Guide
How to respond to a bad Google review
A one-star review with a calm, specific reply underneath it does you more good than no bad review at all. It is the only place online where somebody can watch you handle a problem.
Short answer: reply in four sentences. Thank them, name the specific thing that went wrong, say what you changed, and give a name and a direct number to continue it off the platform. Never argue the facts, and never reply the same day you read it.
The reply is not for the person who wrote it
This is the whole thing, and almost everybody gets it wrong. You are not writing to the angry customer. That conversation is over and you are not going to win it.
You are writing to the next person, who is standing in their kitchen with a broken furnace, reading your reviews, and deciding whether to ring you. That person will read the one-star, then read your reply, and decide what kind of business you are from how you handled it.
Which means a bad review with a calm, specific reply underneath it does you more good than no bad review at all. It is the only place on the internet where somebody can watch you deal with a problem.
How to write it
Four sentences. Longer than that and you look rattled.
- Thank them, briefly. Not effusively, nobody believes it
- Name the specific thing. "You waited two days for the part" beats "we are sorry you had a negative experience". Specifics prove you read it and that it is a real job, not a fake
- Say what you did or will do about it. One sentence
- Move it off the platform. A name and a direct number. "Call me, it is Dave, 250 555 0148"
“Thanks for saying so, Karen. You waited two days for a blower motor that we were told would arrive next morning, and that is on us for not calling you when it slipped. We now ring the same day a part is late. If you want the callout fee back, ring me directly, it is Dave on 250 555 0148.”
What not to do, in order of how much damage it does
- Do not argue the facts. You may be completely right. It does not matter. A reader who watches you fight a customer learns what you are like to deal with when something goes wrong
- Do not mention what they paid, or their address, or anything about the job that they did not put in the review themselves. Beyond looking bad, it is a privacy problem
- Do not reply at 11pm on the day. Write it, save it, read it the next morning. You will delete half of it
- Do not copy and paste the same reply under every review. Readers scan the column and identical replies are obvious and worse than no reply
- Do not ask them to take it down in the public reply. Ask privately if you must, once, after you have actually fixed it
If it is genuinely fake
Sometimes it is a competitor, a customer of another business, or somebody who never used you at all. That is a different problem with a different route, and it is worth pursuing.
Reply anyway, once, briefly, saying you have no record of the job and asking them to contact you so you can find it. That sentence is not for them either. It tells the next reader you looked. Then report it through the Business Profile, under the review, and expect the process to be slow and unsatisfying.
What you cannot do is get a review removed for being unfair. Only for breaking a rule. There is more on how the filter works, and why reviews vanish on their own, in the guide on disappearing reviews.
The part almost nobody does
Go and reply to your good reviews too. Two lines each, mentioning the actual job. It takes ten minutes for a year of them.
Two reasons. A column where every review has a reply makes the one bad reply look like routine housekeeping rather than a crisis. And it is the only signal in the whole column that a person is home.
Not sure how yours reads to a stranger?
We will look at your reviews, your listing, your directory details and your website setup, and tell you the two things worth fixing first. Free, before you pay us anything. If it comes back saying you are doing fine, we will tell you that too.