What to say when someone leaves you a bad review
A one star review is not the end of it. What you write underneath is read by everyone who comes next. Four reply templates for the situations that actually come up.
It usually lands in the evening. You are finishing up, your phone buzzes, and there it is. One star, from someone whose name you half recognise, describing a version of events you do not agree with.
The first instinct is to explain yourself. The second is to ignore it and hope it slides down the page. Both are understandable and both are usually wrong.
Here is the thing worth holding onto. The review is not really addressed to you. It is addressed to the next person who looks you up, and so is your reply. That person is going to read both, decide who sounds more reasonable, and either call you or call somebody else.
Why it matters more than it feels like it should
There is one genuinely solid piece of research on this. Michael Luca at Harvard Business School studied restaurant ratings using a method that isolates cause from coincidence, and found that a one star improvement in rating produced a revenue increase of roughly 5 to 9 percent. The effect showed up for independent businesses and not for chains.
That is worth sitting with if you run an independent shop. Chains have brand recognition doing the work. You have your rating.
You cannot change a review that has been written. You can change what the next reader concludes from it.
The four situations, and what to write
1. The complaint is fair
You got it wrong. It happens in every business.
Do not over apologise, and do not write an essay. Something like:
"You are right, and I am sorry. That is not how we normally do things. I would like to make it right. Please give me a call and ask for me directly."
Short, specific, and it names a route to fix it. Anyone reading it later sees a business that owns a mistake.
2. The complaint is unfair
This is the hard one. You know what actually happened and it is not what they wrote.
Do not correct the record in public. Nobody reading it can tell who is right, and the person who writes more sounds worse. What you are aiming for is to sound calm and reasonable next to something that sounds heated.
"I am sorry you had a bad experience. That does not match what I have on file for this job, so I would really like to talk it through. Please give me a call so we can sort it out."
You have not admitted anything, you have not argued, and you have signalled to the next reader that you engaged.
3. One star, no text
No explanation, just the rating. Frustrating, because you cannot even tell what went wrong.
"Sorry to see this. I do not have enough here to know what happened, but I would like to. If you have a minute, give me a call."
Two lines. It shows you noticed.
4. It is not your customer
Wrong business, a competitor, or someone confusing you with a shop across town.
Reply politely and briefly, then flag it to Google.
"I do not have a record of this visit, and I think this may be meant for another business. Happy to help sort it out if you get in touch."
Google will sometimes remove reviews that violate their policies, including reviews from people who were never customers. Sometimes they will not. Report it, then let it go.
The rules that hold across all four
Reply within a day or two. Not within an hour, when you are still annoyed. Not three months later.
Keep it short. Two or three sentences. Long replies read as defensive no matter how reasonable the content.
Never argue in public. You will not win. The next reader is not judging the facts, they are judging the tone.
Give a real route offline. A phone number or an email. It moves the conversation somewhere you can actually resolve it, and it shows willingness even if they never call.
Do not offer money or discounts in the reply. It reads as buying the review down.
Use their name if they left one. It signals a person wrote this, not a template.
Reply to the good ones too
This is the part almost everybody skips, and it is the easier half.
A run of five star reviews with no responses looks like nobody is home. A run of five star reviews with short, warm replies underneath looks like a business that is paying attention. Two lines each. Thank them, mention something specific if you remember the job.
When we looked at 44 independent businesses in Fredericton earlier this year, unanswered reviews were the single most common gap by a wide margin. That included busy, well regarded businesses. One dental clinic had over 400 reviews and had answered none of them. Another had 285. These are not struggling businesses. They are busy ones with nobody minding that channel.
The businesses that do reply stood out immediately. One auto shop was answering within a couple of days across more than 150 reviews. Put the two profiles side by side and the difference is obvious in about three seconds.
What to do this week
Open your Google Business Profile and sort your reviews by newest. Reply to the last five, good and bad. Give yourself ten minutes and a two sentence limit per reply.
Then set a reminder for the same day each week to do it again. It is fifteen minutes a month and it is probably the highest return fifteen minutes available to a local business.
If you would rather not think about it at all, we manage this for businesses in New Brunswick, and we do a free review of your Google profile before anyone commits to anything.
Call +1 506-801-9970 or email info@qhike.ca. We serve Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John and all of New Brunswick.