Most businesses either don't reply at all, or reply to every review with the same copy-pasted line. Both are worse than they look, because the replies are the only part of your profile where a stranger hears your actual voice.
Google also confirms it reads replies, and a profile the owner engages with is a profile that looks alive. But the real reason to do it is the person reading.
Replying to a five star
Short, specific, no sales pitch. The whole job is proving a real person read it.
That's it. Name, one specific detail from their review, thanks. The specific detail is what stops it reading as a template.
What not to do: don't finish with “we look forward to serving you again” on every single one. Twenty identical replies down the page tells people nobody is actually reading these.
Replying to a one star
This is the one that matters. Four rules.
- Reply fast. Within a day. A bad review sitting unanswered for three weeks reads as true.
- Never argue the facts in public. Even when they're wrong. Especially when they're wrong. A reader can't verify who's right, they can only see who's calmer.
- Take it offline. Give a direct number and offer to sort it.
- Keep it to three sentences. Length reads as defensiveness.
That reply does not admit fault, does not argue, and makes you look like the reasonable one. Someone reading it moves on and calls you anyway.
When the review is from someone who was never a customer
Report it first, because it probably breaches the conflict-of-interest or fake-review policy. Then reply anyway, because the report might fail.
Calm, states the fact, no accusation. If it is a competitor, that reply makes them look worse than any argument would.
The three replies that actively hurt you
- The legal-sounding one. “As per our terms and conditions, the client was advised…” Nobody reads that and thinks you're in the right. They think you're hard work.
- The one that names the dispute. Mentioning what they didn't pay, or what they did on site, drags the whole thing into public and keeps it there permanently.
- The identical template. Twenty copies of “Thank you for your feedback!” reads as automated, which makes people wonder what else is automated.
Go back and do the old ones
There's no time limit. If you've got two years of unanswered reviews sitting there, work backwards through them. It takes an evening and it changes how the whole profile reads.
Vary the wording as you go. If you're pasting, you've already lost the point of doing it.
Don't want to chase reviews yourself? Our review management asks every customer at the right moment, with your direct link, and replies to what comes in.