Review response guide

How to respond to a negative review for a Plumbing Business

Home-service customers care about reliability and being treated fairly on price and timing.

A negative review is public, and it's read by far more people than the one who wrote it. Your reply isn't really for the upset customer, it's for the next hundred people deciding whether to trust you. Handle it well and a bad review can actually win you business.

Use four beats: acknowledge the specific problem, apologize without making excuses, say what you're doing about it, and invite them to continue offline. Keep it to a few sentences, stay warm, and never get defensive.

Example

The review

Showed up hours outside the window and tracked mud through the house.

A reply that works

Being hours late and leaving a mess isn't the service we promise, and I'm sorry. We've talked it through with the crew about arrival windows and drop cloths. I'd like to make it right, reach out to me directly.

Tip: Reference the fix (arrival windows, drop cloths). It shows the complaint changed something.

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Negative reviews, other industries

Other review types, Plumbing Business

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SmallBizReply writes and posts a reply like this to every Google review, in your voice, the moment it comes in.

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