How to reply to a bad Google review

The single most useful thing to understand about a one star review is that your reply is not addressed to the reviewer. It is addressed to everyone who reads the thread afterwards, and most of them have already decided the reviewer might be unreasonable.

Why the instinct to get it removed is the wrong one

Most owners’ first move is to try to have the review taken down. Google will remove reviews that breach its policies, such as spam, conflicts of interest or offensive content. It will not remove a review for being unfair, wrong or annoying.

Meanwhile the effort spent on removal is effort not spent on the thing that actually works, which is a calm public reply and forty more reviews that push it down the page.

The shape of a good reply

Four parts, in this order, and short:

1. Thank them, briefly. Not effusively. “Thanks for the feedback” is plenty.
2. Acknowledge the specific thing. Name it. “You waited forty minutes on a Saturday and that is too long.” Generic sympathy reads as a form letter.
3. Say what changed, or what you are doing. This is the part that convinces the reader. Not an excuse, a change.
4. Offer a way to continue off the platform. One line, with an email address. Do not demand it.

What not to do

• Do not argue the facts in public. Even when you are right, and especially when you are right. The reader is not judging who is correct, they are judging who they would rather deal with.
• Do not mention the customer’s details. Naming their order, their booking or their file to prove a point looks like a privacy problem, because it is one.
• Do not use the same reply twice. Anyone can scroll your profile and see it.
• Do not reply angry. Write it, leave it overnight, read it again. It will be shorter in the morning.

A worked example

Review: “Waited 40 minutes for a coffee and nobody said anything. Wouldn’t go back.”

A bad reply: “We were extremely busy on the day in question and our team worked incredibly hard. We are sorry you feel this way.”

A better one: “Forty minutes is far too long and you should have been told. We were two staff down that Saturday, which is our problem to solve rather than yours to absorb. We have changed how we handle the queue when we are short, and we now tell people up front if a coffee is going to be slow. If you would like to give us another go, email sales@madexify.com and I will sort it out.”

The second one costs nothing, admits the specific fault, names a change, and leaves the reader thinking that whoever wrote it is competent.

The one thing you must not do

Do not screen customers to keep negative reviews off the listing. Sending happy customers to Google and unhappy ones to a private feedback form is called review gating. Google bans it, and the ACCC treats suppressing or editing genuine negative reviews as misleading conduct. The detail is in asking for reviews without breaking the rules.

The real defence

Volume. A single one star review on a listing with nine reviews is a disaster. The same review on a listing with two hundred is a footnote that makes the other 199 look honest. That is an argument for asking everyone, consistently, before you need the buffer rather than after.