One-star review response examples
One-star reviews are where a reply matters most and where it is easiest to make things worse. These are the three situations owners actually face — a fair complaint, an unfair one, and a review from somebody who was never a customer — and what a good reply looks like in each.
A worked example
A one-star review from somebody who was never a customer.
The review
One star. I called to ask a simple question and the person who answered was rude and hung up on me. Avoid this place.
A reply that lands
That is not how we want any call to end, and I am sorry it did — whatever was happening on our end, you deserved a proper answer. I cannot find your call from the details here; if you email us with the number and rough time, I will listen back and deal with it directly. — [Owner name]
Edit it before you post. The draft gets you past the blank box; the specifics are yours, and they are the part that reads as real.
Three rules that matter more than the wording
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If the complaint is fair, say so in the first sentence. Denying a true thing is what makes a reply go viral for the wrong reason.
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If it is not fair, correct the record once, without adjectives, and then stop.
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A review from a non-customer still gets a reply, because the reply is for the people reading it, not for the reviewer.