How to reply to a bad review
It is read by the next hundred customers, not by the one who wrote it. Once you accept that, the wording writes itself.
A real Clay site, built from a Google listing
You are reading this at eleven at night because somebody wrote something unfair, and the first useful thing anybody can tell you is not to answer tonight.
The reply is not a conversation with the reviewer. It is a short piece of writing that several hundred people will read while deciding whether to book, and almost all of them will be reading it AFTER they read the complaint. That is the whole craft: they are watching how you behave, not scoring the argument.
Four steps, in order
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1
Wait until the morning
Nothing good has ever been written twenty minutes after reading it. The review is not going anywhere and neither is the person who left it, and a reply written angry is the one that gets screenshotted.
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2
Answer the specific thing
Name what went wrong in their words: the wait, the cold plate, the parking. A reply that could be pasted under any review reads as a form letter and is worse than silence.
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3
Say what you did about it
One sentence. We have changed how the kitchen sends the last two tables is worth more than any apology, because it is the only part a reader can check against their own visit.
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4
Take the rest off the platform
Offer a way to reach you directly and stop. A long public thread makes a small complaint look like a big one, and nobody reading it is keeping score for you.
We have no record of your visit
It is technically reasonable and it reads as calling somebody a liar in public. Every reader who has ever been made to feel unwelcome by a business takes their side instantly.
The same goes for correcting details. You may be right that it was a Tuesday and they said Wednesday, and being right about that in public costs you more than the review did.
Some are not about you at all
A one star review about a delivery driver, a bank holiday price, or a rule the landlord sets is worth one calm sentence explaining what is yours and what is not. Readers are fair about that.
And the ones that break the platform's rules can be reported. It is worth doing and it is worth not waiting for: report it, then reply as though it will stay, because usually it does.
What a good reply has in it
Where the reply ends up being read
On your own page, with the good ones
Reviews on a Clay site are your Google reviews, with the rating and the count, so the picture somebody gets is the whole one rather than the angriest one.
Under the listing, forever
A reply is permanent and public in a way the review is not, because yours is the last word on the thread and the one that reads as the business speaking.
By people who never write reviews
The quiet majority read them and never leave one. They are the audience, and they are deciding whether you sound like somewhere they want to spend an evening.
What it looks like when it is live
Drawn rather than described, the page, the address, and what it can switch on.
Questions
Should I reply to every review?
Every bad one and some of the good ones. Replying to all of them turns the page into a wall of thank yous nobody reads, including the reply you actually needed to be seen.
How long should the reply be?
Three or four lines. A long reply looks defensive whatever it says, and the length itself is read as how much it stung.
Can I ask them to take it down?
You can, once, privately, and only after fixing what went wrong. Asking in public reads badly even when the request is fair.
What if the review is completely made up?
Report it, then reply calmly as though it will stay. Say plainly that you have no record of the visit and offer a direct way to sort it out, without accusing anybody of anything.
Does replying help my ranking?
Nobody outside Google knows, and anybody who tells you a number is guessing. What is certain is that the reply is read by customers, which is a better reason than a ranking theory.
How do I get more good reviews to balance it?
Ask in person, at the moment somebody says they enjoyed it: Google reviews on your own website is where they end up working for you.
Should the reviews be on my website at all?
Yes, including the rating. A page that shows a 4.6 with a couple of hundred reviews behind it is more convincing than one that shows five hand picked quotes.
Try it with your business
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