Simple Guide to Responding to Online Reviews

Online reviews are important. They can be on Google on your business’s profile. These reviews help customers and businesses. It’s good for your business to talk to customers who leave reviews.

Your Answers to Reviews Are Public

When customers write reviews, your answers can be seen by everyone on your Google Business Profile.

Why You Should Answer Reviews

If you own a business, you should read and answer online reviews. This shows you care. Your answers should be short and polite. Don’t be too personal or try to sell things in your answer.

How to Reply to Reviews on Google

First, you need to claim your business profile on Google. Then you can write back to reviews.

How to Answer Good Reviews

You don’t have to answer every good review. But saying “thank you” is nice. Share new things about your business, but don’t just try to sell things. Here are some ways to say thanks:

“Thank you! We hope you come back soon.”
“Thanks for telling others about us.”
“We’re happy you had a good time with us.”

How to Answer Bad Reviews

Bad reviews can hurt, but every business gets them. Answer these quickly and nicely. Don’t get upset. Understand the problem first. Say sorry if needed. You can ask the customer to talk more by phone or email. Use your real name to show it’s a real person answering. Here are some ways to answer:

“Thanks for your comment, Thea. We’re sorry you had to wait. We’re trying to get better. I hope to see you again. – Sam”
“Hi Priya, we want to make things better. Please tell us more. – K.L.”
“John, sorry we were slow. We want to fix this. Please call us. – Maria”
“Joe here. We have sales sometimes. Thanks for coming!”
“Javier, we can’t change our return policy, but we try to be clear about it. I hope you come back. – Sandra”
“S.M. here. I can help you take care of your plants. Call me. We have a 30-day policy too.”

Removing Reviews

While you may want a negative review to disappear from your Business Profile, Google won’t remove a review unless it violates their content policy by including something like fake, illegal, or offensive content. If you feel it does, you can always flag it for Google to investigate.

Learning from Reviews

Answering all reviews shows you care about your business and customers. Not all feedback will be good. Use bad reviews to learn and show you are trying. A good answer can make a customer change their review to be more positive.

Need more tips on managing reviews on Google? Leave a comment (or contact me).

Ivan Jimenez

Ivan is a professional digital marketer and advertiser.

He helps small brands and service providers, marketing managers, and big famous brands run hyper-successful ad campaigns (across multiple formats) targeting lots of diverse audiences (ex.) to meet specific goals like brand awareness, more sales, leads, etc.

He’s got lots of thoughts on the state of marketing and is deeply committed to all areas of optimization—and has no problem showing you where the massive holes are in your own campaigns!

Contact Ivan if you’d like him to take a look at your campaigns.