Reviews, and the art of replying to a bad one
Reviews decide more local purchases than any advertising you will ever buy. Most businesses collect them badly, and almost all of them reply to the bad ones in the way that does the most damage.
- Ask the day after the job, while it still matters to them. A request three weeks later is a favour; a request the next day is a natural moment.
- A perfect five-star record reads as suspicious. A 4.7 with a handful of mixed reviews handled well is more persuasive than a flawless one.
- Reply to bad reviews for the next reader, not the reviewer. They have decided; the person reading it in three weeks has not.
- Never argue, never explain at length, and never mention anything about the customer that they did not put in the review themselves.
- Review requests are marketing under PECR: transacted customers only, always with an opt-out, never a purchased list.
A woman in Esher has three quotes for a bathroom. They are within eight hundred pounds of each other. She does not understand the technical differences and does not want to.
So she does what everybody does. She reads the reviews, and she reads them the way people actually read reviews: she looks at the average, then goes straight to the bad ones.
What she finds there decides it. Not the fourteen five-star reviews saying "great job, very tidy". The one two-star review, and — far more importantly — what the business said back.
Your reply to a bad review is read by more prospective customers than the review itself.
How do you actually get reviews?
By asking, at the right moment, with a link that takes one tap. Every part of that sentence is doing work.
Ask. Satisfied customers almost never leave reviews unprompted. Angry ones always do. An account with no review strategy therefore drifts negative over time — not because the work is bad but because only one group is motivated.
The right moment is the day after. Not at the end of the job, when they are still tidying up and you are still there, which makes it awkward. The next day, when the kitchen is quiet and it looks good and they have had the pleasure of using it once.
One tap. A direct link to the review form. Not "search for us on Google" — that is four steps and a decision, and it loses most people. Google provides a short link for exactly this.
Why a perfect record is worse than a good one
Fifty reviews, all five stars, all short, several posted in the same week. Consumers read this as bought, and increasingly they are right.
A 4.7 average with a couple of threes, answered calmly, is more persuasive than a flawless 5.0. It says the reviews are real, and it gives the reader something to weigh, which is what they came to do.
This is a genuinely liberating thing to understand: you are not trying to have no bad reviews. You are trying to have a body of evidence that a reasonable person would believe.
How to reply to a bad review
The instinct is to correct the record, because the review is usually unfair in some particular. Resist it entirely. You are not writing to the reviewer — they have decided. You are writing to the woman in Esher who will read this in three weeks with three quotes on the table.
She is not assessing who was right. She is assessing what you are like to deal with when something goes wrong, which is the only thing she genuinely cannot find out any other way.
So: short, calm, specific, and offering to continue it elsewhere.
Name the specific issue, say what you have done about it, and offer a direct way to continue. Two or three sentences, signed with a real name.
Explain the full history, dispute the timeline, mention what they were like to deal with, or use the phrase "as you are aware".
Reply within a couple of days. A months-old unanswered complaint reads as indifference.
Reply while angry. Write it, leave it overnight, read it in the morning. It will be shorter.
A good reply reads roughly like this: Thanks for this, and I am sorry the second visit slipped — that was our scheduling and it should not have happened. We have changed how we book follow-ups since. If you would like me to come and look at the sealant, ring me directly on 01483 000000. Daniel.
Fifty-two words. No argument, no defensiveness, one concrete change, a name and a number. The woman in Esher reads that and rings you, not because the review was good but because the answer was.
What never to do
- Never buy reviews. Beyond being against every platform's terms, it is a banned practice under UK consumer law, and it is far more visible than people assume.
- Never filter. Asking only the customers you expect to be happy is prohibited on most platforms and produces the suspiciously perfect record described above.
- Never offer anything in exchange. Not a discount, not a prize draw, not a bottle of wine.
- Never mention anything the customer did not. Volunteering details about their property, their payment history or their behaviour is the single fastest way to turn a two-star review into a screenshot that travels.
Reviews are the closest thing a local business has to compound interest. They accumulate slowly, they feed local search, they decide comparisons you never see, and they cost nothing but the discipline of asking. The Review Engine is £195 to set up and £129 a month, and it does one thing: it makes sure the asking actually happens on the days you are too busy to think about it.
Questions we get asked
When is the best time to ask for a review?
The day after the job is finished, while the result is still in front of them and their satisfaction is at its peak. A request weeks later asks somebody to reconstruct a feeling, and most people simply do not get round to it.
How should I reply to a negative review?
Briefly, without arguing, and addressed to future readers rather than the reviewer. Acknowledge the specific complaint, state plainly what you have done or would do, and offer to continue the conversation offline. Two or three sentences. A long defensive reply makes the business look worse than the original review did.
Is it bad to have a few negative reviews?
No — a small number handled well is better than none. An unbroken run of five-star reviews reads as either bought or filtered, and consumers are alert to it. A 4.7 average with a couple of mixed reviews answered calmly is more credible than a perfect record.
Can I ask customers to remove a bad review?
You can ask, once, politely, and only after resolving the underlying problem. What you must never do is offer payment or a discount in exchange, or pressure them. Both are visible when they go wrong and both are considerably more damaging than the review.
Are automated review requests legal in the UK?
Yes, with limits. A review request is direct marketing under PECR, so send it only to people who have actually bought from you, include a way to opt out of further messages, and never send to a purchased or scraped list. Requesting a review from someone who has never transacted with you is not permitted.