Running the Business · Part 5
Reviews: earning them, answering bad ones, and what you can and cannot do about a false one
Lesson 2.5 built the review system. This lesson is the part that comes after the first bad one: the two-sentence reply that wins the readers who were not there, the reply that loses them, the customer's legal right to say it (Civil Code 1670.8), the plumber's legal limit in answering (section 7161 applies to the reply), and the narrow path for a review that is actually false, where a lawyer's letter and California's anti-SLAPP statute make the threat to sue a bad idea for everyone but the customer. It closes with the review that most predicts a CSLB complaint, and what to do the day it appears.
What the full lesson covers
- Reply to every review within a day. Good ones: thanks by first name, one detail. Bad ones: acknowledge, state what you will do, offer a call, stop. Never reveal the customer's job details, never argue, never mention the invoice.
- The reply is advertising under B&P 7161; every fact in it must be true. "We offered to come back twice" is a claim you can prove or should not make.
- The customer may say it. Civil Code 1670.8 forbids any contract term or threat that penalizes a review; the FTC rule forbids buying, faking, or suppressing reviews. Your remedy for a bad review is a good reply and better work.
- A false statement of fact (not an opinion) can be defamation, but a suit over a consumer review invites an anti-SLAPP motion and a fee award if it fails; talk to a lawyer before any letter, and never threaten in the reply.
- A one-star review that mentions a permit, a deposit, or "never showed up again" is a CSLB complaint in draft; fix the underlying problem that week.
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More lessons in Customers, Warranties, and Complaints
- 1Presenting options and price without apologizing
- 2The other guy is cheaper: what to say, what to let the customer check, and the line not to cross
- 3Delivering bad news: it is worse than you thought, and how to say so
- 4You are liable for four years (patent) and ten years (latent), and CSLB accepts complaints that long
- 5A warranty policy that protects you: what to promise, for how long, what to exclude, and what a warranty cannot do
- 6The CSLB complaint process from the contractor's side: responding, arbitration, and avoiding the citation
- 7Reviews: earning them, answering bad ones, and what you can and cannot do about a false oneYou are here
- 8Template: the warranty statement
- 9Template: the CSLB complaint response letter