Negative Google review? Respond strategically to protect your reputation, rebuild trust, and turn unhappy customers into loyal advocates.
When launching and successfully operating a local business, your online reputation is one of the most influential assets you can build.
A combination of delivering great consumer experiences and actively asking for reviews is the best way to begin growing a positive reputation, but even good businesses can expect to receive at least a few negative remarks from customers.
Fear of negative reviews could make you want to ignore them as an “out of sight, out of mind” coping mechanism, but this guide explains why facing customer complaints head-on delivers both the most security for your brand and the best reputation results.
Why negative Google reviews matter
No brand needs a flawless 5-star reputation to attract customers, but getting into the bad habit of ignoring negative reviews undermines engagement over time. As average star ratings fall due to unresolved complaints, vital trust signals disappear.
Fortunately, businesses can course-correct if they commit to responding to bad reviews in a timely manner. Learning how to effectively address negative reviews is a necessary business skill.
How Google reviews influence local SEO rankings and click-through rates
A recent study conducted by Local SEO Guide in partnership with Semrush found a strong correlation between Google Business Profile review volume and local pack rankings across 10 major industries and US cities.
Note: The local SEO industry needs fresh data on the exact impact of Google Business Profile (GBP) average start ratings on click-through rates (CTR). The most-cited study on this topic is one from 2017, documenting that businesses moving from a 3-star rating to a 5-star rating saw a CTR increase of 25%. More current data would be useful.
Only 3% of consumers will choose a business if its average star rating drops below three stars, which highlights the drastic effect negative reviews have on the metric local businesses care about most: conversions.
The psychological impact on potential customers (social proof)
A whopping 99% of consumers consult online reviews at least some of the time before choosing a local business for a transaction.
As a form of social proof, customer reviews:
- Demonstrate to consumers that a nearby business is being patronized and evaluated by their community, signaling that it’s a legitimate entity
- Set expectations of how the business treats its customers when things go wrong, at least when the brand is devoting sufficient resources to responding to negative reviews
While the majority of consumers don’t require a perfect 5-star rating before trying a business, people do want social proof that a Google Business Profile represents a real place of business that’s receiving and responding to reviews.
Impact on brand reputation and revenue over time
At AmpUp 2025, seasoned local SEO Mike Blumenthal captured the extraordinary power of reviews, stating,
“People treat reviews like decoration. They’re not. They are the content. They’re your brand.”
Supporting Blumenthal’s claim is the fact that 60% of American consumers trust what fellow customers say about local brands over what brands say about themselves. This means that for the majority of your community, your reputation is based on your reviews, not in claims made by your sales force, marketing team, or advertising.
Every business experiences some degree of customer service failures. When these issues aren’t resolved at the time of service, consumers may turn to platforms like Google Business Profile to report their negative experience and leave a low-star rating.
When this negative reputational content is neglected instead of resolved by the brand, the average star rating quickly erodes. Ultimately, the closer the brand gets to the 3-star danger zone, the fewer transactions it will earn. Most businesses can’t afford to have their revenue stream dry up—a neglected online reputation can result in business failure and closure.
Why ignoring negative reviews is worse than engaging with them
Brands large and small struggle with review management.
The above example shows Walmart, one of the largest corporations in the US, slipping down into 3-star territory due to a combination of unsatisfactory consumer experiences and neglected negative reviews.
It can be psychologically challenging to experience criticism, and even more challenging to respond well to it. However, review responsiveness is a table-stakes business skill. It requires taking complaints professionally rather than personally.
The Walmart branch shown above is giving its own customers the online equivalent of the silent treatment by failing to respond to hundreds of negative reviews in which the business has allegedly charged a customer for goods not received and is inaccessible for resolution.
Due to its dominant presence in many communities, this well-known brand has received a high volume of reviews that should positively influence its local pack rankings. But a pattern of unresolved negative reviews has predictably resulted in the kind of average rating that’s associated with lost CTR and revenue. Instead of driving transactions, a rating like this is likely discouraging them.
Unaddressed negative ratings chip away at the average star rating of the Google Business Profile. A lack of responses from the business owner or a representative signals to the public that the business doesn’t care when things go wrong for its customers. This erodes brand trust.
There’s an observable pattern in the US in which large businesses can “get away with” ignoring complaints and negative reviews because they’ve become the only game in town. Consumers who have few or no local shopping alternatives are forced to continue patronizing enterprises that treat them poorly due to local monopoly status.
While this scenario is undeniable, it’s a business model that should be strenuously avoided by any business that must compete to maximize its share of local revenue. Learning to respond to negative reviews can become a powerful competitive difference-maker when other nearby businesses aren’t devoting resources to reputation management.
Just as you wouldn’t walk away from a customer who approached you with a question or need at your place of business, you shouldn’t ignore reviews. Instead, you can learn to address and resolve them to defend your brand’s ratings and reputation and to maximize consumer trust and conversions.
The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need.
First steps when you receive a negative review
Using the following real-world example of a 1-star review for a restaurant chain, let’s learn to address complaints via the owner response function.
Pause before responding
If your gut reaction to receiving brand criticism is to feel personally attacked:
- Take a breather before you respond to remind yourself that your private life is not part of serving the public. Respond when you can with professionalism instead of from sudden emotions brought on by encountering a negative review.
- Glean any clues you can from the text of the review about what went wrong for the customer. In the above example, understaffing during busy hours resulted in a customer being neglected on the date they mentioned. The best negative reviews contain the most detail so you can troubleshoot and resolve a stated problem. Reviews that lack specificity require vigorous follow-up to gather additional information about the complaint. You can write your best response when you have the most understanding of what went wrong.
- Gather internal facts before replying. In our example, the reviewer helpfully gave the date on which they had a negative experience. If your records show that this happened to be a day in which two employees called in sick, you can explain to the customer the circumstances that contributed to their disappointment.
Hopefully, going through this process will take you from a place of feeling upset to a better mindset of responding on the basis of facts you’ve gathered.
Verify authenticity
There’s a significant problem with review spam in the Google Business Profile system. While customers are free to use reviews to make complaints, your brand may also experience fake reviews.
If something about a negative review seems suspicious:
- Check order/service records, if possible. For example, if a Google user named “Bill Jones” claims to have experienced a terrible dental appointment at your practice, you can check your records to see if you have a patient by that name. Sometimes, however, this kind of fact-checking isn’t possible.
- Pay attention to any apparent uptick in negative reviews over a short time frame. If your business suddenly begins receiving puzzling negative reviews that you can’t tie to legitimate service failures, you may be experiencing a review spam attack.
To learn how to flag a review for removal, see the “When and how to flag a review for removal” section of this guide.
Pro tip: 1-star reviews aren’t the only hallmark of a review spam attack. Competitors and bad actors can leave fake reviews for your business with ratings that are slightly lower than five stars. Over time, this can sneakily erode your average rating. It’s a best practice to validate the authenticity of non-5-star reviews to the best of your ability.
How to professionally respond to a negative review
Here’s the most powerful mindset you can adopt to reply professionally to a legitimate negative review:
- If I respond well, 73% of unhappy customers will give my business a second chance (according to a local business review survey conducted in 2024 by GatherUp). This will directly impact my customer retention rate and protect my marketing budget from being wasted on having to acquire new customers instead of keeping existing ones happy.
- If I respond well, 54% of my customers will update their rating and review to reflect a better second experience (according to the same survey). This will not only defend my business’s reputation, but also its local search rankings, CTR, and revenue.
- If I respond well, I’m proving to potential customers that my business takes good care of its patrons when things go wrong. This is my chance to earn the public’s trust.
Core principles: empathy, professionalism, and problem-solving
Take a look at the response to the earlier negative review of a diner.
Here’s what this business is getting right:
- They apologize for the customer’s poor experience. This is an essential element of all responses to negative reviews, demonstrating empathy.
- They present themselves professionally and accountably as the new general manager of this location.
- They greet the customer by name and use cordial language.
- They don’t argue with the customer, blame them, or try to shift blame onto lower-level staff. Instead, they take personal responsibility for the negative experience.
- They express appreciation for the customer using their free time to give feedback. This business manager understands that many unhappy customers will simply walk away without explanation.
- They offer information about what might have contributed to the negative experience. In this case, the business has just undergone a change in management, which could lead to some initial hiccups that can be fixed.
- They offer to make things right for the customer. This is critical and should be part of every response to a negative review.
- They offer direct contact information with the goal of achieving a resolution. If the customer accepts the invitation, the business has a valuable opportunity to win them back. Even if the customer doesn’t follow up, the business has demonstrated to the public that it’s committed to solving customer problems and delivering a satisfactory experience.
Overall, this is an excellent response to a negative review. Take inspiration from it. The one detail that could take this to the next level of usefulness is an explanation of what the business has done to address the exact problem the customer mentioned: short staffing.
This response could go one better with a statement like,
“I’ve taken your experience to heart. I agree we need another staff member on Saturday mornings to serve valued patrons like yourself. Going forward, we’re doubling our hosts during that timeframe so that you’ll be quickly greeted and seated. Thank you so much for helping us improve our service.”
Sometimes, you’ll find yourself in the tough situation of having to reply to a textless negative rating without any explanation of what went wrong.
Look at the tone of the above example in which a small grocery store owner is inviting the customer to contact them to provide further details. This, at least, demonstrates the business’s care and responsiveness.
This same business exemplifies professionalism when faced with inaccurate claims and very negative language. They assure the customer that their food is prepared fresh daily while also apologizing for the patron’s disappointment. They then offer a replacement meal on the house and friendly good wishes.
If your brand can field complaints with the same level of grace and problem solving, you’ll be doing everything you can to earn the best reputation in town.
Review response templates
Make use of this template for responding to a legitimate complaint:
Hello [customer name],
I
want to personally apologize for your experience not living up to our
high customer service standards. I can completely understand your
disappointment and am sorry for it.
I’m the [job title] at [business name],
and it’s my job to make this right for you. I appreciate you taking the
time to let us know that we need to fix this problem. Would you please
contact me directly at [phone/email/text] so that I can personally assist you?
We
truly value your business and are committed to ensuring you have a much
better experience with us. I’ll be hoping to hear from you.
Thank you,
[name and job title]
Feel free to add an explanation of what went wrong if the reviewer has given you enough information to troubleshoot.
Make use of this template for misunderstandings:
Hello [customer name],
Please
accept my apology for the misunderstanding which resulted in you having
an experience that did not live up to our high customer service
standards. I’m the [job title] at [business name], and it’s my job to make this right for you.
On the day you visited us, [explanation of the cause of the problem]. Thanks to your feedback, we have now rectified this issue and would like to offer you [offer] in hopes of making up for your inconvenience. We are so sorry and want to do anything we can to make this right for you.
Please, contact me directly at [phone/email/text] so I can personally ensure that you’re fully satisfied. Thank you so much for reaching out to us.
Sincerely,
[name and job title]
Sometimes, a customer will complain because they didn’t understand a store policy before engaging with the business. While the details of these scenarios vary greatly, here’s a general template you can work from in such cases:
Hello [customer name],
This is [name], the [job title] at [business name]. I’m truly sorry that you experienced disappointment regarding [policy].
I understand that you didn’t realize this is our official store policy,
and I truly value you taking the time to let us know you were surprised
by it.
I’d appreciate it if you would be willing to contact me directly at [phone/email/text]
so that I can do everything in my power to ensure you feel you’ve been
treated fairly as our customer. We’re grateful for your business and I
want to do all I can to make things right.
Again, please accept my apology and I’ll be hoping to hear from you.
Sincerely,
[name and job title]
When and how to flag a review for removal
Getting spam reviews removed will positively impact your reputation. However, in order to qualify for removal, a review must clearly demonstrate that it violates Google’s guidelines.
Sometimes, even when a violation is obvious, Google won’t act on your removal request. Nevertheless, it’s worth trying. Follow these steps for making the best effort to remove spammy or fraudulent reviews.
Step 1. Read carefully through Google’s “Prohibited and restricted content” guidelines to see whether the review falls under their definition of review spam.
For example, if a review contains hate speech, it qualifies for removal. If, however, you’re simply unhappy about your business receiving a legitimate complaint, that’s not content Google will take down.
Step 2. Make sure you’re signed into the Google account that’s associated with the listing that has been affected.
While in Google, type in “my business” to bring up the dashboard for your New Merchant Experience (NMX). Click the “read reviews” icon and locate the suspicious review in question. Click the three dots next to that review.
Choose the “report review” button. This option will let you begin the process to request removal of the spam review.
Step 3. Wait three days. During this time, avoid doing anything with the review.
Step 4. If after this waiting period, the review hasn’t been removed, go to the Manage Your Google Reviews Tool to check the status of what you’ve reported.
Use the “listing name” field to search for your business by name. To see whether the decision is still pending or if it’s been accepted or rejected, click the radio button titled “check the status of a review I reported previously.”
In the case of your request being rejected, use the option of the “appeal eligible reviews” radio button, which will take you to a field for providing further information about the particular policy that the spam review is violating. After submitting the further detailed information, Google will give you a case ID.
Usually, it takes a couple of weeks to hear back from Google. Unfortunately, in the case of a second denial, there’s no option for submitting another appeal.
Step 5. If the above steps do not cause Google to remove the questionable review, there are additional options available to you:
- Go to the Google Business Profile Help Community Forum and post the details of the steps you’ve taken so far and why your case needs a second look. Be sure to include your case ID. Hopefully, this step will result in a forum volunteer escalating the problem to Google for further consideration.
- Take legal action by contacting a lawyer who can advise you on how to identify and contact the source of the spam review.
- You can respond to the review by expressing that you believe the review isn’t legitimate and that you’ve reported it to Google. This approach shows your customer base that you’ve at least addressed the negative review and that it may, in fact, not be a real reflection of a customer’s experience at the business.
- Accept that you can’t do anything about this particular negative review. Instead, focus on the work you need to do to continue to earn positive reviews. Over time, these positive reviews should outweigh and push down any negative sentiment.
- You have the option to go to the media if you strongly feel that you’re being hit by a spam attack and Google is doing nothing to rectify the situation. A report of this kind put out through news sites and social media can create a negative PR situation for Google that can get their attention in a way that other approaches can’t. This may prompt them to take positive action.
Turning negative reviews into opportunities
Reviews provide free, real-time business intelligence. They let you know how well a branch is performing at any given time and frequently contain valuable clues about what needs to be fixed to improve local reputation.
Learn to see and act on negative reviews with the understanding that they’re giving your business the opportunity to offer better customer service.
Use feedback to improve processes and training
As we can see, this location of a major pizza chain has a reputation problem to solve. Its 3.4 Google star rating is falling very close to the point at which most customers will stop choosing the business.
What needs to be fixed to turn this location around?
Reviews provide some important clues. If we filter by “lowest rating,” we see issues with:
1. Quality control
Problem: The customer received a flawed product
Action: Investigate why toppings are running out and train staff not to fill orders unless all ingredients are present
2. Employee behavior
Problem: The customer alleges that an employee behaved rudely
Action: Implement an employee training program to give staff the skills to communicate appropriately with the public across all common workday scenarios
3. Staff complaint resolution training
Problem: The staff didn’t know how to resolve or escalate a complaint appropriately
Action: Train and authorize staff to resolve and escalate problems appropriately at the time of service to avoid negative reviews of this kind
4. Technical problems
Problem: The system being used may have a bug that’s mixing up customer order details
Action: Investigate why multiple negative reviews are citing receiving the wrong order. Is a technical error in the ordering system at the root of many of these complaints? To find out, troubleshoot the issue and resolve accordingly.
5. Inadequate staffing
Problem: There’s inadequate staff to greet customers by phone
Action: This is one of just many reviews from customers saying they can’t reach the business by phone until they call multiple times. Investigate the cause of staff not being available to take calls and consider adding extra employees to the busiest shifts.
6. Health and safety problems
Problem: There’s a complaint about sanitation at the premises
Action: A janitorial solution must be put in place to avoid failure to pass food inspection. Investigate all complaints related to health and safety, including unsanitary conditions and multiple reports of food preparers not wearing gloves.
Your task: Bucket negative feedback into groups like those shown above to identify problem patterns. Investigate causes and implement solutions based on your findings.
Follow up with the customer to repair the relationship
Make use of our owner response templates to quickly address all future complaints. Remember to apologize, accept responsibility, offer to make things right, and include direct contact information in hopes that a reviewer will be motivated to reach out for resolution.
Ask updated reviewers to reflect changes in their feedback
If you’re able to connect directly with the negative reviewer and are confident that you’ve restored their trust and satisfaction, ask them if they’d be willing to update their review and rating. But never offer an incentive in exchange for a review being positively edited—this falls afoul of Google’s guidelines.
Proactive strategies to offset negative reviews
While it’s true that negative reviews offer helpful business intelligence, it’s better to receive as few of them as possible. Use the following strategies to prevent negative customer experiences and earn maximum positive feedback.
How to generate a steady stream of authentic positive reviews
There’s no substitute for providing excellent customer service. The key ingredients to this are:
- Careful staff hiring practices: Employ people who are able to represent your brand well. For example, new hires should be enthusiastic about helping people and have decent communications skills that can be improved with training.
- Supportive company culture: Take care of your employees so that they’re in good shape to take care of your customers. For example, providing a fair wage for your staff ensures that they don’t arrive at work burdened with stress that undermines their performance on the job.
- Rigorous staff training practices: Develop the customer service skills of your employees through initial and ongoing training that includes complaint resolution, product/service expertise, and communications. For example, you could go beyond employee onboarding sessions and have a monthly all-hands meeting to role-play common customer service challenges and strategies.
- Employee empowerment: Authorize staff to use their creativity to go the extra mile for clients to create the kinds of consumer experiences that inspire 5-star reviews. For example, employees can be authorized to maximize customer comfort (within reason, of course). Supermarket employees can offer extra assistance carrying groceries to cars. Stores with large footprints can create rest stops for tired shoppers. Staff could create warming/cooling stations for pets on a seasonal basis, and be encouraged to offer free perks to brighten customers’ days year-round. Even small gestures are memorable.
Combine these foundational elements with online audits of your website, local business listings, unstructured citations, and social profiles for basic data accuracy. Keep these assets updated to prevent customers from having the negative experience of encountering incorrect contact and hours of operation information. Remember, a good online experience contributes to positive reviews.
Best timing to request reviews from happy customers
Run a test over the course of several months to identify the ideal time frame to request reviews from your customers. There’s no general best practice to follow since the answer is unique to each business, which is why you need to try out a variety of request periods to find the “sweet spot.”
Structure research like this:
Month 1: Request reviews in person at the time of service
Month 2: Request reviews via email or text/SMS notification on the same day you provided service
Month 3: Request reviews via email or text/SMS notification on the day following service
Month 4: Request reviews via email or text/SMS notification one week after service
Month 5: Request reviews via email or text/SMS notification two weeks after service
By running this test, you’ll see exactly which timing works best for your customers because it’s resulting in the highest rate of response. Once you’ve determined the ideal timing of review requests, standardize this as your business policy.
Here are four review request templates you can customize and use via email or text for both brick-and-mortar businesses like retail shops or service area businesses like plumbers.
Email review request template for brick-and-mortar brand
Hi [customer name],
We were so glad to see you at [company name]! I’m [name and job title], and it’s my job to make sure you had a good experience with us.
Would you mind giving us your feedback via [name and link to review profile]? We’d really appreciate it. And if you have any concerns you’d like my help with, please feel free to contact me directly at [contact information].
Thank you so much for your business and for taking the time to leave us a review!
[review platform link or button]
Sincerely,
[name and job title]
SMS review request template for brick-and-mortar brand
Thank you for choosing [company name]! We’d love your feedback on [name and link to review profile] if you have a minute. Thanks!
Email review request template for service-area business
Hi [customer name],
It was [company name]’s pleasure to serve you. I’m [name and job title], and it’s my job to make sure our work met your expectations.
Would you mind giving us your feedback via [name and link to review profile]? We’d really appreciate it. And if you have any concerns you’d like my help with, please feel free to contact me directly at [contact information].
Thank you so much for your business and for taking the time to leave us a review!
[review platform link or button]
Sincerely,
[name and job title]
SMS review request template for service-area business
Did we do a good job for you at [company name]? Please review us at [name and link to review profile] if you have a minute. Thank you!
Balancing review velocity with authenticity
Never engage in a review acquisition campaign that’s designed to bring in an unusually large volume of reviews all at once. This activity is likely to lead to Google suppressing your incoming reviews.
For example, if your brand had a backlog of customer contact information you’d like to send belated review requests to, don’t reach out to the entire list all at once. Instead, pace requests over the course of several months.
Investigate the average monthly review volume of your top local competitors. Your ideal goal is to earn a slightly higher volume, but not one that’s extremely higher than the average. Don’t forget, customers can also become suspicious if your business has far more reviews than all of its competitors.
Tools & automation for review management
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the task of constantly monitoring reviews and responding to them, you’re not alone. Tools and automation can lighten this burden in many cases.
When you commit to a professional reputation management program, a few questions commonly arise. Here are some FAQs to consider:
Q: Do I need reputation management software?
A: Regardless of business size, nearly all local brands benefit from having a single organized dashboard for reputation management. This gives you a dedicated space for being alerted to incoming reviews, responding to them, and analyzing them across multiple review platforms.
If you’re marketing a very small business that’s unlikely to receive many reviews, you may be able to handle all of these tasks manually, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Given the massive role of reputation in local search rankings and conversions, it’s a good business move to invest in reputation management software.
Q: Should I automate review responses?
A: If staff are tasked with responding to reviews, one level of automation that can deliver efficiency and solidify brand voice is templatization. Some reputation management software will let you create response templates and associate them with different levels of star ratings. These can provide your employees with a framework for responding with a brand-approved voice to different review scenarios.
However, templates should also be treated as a starting point. Employees shouldn’t be trained to continuously publish the same responses verbatim.
A Google Business Profile that’s filled with identical responses across multiple reviews is unlikely to impress the public. Obviously canned responses come off sounding robotic or overly corporate, giving the impression that the brand can’t relate to its customers and doesn’t care.
Some brands are now experimenting with using AI to respond to reviews. As with human-written responses, templatized answers look generic and inauthentic when published at scale. Weigh carefully whether any AI product you’re using is resulting in your brand looking monotonous and uncaring.
Reviews are one of your primary channels for making direct connections with your customers. Be wary of becoming disconnected from the people you serve.
Q: What if I inherit a business with bad past negative reviews?
A: Unfortunately, unless the business changes its name, Google typically won’t remove reviews when a business has a new owner or manager. Instead, you can take the time to look through older negative reviews and write responses to them.
Let former dissatisfied customers know that the business is now under new ownership/management, and that you would love the reviewer to come in for a much better experience.
Q: How stressed should I be about negative reviews?
A: This is entirely a matter of scale. Having a few negative reviews within a healthy overall body of positive reviews is usually no worry at all. In fact, it can even make your business look more authentic to the public because nobody bats 1,000 and most consumers realize this.
A business with only glowing feedback may look suspicious to its community, whereas one with mainly positive reviews and a few complaints will seem more real and relatable.
It’s appropriate to start stressing if:
- You see an uptick in negative reviews related to a new problem that needs to be fixed at the business
- You’re being targeted with a review spam attack
Otherwise, try not to sweat the occasional complaint. Few consumers expect perfection but most customers want to feel heard.
Next steps to improve your local SEO
Reviews are just one of the aspects that contribute to a high degree of local search visibility. If you’ve been envying your top competitors, learn to do a local SEO audit so that you can match and surpass their best metrics
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