A Bad Review About Your Service — How to Reply Publicly

When to use this

When someone publicly criticises your service or staff. The real audience isn't them — it's the hundreds who read reviews later. They're not judging who was right; they're judging how you handle criticism.

The reply (copy it)

Bad review: service or attitude
[Name], I'm sorry — reading this isn't easy, and it shouldn't have happened. What you're describing isn't who we are, and it's a problem on our side to fix. If you'd give me a chance to talk it through, call [phone] and ask for [owner]. Either way, thank you for telling us — we'd rather know.

The most common mistake

Explaining or pushing back in public. Even when you're entirely right, the side arguing publicly always looks worse. Acknowledge the feeling, say you're handling it, and move the detail to private (a number, or ask them to reach out). Public gets your posture; it doesn't get the argument.

When the situation is different

If it was an employee, take the responsibility upward — never critique staff in a public reply. "That's a failure of our training" protects your team and reads as accountability. Publicly blaming an employee just looks like a badly run business.

After you reply

Once it's resolved privately, don't ask them to change the rating. If they do it themselves, great. Asking turns into a second complaint. Handling it well is already the answer future readers came for.

Replies for other review types
This is one of 12 review situations. The full set (filterable by star rating) is here:
See all 12 Google review replies →

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