Handling negative comments and reviews on social

The angry comment is rarely what damages a business. The reply is. A customer complaining about a cold coffee is forgettable. An owner replying “maybe try drinking it instead of photographing it” gets screenshotted and passed around every community group in town.

So the goal isn’t to make negative comments disappear. It’s to make sure anyone reading the thread later comes away thinking “they handled that well”. In a regional town, that reader might be your next customer, your landlord or your kid’s teacher.

First, work out who you’re dealing with

Not every negative comment deserves the same response. Before you type anything, put it in one of these buckets.

A real customer with a real problem. They bought something, booked something or dealt with your staff, and it went wrong. This is most negative comments, and they deserve a proper answer.

A real customer who’s misunderstood something. They think you’ve closed, think you’ve put prices up, or are confusing you with another business. A friendly correction usually sorts it.

Someone with an axe to grind. An ex-staff member, a neighbour in a dispute, a competitor’s mate. They may or may not have been a customer.

A troll or spammer. No real connection to you, there to provoke or to sell something. Crypto bots, fake giveaways, people who comment the same thing on every local page.

Responding to real customers

The pattern that works is simple: acknowledge, take responsibility for what’s yours, offer a fix, and move the details somewhere private. Keep the public reply short. You’re writing for the audience as much as the customer.

A before and after, based on the kind of exchange we see regularly.

Comment: Waited 50 minutes for two burgers on Saturday night and nobody said a word. Not good enough.

Reply that makes it worse: We were absolutely slammed Saturday, there was a 60 person booking and two staff called in sick. We do our best!

Reply that helps: That’s too long to wait without anyone checking in, and I’m sorry. Saturday was busier than we’d planned for, but that’s on us, not you. I’ve sent you a message, I’d like to make it right.

The first reply explains, which reads as excusing. The second owns the bit that matters (nobody told them) and moves on. Notice it also names the person replying as “I”. Comments from a person land better than comments from “The Management”.

A few rules:

• Reply within a day. A complaint sitting unanswered for a week looks like you don’t care, or don’t check.
• Don’t argue facts in public, even when you’re right. If the details are wrong, say “that’s not what our records show, I’ve messaged you so we can sort it out” and leave it there.
• Never mention private details like what they ordered last time, their address or their booking history.
• Follow up. If you fixed it, it’s fine to come back and add “Thanks for letting us sort this out” to the public thread once the customer is happy.

When to take it to private messages

Move it to messages when the fix involves details: refunds, booking times, addresses, a specific staff member, anything medical, anything legal. Say publicly that you’ve done it, then actually do it.

What you shouldn’t do is use “please DM us” as a way of ending the conversation. People can tell. If the issue is simple (“are you open on Anzac Day?”), answer it in the thread.

Responding to misunderstandings

Correct, don’t condescend. Something like:

Good question, we’ve changed our hours for winter. We’re now open Wednesday to Sunday, 7am to 2pm. Sorry for the confusion.

Then update the hours wherever else they appear: your website, pinned posts and your Google Business Profile, which is where most people check hours first.

Trolls, grudges and spam

Spam and scams: delete and ban. No reply needed. Bots selling things or posting phishing links aren’t part of a conversation.

Trolls: don’t feed them. One calm reply at most, then hide or ignore. A long back and forth is exactly what they want.

Someone with a grudge: reply once, briefly and factually, for the benefit of onlookers. “We’ve tried to resolve this privately and the offer still stands.” Then stop. If it escalates into threats or harassment, report it to the platform and keep screenshots.

Hide, delete or ban

Facebook gives you three main options, and they do different things.

Hide makes the comment invisible to everyone except the person who wrote it and their friends. They usually don’t know it’s been hidden, which makes it the least inflammatory option for trolls. Meta explains how to hide a comment on your Facebook Page.

Delete removes it for everyone. The person who wrote it may notice, and some will come back angrier.

Ban stops that profile commenting or messaging your Page again.

Our view: hide or delete trolls, spam, abuse, and anything with personal attacks on staff. Do not hide or delete genuine complaints from real customers. That’s not just bad manners, it can backfire legally (see below), and other locals often remember the original comment anyway.

Instagram has similar tools: you can delete comments, restrict an account (their comments are only visible to them unless you approve them) or block. Both platforms also let you filter keywords so certain comments are hidden automatically.

The legal bit, briefly

Two things Australian businesses should know. This is general information, not legal advice.

Reviews: the ACCC says businesses shouldn’t remove, suppress or edit genuine negative reviews, because that can mislead consumers. You can ask a platform to remove a review you have good reason to think is fake, and you can reply publicly. The ACCC’s guidance on online reviews sets out the rules. It applies to Facebook recommendations and Google reviews as well as reviews on your own website.

Comments on your Page: after the High Court’s 2021 decision in Fairfax Media Publications v Voller, Page owners can be treated as publishers of comments other people leave on their posts. NSW and the ACT introduced a new defence in 2024 for people who host third-party comments, which depends on having an easy way for people to complain and taking down defamatory material promptly once you’re told about it. In practice: if someone flags a comment on your Page as defamatory, deal with it quickly and get advice if it’s serious.

Turn it into a process

If more than one person manages your social media, write down who answers complaints, how fast, and what they’re allowed to offer (a replacement, a refund up to a set amount, a call from the owner). Agree on it before the next bad Saturday, not during.

A bad review handled well can do more for trust than a good one. For the other side of the equation, see getting more Google reviews without breaking the rules.

If keeping on top of comments is the part that keeps slipping, it’s one of the most common reasons people outsource their social media. Our social media management clients get a daily check of comments and messages, with anything sensitive passed straight back to them. Some businesses only need the first piece: a written complaints process the whole team follows. That’s a smaller job, and you can send us a message to start it.