What Ignored Reviews Are Costing Your Brand

Sure, you read your reviews. In fact, you read every single one, usually within a minute of the notification arriving.

But you don’t reply to them.

And the reasons are all perfectly sensible. You are busy. You have no idea what to say to somebody who is clearly furious. Thanking a stranger for writing “good food, will come again” feels a bit silly and self-serving. Whatever the case, you end up leaving it, and then before you know it there are now nine of them. “That’s a bit overwhelming”, you think…and then you stop looking.

But here’s a fact that turns all of that into a bit of an issue…your replies are NOT just for the person who left the review. They’re for everyone who sees your profile!

The short answer

Google lists responding to reviews in its own guidance on improving your local ranking, saying that helpful replies can help your business stand out.

But equally important are how people see your business.

Let’s say another reviewer’s complaint is seen by someone who happens on your profile, and there’s no reply from you. You’ve allowed that problem to stay unaddressed! Someone reading might see that as indifference, as you not caring about that person’s issues.

Similarly, if someone compliments your business and you don’t answer, it also could look like indifference.

Who is actually reading your review replies?

Ironically, it’s likely NOT the person who wrote the review. Sure, Google notifies them once when you reply, but that’s one exchange that’s quickly forgotten.

But everybody else deciding whether to visit you can see that exchange days, weeks or months later.

That’s why I mentioned earlier that your reply isn’t for the reviewer, but for everyone else.

You are not writing to the angry customer, or the person who called your decorations cute. You’re writing to the next two hundred people who will read that review thread while they’re actively deciding whether to visit your business.

And this matters more than it used to, because for most businesses the profile is now where the decision gets made, not the website. And reviews, being the unfiltered, genuine thoughts and experiences of someone who visited your business, are a very important part of your profile!

Even more is that increasingly, some of those readers aren’t people at all!

When someone asks an AI assistant to recommend a place nearby, it has to pick out a few businesses to name, and it’s reading the same profile your customers are. Your replies are sitting right there in it, as public text alongside the reviews.

Nobody outside Google can tell you the exact impact that makes, but they’re definitely easily available to read!

What does silence actually communicate?

I mentioned above that an unanswered complaint can look like indifference. Fact is, it can also seem like you even agree with their complaint. Not because anybody assumes you agree, but because you didn’t even bother to address their problems.

Say a reviewer said the kitchen was filthy, and you never countered that. Someone reading their review will take that observation at face value.

And when I said unanswered praise also feels like you don’t care? Well, somebody went out of their way, opened an app, and typed something nice about your business for free, and you didn’t even have the courtesy to thank them! That’s something not just guests considering visiting your business will notice, but even those who might’ve wanted to leave a positive review of their own. Now, maybe they won’t. They won’t even get a “thank you”, after all!

As unfair as this might feel, the fact is that someone reading your reviews can’t tell the difference between a business that is too busy to reply and one that doesn’t care.

Does replying actually affect my Google ranking?

Yes! Google puts “Respond to reviews” directly inside its guidance on how to improve your local ranking, and describes the effect as helping your business stand out.

But Google doesn’t publish an exact number either.

There is no stated response rate or threshold to reach, no reply-within-x-hours metric, and no weighting for you to consider. So if you ever happen to see any of this, like “your ranking improves by 10% at an 80% response rate!”, that’s not true. We recommend you treat the ranking effect as plain logic: if your reviews and replies make you look like you care about your business and customers, people will notice.

Don’t forget that to reply to reviews, you’ll need to have some in the first place. Our piece on why reviews are your most powerful growth tool gives you a closer look at how you can achieve this, and trust us, that’s just as important as replying to reviews!

A reply can sometimes change the review’s rating, but always changes how people see it

And not just for the reasons we explained above!

Google notifies the customer when you reply, and explains that customers can still change their review afterwards. If they do, the date updates to show when. This is important, because it also says a constructive response from you might influence the reviewer to update what they wrote!

So the one-star review you were scared to reply to, let alone even acknowledge, isn’t a permanent rating! Sure, there’s no guarantee that your reply will convince them to change it from a one either, but why not attempt to do so anyway? After all, you have every right to explain your side of the story.

And even if they don’t change their rating, a calm, sympathetic and rational reply from you will certainly make a difference to others who happen on that review.

What a reader sees when they compare two profiles

Picture somebody choosing between two dental clinics on the same soi. Both of their profiles show 4.3 stars. They’ve also both got a one-star review complaining about a long wait and a receptionist who was quite rude to them.

Under the first clinic’s review, there’s no reply.

Under the second, the clinic responded: they’re sorry about the wait, Tuesday mornings had been running over since they changed the appointment system, it has been fixed, and here is a number to call if the reader wants to talk it through before booking.

Which one would you choose to visit?

See how that second clinic’s reply isn’t just “damage control” for that single bad review? Rather, it’s a long-lasting piece of evidence that future customers will see, and basically allowed them to take control of the situation a bit better. The first clinic’s lack of a reply just let their one-star review take over completely.

Which reviews are worth replying to?

Honestly, as many as you can manage, but just as important is to make sure you aren’t replying the exact same way to them.

How do you do that? Google's own advice is to concentrate on the reviews where you can share a helpful update or answer a question.

That means a wall of identical “Thank you for your review!” replies is not useful at all. Anyone can copy-paste that, just processing rather than reading, and a customer scrolling your profile will definitely pick up on it.

One notable exception that requires an entirely unique way of handling the situation though, are coordinated fake review attacks. Engaging with these publicly certainly isn’t going to help, so check out our article on it for more information.

So what does a good reply have to do?

Really, the main thing is to acknowledge the review in a way that doesn’t read as copy-paste. It should also give the reader the context the review might have left out, without arguing about whose account is correct.

Be sure it tones things down rather than heats them up, so it doesn’t look like a fight in public. Google even recommends asking the customer to continue by phone or email rather than working it out in the replies.

Google's guidance is blunt on the rest of it: keep replies short and straightforward, apologize when you should, never share private details about somebody's visit, and never ever make it personal! Similarly, don’t just turn your reply into an opportunity to promote something either, because providing something like a discount code or free product under a negative review just looks like you’re buying them out!

Begin building a habit of replying this month

You don’t have to sit and reply to reviews every day, and honestly, doing that won’t really help either. Start small, maybe weekly, or every two weeks. Either way, pick a rhythm and stick to it, because Google will appreciate the same rhythm it prefers for your other profile updates.

Each time, check your profile, reply to every negative review since the last check, and pick two or three positive ones that named something specific that you can directly thank them for noticing.

And if your profile isn’t getting reviews to even reply to, then work on your other job: getting reviews in the door, and keeping up with them.

And just in case you’re wondering why your reply didn’t show up the moment you submitted it: Google checks replies before publishing them. Most should appear within about ten minutes, but Google says it can occasionally take up to thirty days.

What if you’ve got the opposite problem of having WAY too many reviews to keep up with? Thankfully, there are a ton of solutions out there that let you put something in place to keep up. Do NOT just give up on replying!