A Review That Names a Staff Member Negatively — How to Reply

When to use this

When a review names a specific employee negatively. This reply owes something to two people: protect the employee in public, handle the substance in private. Those don't conflict, but most people only do one.

The reply (copy it)

They complained about a specific staff member
[Name], I'm sorry you had that experience. We'll look into it internally — but the responsibility sits with our management and training, not with one person. If you're open to it, I'd like to hear what happened that day: [contact]. Thank you for telling us.

The most common mistake

Pushing the blame onto the employee in the public reply ("we will be speaking with the staff member involved"). That doesn't fix anything for the customer, it's a public shaming for the employee, and it tells readers you'll sacrifice your own people. Take it upward: "that's a failure of our management and training."

When the situation is different

If you check and conclude the employee did nothing wrong, still don't defend the details publicly. Use a neutral statement plus an invitation to get in touch — then tell the employee privately that you believe them. Fighting in public only loses.

After you reply

Talk to the person named, and lead with "I took the responsibility publicly on this one." An employee who sees they weren't sold out in public will trust you more than any management technique achieves.

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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