Responding to Bad Reviews: A Guide for Local Service Industries

No one likes receiving a one-star review. Local businesses in particular rely on reviews to grow and attract new customers. Prospects also gauge a business's trustworthiness by their reviews.

Unfortunately, every business will receive a negative review at some point. But bad reviews aren't always, well, bad. Simply replying to a bad review can win back 1 in 3 customers and prompt them to revise or delete their review.

The ideal response to a bad review varies depending on the complaint. An agile approach to responding to reviews is key to ensuring the best chances of winning back unsatisfied customers.

Let's dive in to a few best practices for responding to bad reviews as a local service business.

How to respond to negative reviews for local service businesses

Follow these tips to craft a tactful reply to bad reviews every time.

Speak with the employee(s) who interacted with the customer

Be sure to get all sides of the story. Talk to every employee who worked with the customer, including receptionists and customer service reps. If you're an HVAC business, you should speak to the technician. If you're in legal or medical, talk to the lawyer or doctor — you get the idea.

Most importantly, talk to any employee the review mentions by name. However, throughout this process, be sure to check your bias. Your first instinct will be to trust the employees' word over the customer's. Recognize that and make every effort to be unbiased in your response.

Reply promptly

A prompt reply shows prospects that you respect and listen to all your customers — even the ones that might not have anything good to say about your business.

Prompt doesn't mean hasty, however. If you reply to that review within 5 minutes of receiving it, chances are you're using a stock response or you haven't had time to think through your response carefully.

Aim to reply within 24 hours max. But you should also take your time crafting a reply that shows other customers and prospects you're capable of handling things professionally.

Keep it short and sweet

It can be tempting to write a lengthy response, especially to long reviews that provide a lot of detail. But we recommend keeping your reply short, sweet, and somewhat vague to avoid further upsetting the customer.

In your reply, offer the customer the chance to contact you to discuss their concerns and complaints privately and in more detail. Save any questions for your private interaction with the customer. (Which we'll cover in our next tip.)

Follow up with the reviewer privately if you can

If you've replied tactfully to the negative review but haven't heard from the customer in a few days, make the effort to reach out privately. Entrust this task to an authoritative figure like a manager or business owner. Have that person ask the customer if they have any more complaints or thoughts they'd like to share and what can be done to fix the problem.

This is the time to ask for specifics, like:

• What exactly caused the problem?
• Did you communicate these concerns to the service provider at the time? If so, what was their response? Did they offer a solution at the time?
• What can we do right now and in the future to avoid this situation and ensure you're 100% satisfied?

Don't get defensive or take anything personally

If there's one thing worse than reading a scathing online review, it's reading a defensive reply from the business. When customers read defensive replies, they assume you're incapable of handling complaints professionally. Even if the customer isn't right in that instance, there are better ways to address that than with a defensive reply. Which leads us to our next tip.

Show, don't tell

This adage might be a cornerstone of good writing, but it also applies to business communications.

Consider this sample reply to a bad review (that we borrowed and adapted from a real reply on TripAdvisor):

"Our company has worked hard to build a good reputation among our community for over 20 years. Our other customers say we're reliable and trustworthy. How dare you give a local business a bad review and tarnish the reputation we've worked so hard to build."

We know your company would never dream of talking to your customers this way, but we want to break down this example anyway. Notice how the manager replied telling the customer how trustworthy their business is. And then they turn right around and blame the customer for making a complaint that could harm their reputation.

Pretty cringey, right?

Instead of telling your customers that your business is trustworthy and reliable, show them. Actions speak louder than words!

Lead by example

85% of customers trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from family and friends. Not only are they reading your customers' reviews, but they're also reading your responses to those reviews to see how you handle complaints.

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Would you trust a business that takes a snippy tone with their customers? Or uses the same stock response to every bad review?

Probably not.

Avoid using a boilerplate reply for every bad review

You might be tempted to draft a template response that you can copy and paste. You'll even find templates online that you can edit for your business.

This isn't a good idea for a few reasons. A personalized response to a bad review is much more likely to win that customer back. It also addresses their specific concerns, which shows other customers that you listen to and care about every customer — even those who aren't satisfied with their experience.

Remember, we're all human here

Not all bad reviews are created equal. A customer might complain about something that's beyond your control or only applies to their situation. Your customers are human, too. They have bad days. They might exaggerate.

For example, a customer might leave a bad review for a local restaurant because they don't like the menu items. Is that the restaurant's fault? Absolutely not. That's down to the customer's preferences. If they complained about the quality of the food, that would be a different story.

Is it fair for that customer to take out their personal preferences on the business? No. But business owners are responsible for not making the situation worse with a thoughtless or defensive reply.

Most new customers or prospects will also be able to recognize if a customer is perhaps exaggerating.

Responding to bad reviews as a local service business: wrapping up

Contrary to popular belief, bad reviews will only break your business if you let them.

As long as you provide consistent, excellent customer experiences, your reviews will reflect that. At the same time, every business will receive a bad review at some point. And that's okay. Do your best to respond thoughtfully every time, and you won't have to worry about a bad review or two harming your reputation.

Before we wrap up, consider this: How helpful would it be if you could field negative reviews and address customer complaints privately, before those reviews went live?

That's exactly what ZyraTalk's Reputation Management app allows you to do.

Unlock smarter reputation management with ZyraTalk. Contact us today for your free demo.

Not quite ready for a demo yet? That's cool. Check out our article on how replying to reviews affects your Google search ranking.