How to Respond to a Bad Review — The 10-Minute Decision Kit

A free ten-minute decision kit for responding to a bad or unfair business review. Work out whether to reply, how, and when to say nothing at all.

A bad review has landed. You've read it four times and you're not sure how to respond. You've drafted a reply and deleted it twice. You have about ten minutes before you say something you can't take back.

The pressure isn't the wording.It's not knowing whether to reply at all — and knowing that whatever you post is permanent and public. Most people start in the wrong place.

They open a blank box and start writing. Fifteen minutes later they have a defensive paragraph that reads like an argument, addressed to the one person who has already made up their mind — and ignoring the forty future customers who will read it next week.

Written by a communications leader with 20+ years running these decisions in high-scrutiny environments.



What's inside

— The three-part test: is it true, is it public, is it finished

— A five-question decision pathway that ends in one of four outcomes

— Public reply, private reply, pause 24 hours, or no response — and how to tell which

— Adaptable wording for each outcome, written to be edited, not copied

— One worked example, start to finish

Who this is for

Owners, managers and whoever ends up handling the message — in a business that doesn't have a communications team and shouldn't need one to answer a review well.

What this isn't

It isn't a script bank. There are no fifty templates here, and the reason is simple: the hard part was never the words. If you want volume, it's cheaply available elsewhere. This is for the decision.

This is not legal advice, reputation-management software or a promise that a reviewer will remove or change their review.

Download the free kit

Click 'ADD TO CART' (above), enter your email and it's yours. Protect the next customer’s confidence, and open the kit before you reply.

Already handling reviews regularly? The full Bad Review Response Kit covers ten situations, the false-review process and the six sentences never to publish. A$29.