto:hello@hirealfie.com). We answer within one business day and act within the time the law allows. You can also complain to Albania's Information and Data Protection Commissioner, or to the data protection authority where you live. ### Children This site is for businesses and is not directed at children under 16. ### Changes to this policy When our practices change, we update this page and the date at the top. ## Blog posts (https://hirealfie.com/blog/) ### Can you block bad Google reviews? No — and the real problem is how you ask for good ones URL: https://hirealfie.com/blog/can-you-block-bad-google-reviews/ | Published: 2026-08-19 | Category: Reputation Google gives businesses no way to remove a review just because it is negative. But many businesses unknowingly run review gating — asking only happy customers — which is against Google's review policy, which the FTC has said may be unfair or deceptive, and which quietly caps their review growth. A business owner asked us recently whether bad Google reviews can be blocked before they appear. It is one of the most common questions in reputation management, and the honest answer disappoints people for about a minute — until they hear what we found in their own review system. #### The short answer: no Google provides no mechanism to block, pre-approve, filter, or hide reviews by star rating. None. The only path for removing a review is reporting it for a policy violation — spam, fake engagement, a conflict of interest, off-topic content, or harassment. A genuine one-star review from a real customer, however unfair it feels, does not qualify. Any vendor selling "bad review blocking" or "review protection" is describing one of two things: reporting reviews and hoping, or a practice called review gating. The first is legitimate but limited. The second can get you penalized. #### What review gating is, and why you might be doing it by accident Review gating means checking how happy a customer is first, and only inviting the happy ones to leave a public review. The classic setup looks completely innocent: 1. Send every customer a satisfaction survey. 2. If they score high — say, 9 or 10 out of 10 — send them the Google review link. 3. If they score low, route them to a private feedback form instead. It feels like smart customer service. It is also against Google's review policy, and the US Federal Trade Commission has said the practice may be unfair or deceptive. The logic is simple: a review profile built only from pre-screened happy customers is not a genuine picture, and both Google and the FTC treat it that way. The businesses running this pattern almost never chose it deliberately. It usually arrives bundled inside a "reputation tool" someone signed up for years ago, set once, and forgot. #### The hidden cost is bigger than the compliance risk Here is what surprised the owner who asked us: gating was not just a rules problem. It was the reason their review count had stalled. A survey-first flow means only customers who complete the survey ever see the review invitation. Gate on top of that (only the 10-out-of-10 responders get the link), and you have quietly filtered away many customers who would have happily left a five-star review if anyone had simply asked them. #### The compliant setup — which is also the one that grows reviews The fix keeps everything the survey was trying to achieve, without the gate: - **Ask every customer for a review**, at the right moment — when the job is finished, the order is delivered, the case is closed. Route the request to the correct location's profile if you have more than one. - **Keep the satisfaction survey as a separate, internal tool.** It is your early-warning system, not a gate. Run it in parallel. - **When someone signals they are unhappy, a human calls them** — before anything else happens. That instinct is right and it stays. You are allowed to do service recovery; you are not allowed to condition the public review invitation on the score. - **Respond to every review, positive and negative**, in your own voice, without confirming private details about the customer. One sentence to remember: **ask everyone, respond to everything, never condition the ask on the score.** #### How Alfie handles this This is a workflow we would build to order; it has not yet run for a client. When a job closes in your existing tools, Alfie would draft the review request to that customer, pointed at the right location, with a polite follow-up if there is no response, for your approval. The satisfaction survey would run separately, and a low score would be held for a person. Replies to incoming reviews are drafted in your voice — and anything negative always waits for a person. No gating, no policy exposure, and every customer gets asked. If your review system checks satisfaction before showing the review link, it is worth fixing this week — for the compliance reason and for the growth one. Tell us what your current flow looks like: hello@hirealfie.com ### AI search is already choosing businesses. Is it choosing yours? URL: https://hirealfie.com/blog/ai-search-is-already-choosing-businesses/ | Published: 2026-08-08 | Category: Local Presence How AI search engines and answer engines evaluate local businesses, and what operational steps make your company easier to recommend. When potential customers search for local services today, they are increasingly asking conversational AI engines directly: *"Who is the most reliable commercial electrician in my area for panel upgrades?"* or *"Which dental office near me handles emergency appointments on weekends?"* These answer engines do not simply list ten blue links. They synthesize information from hundreds of web sources, Google Business profiles, verified client reviews, operational structured data, and plain-text business declarations to present a concise recommendation. If your business lacks updated structured information or consistent operational activity across your digital properties, these systems simply bypass your business in favor of competitors who maintain clear, machine-readable presence. ##### How Answer Engines Evaluate Local Service Businesses AI search models evaluate business credibility using distinct operational signals rather than traditional keyword density. To earn a recommendation in local AI search queries, your business must maintain four operational pillars: 1. **Structured Machine-Readable Data (JSON-LD):** Your website must clearly publish precise structured schemas defining your business entity, services offered, opening hours, geographic service areas, and direct contact endpoints. Without standard schema markup, AI crawlers must guess your business details. 2. **Clear Declarative Business Files (`llms.txt`):** A growing number of sites also publish a plain-text summary at `/llms.txt` (a proposed standard, llmstxt.org). This file provides language models with an explicit summary of your operations, core services, and canonical page URLs in clean markdown format. 3. **Fresh Operational Recency:** A business that publishes regular local updates, updates seasonal business hours, and responds consistently to customer reviews signals active operational health. 4. **Consistency Across External Platforms:** If your address or phone number differs between your website, Google Business Profile, and regional directories, confidence scores drop, reducing the likelihood of being recommended. ##### The Operational Challenge for Busy Business Teams Maintaining this level of digital consistency requires regular ongoing work. Photos must be uploaded weekly to local profiles, seasonal service changes must be updated across schemas, review responses must be posted promptly, and structured files like `sitemap.xml` and `llms.txt` must be kept perfectly synchronized with your actual service offerings. For most business owners, keeping up with these technical updates falls behind immediate operational fires like managing staff schedules, fulfilling customer contracts, and handling daily vendor invoices. ##### Managed Operations vs. Complex Software Tools Buying another software dashboard does not solve this problem if nobody on your team has time to configure schemas or update text manifests. The practical solution is managed operations: having a capable partner design, build, and operate these routine updates around your existing Google Business profiles, website infrastructure, and search presence - the profiles and data stay entirely yours. When your digital presence is kept up on a fixed weekly schedule — customer reviews answered, Google posts checked, and structured schemas validated, with a person approving anything customer-facing — your business is easier for both human customers and AI search engines to read. ### Review automation without the cringe URL: https://hirealfie.com/blog/review-automation-without-cringe/ | Published: 2026-08-05 | Category: Customer Experience Why generic automated replies damage local business reputation, and how a human-in-the-loop review workflow builds authentic trust. We have all seen the generic automated review response. A customer posts a detailed five-star review praising a specific technician by name, and three seconds later the business replies with a robotic: *"Thank you valued customer! We strive to provide great service!"* Worse still is when a frustrated customer leaves a two-star review explaining that their appointment was delayed by two hours, and an unthinking auto-responder replies: *"Thanks for the review! We are so glad you loved your experience!"* Automating review management shouldn't mean sacrificing authenticity or embarrassing your company in public view. When designed properly, automated review workflows handle routine administrative tasks without ever producing cringe-worthy public mistakes. ##### The Gold Standard: Context-Aware Positive Replies When a satisfied client takes time to write a positive review, they deserve a thoughtful response that acknowledges their specific feedback. An effective operational workflow does not rely on static templates. Instead, it extracts the key context from the review—such as the service performed, the location visited, or the staff member praised—and drafts a custom, warm response tailored to that specific client. For standard positive reviews (3 to 5 stars), the draft response is queued for a brief verification or published according to strict business guidelines. The reply sounds natural, references genuine details from the customer's comment, and reflects the genuine voice of your business. ##### The Immutable Rule: Sensitive & Negative Feedback Always Routes to Humans The single most important principle in review management is this: **An automated system must never attempt to resolve an upset customer or reply to a negative review autonomously.** Negative reviews, service complaints, and low star ratings (1 or 2 stars) represent sensitive interactions. They carry real emotional weight, financial consequences, and public reputation risks. When a negative review arrives, an operational system should immediately execute three actions: 1. **Suppress Public Auto-Replying:** Lock out any automated public publishing for that specific review immediately. 2. **Flag It for Leadership:** Put the review in front of the store manager, operations director or business owner in the next report, with the full details of the complaint. 3. **Draft an Internal Briefing:** Prepare a clear internal summary outlining the client's history, transaction record, and potential resolution options so the human manager can respond thoughtfully within hours. By treating sensitive customer interactions as human-only responsibilities, your business demonstrates genuine accountability. Human operators possess empathy, flexibility, and authority that no algorithm should ever attempt to simulate. ##### Building Trust at Scale across Multiple Locations For multi-location businesses—such as dental practices, home service contractors, or regional retail stores—managing online reviews across Google, Yelp, and industry platforms quickly becomes a full-time burden. When a managed system handles the underlying workflow while your review profiles stay entirely under your ownership, your managers no longer spend hours logging into multiple dashboards every evening. Positive reviews are acknowledged promptly with authentic language, while negative reviews are held for the right manager with complete context. This combination of efficient automated drafting and mandatory human oversight keeps your public reputation polished, your response times fast, and your customer relationships grounded in genuine care. ### What to automate first: a working rule for busy owners URL: https://hirealfie.com/blog/what-to-automate-first/ | Published: 2026-08-01 | Category: Operations How small and mid-market business owners can choose high-return operational automations without risking customer trust or wasting team hours. Every Monday, someone copies addresses out of emails into routing software, matches receipts to deposits, and writes to the leads that came in on Friday night. None of it needs judgment. When business owners decide to eliminate this overhead, they frequently ask where to start. Should they begin with customer support? Payroll reconciliation? Lead qualification? After building and running the repetitive-work automations for a three-location restaurant group, we use a single practical rule to decide what gets automated first: **Automate first the repetitive task that happens every day or every week, follows clear rules, and carries no emotional stakes — then add human approval for anything a customer will read.** ##### Two questions: how often, and how much judgment To identify your first automation candidate, list every recurring task your team handles during a standard work week. Evaluate each task against two criteria: **Frequency** (how often it occurs) and **Ambiguity** (how much personal judgment or emotional nuance it requires). 1. **High Frequency, Zero Ambiguity (Automate First):** Data entry between distinct software tools, generating daily status reports from database records, verifying digital invoices against delivery manifests, and logging scheduled appointments into internal calendars. These tasks consume hours of team capacity yet follow predictable rules. 2. **High Frequency, Low Ambiguity (Automate with Human Approval):** Drafting initial responses to standard customer inquiries, categorizing incoming vendor receipts, or drafting routine social update posts for Google Business profiles. Here, an automated system can do most of the drafting, and a person reviews and approves it where the draft already lives: the inbox, the Google profile, a shared sheet. 3. **High Ambiguity / Sensitive Interactions (Keep Human-Led):** Responding to negative customer reviews, handling refund disputes, addressing employee performance issues, or modifying legal terms. Sensitive tasks touching money, customer complaints, or legal decisions must always route directly to a qualified human operator. ##### Why "your data stays in your own systems" matters Many owners buy a separate single-purpose subscription for every task. Before long, the business pays for a stack of tools that do not talk to each other, with the data scattered across all of them. We build around the systems you already have instead: your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, CRM, accounting software and inbox. Your records stay in platforms you own, the automation reads only what a task needs, and if you ever change operations partners, everything is handed over documented and working. ##### What changes when it is off your desk When the repetitive work is off the desk, people get the hours back for the work only they can do: the customer on the phone, the problem nobody has a rule for. Apply the rule to one task first. Prove it in draft-and-approve mode, then decide on the next one. Sensitive work stays with a person throughout. ## Updates (https://hirealfie.com/updates/) ### New website, privacy policy and AI-readable files URL: https://hirealfie.com/updates/new-website-privacy-and-ai-files/ | Published: 2026-10-12 The HireAlfie website has been rebuilt. It now has a privacy policy, two plain-text files that describe the business for AI assistants, and an updates page. What is new on the site: - **A privacy policy.** It is at [/privacy/](https://hirealfie.com/privacy/) and explains what data the site handles when you browse it or write to us, and how to use your data rights. - **Files for AI assistants.** [/llms.txt](https://hirealfie.com/llms.txt) and [/llms-full.txt](https://hirealfie.com/llms-full.txt) describe HireAlfie in plain text, so AI assistants can read what the business does from the business itself. - **AI crawlers named in robots.txt.** The site's [robots.txt](https://hirealfie.com/robots.txt) names the AI crawlers that may read it, such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot. - **An updates page.** [/updates/](https://hirealfie.com/updates/) lists short, dated notes on what changes at HireAlfie, newest first. Link: [Read the privacy policy](https://hirealfie.com/privacy/)