How To Respond To A Negative Customer Review (With Examples)

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Many shoppers base their decisions on customer reviews, so getting a negative review of your product or company can be scary. While you can’t delete these bad reviews, you can respond to them in a way that helps minimize their impact.

In this article, you’ll learn why it’s important to respond to negative customer reviews and how to respond to them professionally. We’ve also included some examples of responses to negative customer reviews that you can use as a reference.

Key Takeaways:

• Responding to negative customer reviews shows that you value your customers and strive to offer excellent customer service.

• Respond to a negative customer review with an apology and an invitation to let you make it up to them, whether that’s through a refund or a better experience in the future.

• Be professional in your response, but personalize it enough that the customer knows that you’re a real person.

How to Respond to a Negative Customer Review

1. Calm yourself down. Some negative reviews can be infuriating, but you can’t let your emotions show through when you’re responding to them. Take a second to calm down before typing anything – take a walk, watch a funny video, or grab a snack. If you still feel like you can’t respond appropriately, hand the review off to a coworker who can.

2. Draft your response on a separate document. Don’t start typing your response on the review site, as it’s all too easy to accidentally bump the “publish” button before you’re finished. If your company doesn’t have a script for responding to reviews, try a couple of response iterations before choosing a final one.

3. Apologize. You shouldn’t take responsibility for something the company didn’t do, but an apology should be the first part of the review response, no matter what. Show compassion for the way the customer feels, and tell them that their experience doesn’t align with your company’s mission and customer service standards.

4. Offer to make it right. You don’t need to promise a refund or anything like that if it isn’t in your company policy, but invite the reviewer to contact you to further discuss the incident and the options for making it right. Don’t forget to include your contact information as well.

   If you do have a clear set of steps that the customer can take to get a replacement or refund, you can include those in your response.

5. Add a personal touch. Whether it’s signing off with your first name or including your personal work email as the contact, showing reviewers that you’re a real person will help them see how much you care.

6. Let it go. Once you’ve responded, you’ve likely done all you can. Don’t take any negative review personally, and let it roll off of your shoulders – that person doesn’t know you and is probably just lashing out about something else going on in their life.

How to Respond to Negative Reviews You Can’t Fix

Sometimes, customers complain about things you can’t change, like prices or return policies. When this happens, all you can do is show empathy, apologize for their frustration, and explain the policy.

If possible, provide some action steps to help with their complaints in the future, such as signing up for your email list where you send out coupons and sales announcements.

Or, if they’re totally in the wrong and are just complaining, you’re perfectly justified to politely explain the policy.

For example, if someone is upset about a sales exclusion when you put up plenty of signage explaining what was and wasn’t part of a sale, you can explain that you tried to make it clear with signs throughout the store. You can also encourage them to ask a sales associate for clarification next time.

Just make sure you remain professional and don’t sound combative or condescending when you do this.

How to Respond to Negative Reviews You Have Already Addressed

Sometimes, upset customers will complain to you in person and then leave a negative review as well, even if you already did all you could to make it right when they first complained.

When this happens, it’s a good idea to apologize for their frustration and compassionately explain your side of the incident. For example, you could say,

Examples of Responses to Negative Customer Reviews

1. Bad Service Negative Customer Review Response Example

   “We’re so sorry to hear that you had such a negative experience at our restaurant. We value our customers, and that is not the experience we want you to have.

   “The night you came in was an especially busy evening, so everyone was experiencing longer wait times than usual, but we understand that it’s incredibly frustrating to wait that long for a reservation.

   “Our staff is passionate about providing top-tier service, and you can be sure we’ll be addressing this incident and adjusting our internal policies and training to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Thank you for your feedback, and we hope you’ll dine again with us again in the future.”

2. No Feedback Negative Customer Review Response Example

   “Hi Jamie, I noticed you left a one-star rating. I’m sorry you had such a negative experience, and I’d love to hear more about your concerns and what we can do better in the future. Please reach out to me via email at beckyw@email.com or by calling 444-333-2222. I hope to hear from you soon!”

3. Defective Product Negative Customer Review Response Example

   “I’m so sorry to hear your item didn’t work! We take pride in our craftsmanship, and we want to make this right. Please send photos of your defective product to help@email.com so we can start working on getting you a replacement or refund.
   -Annie”

4. Vague Complaint Negative Customer Review Response Example

   “I’m sorry you had such a negative experience. We value our customers, and I would love to hear more about your experience so we can make this right. Would you please contact me at 333-222-1111 or ben.j@email.com so we can discuss this further?”

Tips for Responding to Customer Reviews

1. Always respond. Unaddressed negative reviews have far more power than addressed ones, so make sure you always respond to them. It’s up to you whether you want to respond to all positive reviews or not as well.

2. Respond quickly. Don’t leave the negative review sitting there for a few days without a response. Assign someone to monitor review sites and provide that person with directions for either answering the reviews themselves or passing them on to someone else who will respond.

3. Respond publicly. This doesn’t mean you should address the reviewer’s issue publicly, but it does mean you should publicly apologize and then offer to take care of their issue in a more private setting rather than just reaching out to them directly.

4. Have a second set of eyes look over your response. It’s always a good idea to have someone else check over your writing before you release it, and it’s even more important that you do this before responding to a negative customer review.

   Your coworkers can tell you how your tone is coming across to people who don’t know what’s going on inside your head, help you fine-tune your wording, and check to make sure you didn’t make any errors.

Why It’s Important to Respond to Negative Customer Reviews

It’s important to respond to negative customer reviews because it helps increase your chances of keeping the customer who wrote the review as well as the other customers who saw it.

When you respond to a negative review with an apology and an effort to make it right, the disgruntled customer will be more likely to continue doing business with you in the future than if you hadn’t responded. While you can’t guarantee that you’ll save the customer relationship by responding to their review, you can all but guarantee losing it by not responding.

In addition to this, when someone leaves your business a bad review, other current or potential customers take notice as well. When you respond to the negative review, apologizing for their experience and offering to resolve the issue, viewers will see you value their feedback and will often be more willing to shop with you despite the negative review.

Negative Customer Review FAQ

1. How do you respond to a customer’s bad review?

   Respond to a customer’s bad review by apologizing for their experience and extending an offer to make it right. If the review is just a complaint that you can’t fix, you can explain what you’ve done to keep the situation from repeating and express your hope that they’ll work with you again (all after apologizing, of course).

   Just remember to keep it professional and respond quickly to negative customer reviews – otherwise, it looks like you don’t read them regularly, which is almost as bad as not responding at all.

2. How do you respond to negative people?

   You respond to negative people by listening empathetically, apologizing and taking responsibility for your actions, and not taking their negativity personally. Usually, negative people have something else besides your company making them so negative, and so they just want to know they’re heard.

   If you’ve messed up in some way, admit that without arguing and apologize. You shouldn’t take their complaint personally, though, and if they continue to complain after you’ve tried all you can to make it right, you should set boundaries and end the conversation professionally.

References

1. U.S. Small Business Administration – Essential Steps to Handle Negative Reviews

Author

Caitlin Mazur

Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia where she has written 140+ articles that have reached over 1 mil viewers as of June 2023. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research.