Responding to reviews

Reviews are public. Your responses are public too. Here’s how to use that.

Where to read reviews

Dashboard → Reviews. Sorted newest first by default. Filter by rating, by tag, or by whether you’ve responded.

You’ll get an email when a new review is posted, but you can mute that under Notifications if you’d rather check on a schedule.

Responding

Tap any review and select Reply. Your response appears below the review, attributed to your café. You have 1,000 characters.

You can edit your response any time. We don’t keep edit history visible to customers, so you can clean up typos without leaving a paper trail.

What to do with positive reviews

A short thank-you is usually enough. The high-quality move is to mention something specific from the review. “Glad you found the back courtyard, it’s our favourite corner” tells future readers that you read what people write.

Don’t reply to every five-star review with the same template. Customers notice.

What to do with critical reviews

The worst response to a bad review is no response. The second-worst is defensive. The best is calm and specific.

A useful structure:

1. Acknowledge the experience without disputing it. “Sorry to hear the wait was long that morning.”
2. Add context only if it’s useful. “We had two staff out and the queue got away from us.”
3. Say what’s changed or how you’d handle it differently. “We’ve added a third staff member to weekend mornings since then.”
4. Invite them back if it feels right. “If you give us another go, ask for me at the counter.”

Don’t argue. Don’t accuse the reviewer of lying. Don’t call out individual staff. The audience for your reply is every future customer, not the reviewer.

What we’ll remove

We rarely remove reviews. We will if a review:

• Identifies or attacks staff personally
• Makes specific allegations (food poisoning, hygiene) without evidence
• Contains profanity or harassment
• Is part of an obvious coordinated campaign

You can flag a review through the dashboard. We respond within 48 hours.

See also

• Reading your analytics dashboard