You have just got a bad Google review
A guide you can use right now without buying anything. If it saves you from firing off the reply you are currently drafting in your head, it has done its job.
The first hour: do nothing
Almost every reply that turns a bad review into a bad week was written within twenty minutes of reading it. You are angry, you have context the reader does not, and you want to correct the record. All three of those make for a terrible public comment.
Write the furious version if it helps. Put it in a drafts folder. Do not paste it anywhere.
Then work out whether the review is fair, unfair, or removable, because the three need completely different handling.
If it is fair
Say so plainly, name the specific failure, and state what has changed as a result. Offer a remedy that is easy to claim and does not require the person to explain themselves again to a stranger.
Counter-intuitively this is the best outcome available to you. A visible, specific, un-defensive response to a real failure does more for the next reader than a wall of five stars.
If it is unfair
Do not argue the facts in the thread. Explain your position once, calmly, addressed to the audience rather than the reviewer, and invite the person to take it to a phone call.
Leave one door open — “if we have got this wrong we will fix it”. It costs nothing and it makes you the reasonable party in the exchange, which is the only thing being judged.
If it might be removable
Google will remove reviews that breach its policies. Broadly that means: not a genuine customer experience, posted about the wrong business, containing abuse or personal information, obviously spam, or a conflict of interest such as a competitor.
It will not remove a review because it is harsh, because you dispute the account, or because it is costing you money.
Report it through your Google Business Profile, and reply politely in the meantime. If it is later removed, no harm done. If it is not, you already have a measured response sitting under it rather than nothing.
Three replies that make it worse
“We have no record of you as a customer.”
Often true, and it reads as calling someone a liar. If you genuinely think it is fake, report it and reply neutrally. Do not accuse in public.
The paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttal
You may be completely right. Nobody reads a 400-word defence and comes away thinking better of the business. Length signals rattled.
Anything mentioning legal action
It escalates instantly, it is the detail that gets screenshotted and shared, and in Australia the defamation threshold for an honest opinion about a service is not where people hope it is. Take that conversation to a lawyer, not a comment box.
One thing not to do afterwards
Do not respond to a bad review by buying good ones, or by asking staff and family to post. Fake reviews breach the Australian Consumer Law, the ACCC has pursued businesses over them, and platforms are much better at detecting clustered posting than people assume. The downside is a suspended listing, which is far worse than one bad review.
Asking genuine happy customers to leave an honest review is fine and is the actual fix for a low average. Just ask everyone, not only the ones you expect to say something nice.
If you would rather not do this
That is the service. We watch for them, draft the reply within the hour, and you approve it from your phone. $149 a month and you can stop any time.
See what is included