How you answer
Your replies to reviews are read far more carefully than your reviews. The homeowner weighing you up is not really auditing one bad job. They are trying to work out what you will be like if something goes wrong on theirs, and your replies are the only evidence they have.
How much this weighs when I read a company the way a homeowner does: 10 out of 100.
Start here
Respond to a bad Google review, fair or not
Before you reply to a bad Google review, check the job's record. Then own what you got wrong, or state the facts.
16 min read
Fake review? How to respond, with an example
Got a fake Google review? Check your records first. Nothing there? Report it, then post one calm reply with your phone number.
16 min read
What gets read
- Whether you reply at all, and how quickly
- Whether the reply is specific or a template with a name dropped in
- What you do with the one that was unfair
- Whether the tone would reassure somebody who is already nervous
What owners ask me about this
- Should I reply to every review?
- To every critical one, without exception. To the good ones, often enough that the page does not look like you only turn up to defend yourself. A listing where the only replies sit under complaints reads defensively, even when every word of them is reasonable.
- What do I say to a review that is not true?
- Not the thing you want to say. Write it for the person reading it next, never for the person who wrote it. State what happened, plainly, without sarcasm, and say what you offered to do. Anybody reading will make up their own mind, and a calm factual reply under an unfair review does more for you than the review cost. Arguing is the only way to actually lose.
- Does replying change anything?
- It changes what the page communicates, which is the part doing the work. A complaint with a measured reply underneath it reads as a business that handles problems. The same complaint with silence underneath reads as a business that ignores them. Same job, same customer, opposite conclusion, decided entirely by whether anybody bothered to answer.
Everything above is the general case. Yours has names in it.
From here I can't see where you stand on this, or which rival is ahead. Chalkline Reports reads your own company the way a homeowner does.