LöscheuleA public reply usually no longer reaches the author. It reaches the people who read your profile over the coming years and look closely at how you handle criticism.
Short, factual, and without going into detail
Three or four sentences are enough: that you regret what they describe, what you can say about it, and a way to sort it out outside the profile. A phone number or email address of your business belongs in it, an eight-line justification does not.
The most common mistake is a counter-story with date, time and amount. To strangers it looks like an argument, and it pushes the review up, because activity attracts attention.
What does not belong in a reply
No names, no addresses, no order numbers, nothing from a file. Personal information is a separate policy category at Google, and it applies to your reply just as much as to the review.
Insinuations about the author do not belong in it either. Writing publicly that the other person is a former employee or the competition proves nothing and gives the matter a stage.
Your reply can make a later report harder
Few people know this: a public reply in which you refer to a visit, an order or an appointment confirms for everyone to see that there was customer contact.
If you later want to report the same review as Fake Engagement because the author was never a customer, your own reply works against you. That is why it pays to check briefly before replying whether the review is a case for a report.
Conversely: where the criticism is genuine, a reply is the better tool, and a report would be hopeless anyway.
Reply to the good ones too
A profile where only the bad reviews have a reply looks defensive. Two lines under a good review cost nothing and show that someone is paying attention.
And if you reply regularly, you see a new review on the same day rather than three weeks later. For a report, that is the difference between fresh and old.
Key points
A good reply is short, gives no details and offers a way out of the profile. And it is written after you have decided whether the review should be reported.
Does this apply to one of your reviews?
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These texts explain Google’s policies, not the legal situation. Löscheule is not a legal services provider within the meaning of § 2 RDG (German Legal Services Act). If your case is a legal dispute, you need a lawyer.