How To Manage Negative Reviews from Home Service Business Customers

July 19, 2024

88% of consumers are willing to use a business that responds to all of its reviews, both the positive and negative ones. Even if your home service business provides superior customer service and quality workmanship, you will receive some negative reviews.

When you do receive a negative review, it's always best to respond to the review publicly in a professional and courteous manner, instead of ignoring it, trying to get it deleted, or even worse: responding to it negatively. Two negatives do not make a positive in this situation.

How To Reply To Negative Home Service Business Reviews on Google, Facebook, & Other Online Listing Platforms

We recommend that your replies include the following content, depending on the context provided in each negative review:

Apologize, even if you think the content in the review is incorrect or irrelevant. You can open with a line like, "We are sorry to hear that your experience didn't match your overall expectations."
Take responsibility, by agreeing that they should not have had to endure the experience they received.
Provide an explanation, only if you truly think it will improve the relationship with the reviewer and make readers of your response want to hire you in the future. While it can be helpful to provide some internal context that may have led to a miscommunication or poor customer experience, do NOT make excuses and do NOT assume that your explanation makes-up for the customer's experience.
Try to provide a solution that you would want to receive if you were in the reviewer's situation. For example, you may offer a discount, credit, or additional services free of charge. The money lost from attempting to truly rectify this one client's experience is often worth the investment because it can retain the current client, help you gain future clients who read how you handled this situation, and potentially gain referrals from the current client.
Offer to connect with the reviewer directly, outside of the review platform. Instead of numerous public replies between you and the reviewer, offer to talk with them directly, preferably by phone. If you know the contact information of the reviewer, you may say, "We take customer satisfaction extremely seriously, and will call you immediately to resolve this issue." Or, if you are not familiar with the reviewer and/or their project, you may say, "We take customer satisfaction extremely seriously, and are committed to rectifying this situation. Please feel free to contact us directly at (your business phone number) so that we can resolve this ASAP."
If the situation is resolved, request an updated review. A testimonial from someone who previously had a negative experience is incredibly powerful. Readers will see that you really do go above and beyond for your customers, instilling them with trust in your brand.

Requesting To Remove A Review

There are times that may warrant requesting a platform completely remove a review, like a review that is clearly referencing a different company, you can't find any record of ever having this reviewer as a client, or the content is irrelevant and/or vulgar. Luckily, these types of reviews are usually very rare.

However, when you do receive these types of reviews, it's still best to reply to irrelevant reviews with a statement like, "We are sorry to hear that your experience didn't match your overall expectations. However, we think you may have been trying to leave a review for a different business. Based on the context of this review, we do not have a record of this project in our system. Please feel free to contact us directly at (your business phone number) to discuss this and see if there is a way we can help resolve this situation."