How to reply to Google reviews of your hotel, good and bad

This is OneHorizyn's own guide, written from Google's help pages. You reply on Google itself, signed in to the Google Account that manages your hotel's Business Profile. Google lets only a verified business reply, so verify your profile first.

1. 1Find your profile, signed in: on Google Search, search for your hotel's name and town, or for “my business”; on Google Maps, search for your hotel's name and town; in the Google Maps app, tap “Business” at the bottom right.
2. 2Select “Read reviews”.
3. 3Next to the review, select “Reply”.
4. 4Write your reply in the box that opens.
5. 5Select “Reply” to post it.

On Google Maps on a computer you can also open your profile, scroll to “Reviews” and click “Reply” under the review. Your profile is at business.google.com too, Google's own page for it.

• Google checks the reply against its content policies, which replies follow just as reviews do. It usually takes up to 10 minutes, and sometimes up to 30 days. If a reply isn't approved, Google asks you to edit it.
• Once approved, it is posted in public under the review, as a reply from your hotel. Your own name isn't shown.
• The guest is told that you replied. They can still change their review afterwards, and its date then changes to the day they did.
• To change a reply, open “Read reviews”, select “Edit” under it, change it and select “Update”. To take it down, select “Delete”, then “Delete” again.

• Low ratings from the past year, the newest first: they are the ones a guest scrolling your reviews sees.
• Anything about safety, hygiene, health, theft or harassment: answer it the same day.
• Then every other review without a reply, good ones included. A short thank-you in your own words takes a minute and shows somebody reads them.

Google's own tips for replies are to be professional and polite, keep it short and simple, address the reviewer by name, sign off with your own name or initials, and reply in good time. In practice:

1. 1Thank the guest by name, and for the detail they gave.
2. 2Name the problem in their words, so it is clear the review was read.
3. 3Say what you did about it, or what you will do, in one plain sentence.
4. 4Offer a way to reach a person: a name, and an email address or phone number, not a form.
5. 5Keep it to four or five sentences, and sign it with your name and role.

Google says a bad review isn't necessarily a sign of poor service, and is a chance to understand what guests expect. Its tips for answering one:

• Protect privacy: never share the guest's private details, and never attack them. If it is complicated, ask them to contact you by phone or email, to sort it out privately.
• Be honest about limits: admit any mistake, but don't take the blame for what was outside your control, and say what you could and couldn't do.
• Apologise when it is due. Google says a genuine apology can go a long way.
• Follow up on the complaint. Google says a constructive reply shows you care, and may even lead the guest to update their review.

If a review breaks Google's rules, such as a fake review or one from a rival, report it as well as replying (see the guide on getting a fake or unfair Google review taken down).

• The argument. Even when the guest is wrong, a reply that corrects them reads badly to everyone else.
• The same paragraph on every review. Readers notice, and Google's own tips advise against sending the same thank-you to everyone.
• Personal details: the booking, the price paid, anything the guest did not say themselves.
• Offers and promotions. Google's tips say a reply is not the place for deals, and its rules forbid offering anything in return for changing or removing a review. If you put something right for a guest, do it privately, and never tie it to the review.

A reply settles one review. When the same complaint appears in review after review, the reply is not the fix. Count what your low ratings are about, fix the one that comes up most, and say so in the next reply about it.