How to reply to Trustpilot reviews

Claim your free business profile, then go to Manage reviews > Service reviews > Inbox in Trustpilot Business, type your reply and click Post reply. Keep it polite and professional, because every reply is public. That’s the whole job, but there’s some small print worth knowing, so let’s walk through it.

Before you can reply: claim your profile

Here’s the thing that catches people out. Your Trustpilot profile can exist whether you’ve set it up or not. Trustpilot creates it once someone reviews you, so you might already have reviews sitting there and no way to answer them.

Only businesses that have claimed their profile can reply. Claiming is how you get a business account, and claimed profiles show a “Claimed” label and get the free plan features. So step one, always, is claiming.

Trustpilot encourages claimed businesses to respond to all reviews, positive or negative. Yes, the glowing ones too. It can feel a bit odd thanking someone for a nice comment, but do it anyway. Your profile also has a Company activity box that shows how often and how quickly you respond to negative reviews.

How to reply to a Trustpilot review

The steps depend on whether you’re dealing with a service review (about your business) or a product review. Service reviews first.

1. In Trustpilot Business, go to Manage reviews > Service reviews > Inbox.
2. Find the review you want to answer.
3. Type into the reply field.
4. Click Post reply.

For product reviews, it’s slightly different:

1. Go to Manage reviews > Product reviews > Inbox.
2. Find the review and click Reply.
3. Type your reply.
4. Click Post reply.

Not sure where to start? The service reviews page has an “awaiting reply” overview showing reviews from the last 28 days, broken down by star rating. For anything older, use the filters.

Now, who sees what. Service review replies show publicly on your Trustpilot profile, under the review. Product review replies are shared with the review’s author and shown in product review widgets, which means they can appear on your own website’s product pages. Either way, the reply is public. Write it as if your next customer is reading, because they might be.

The reviewer also gets an email notification when you reply. If they want to carry on the conversation, they edit their original review (Trustpilot suggests they add a labelled update). So the conversation carries on through their edits rather than a back and forth thread.

Editing or deleting your reply

Posted something and immediately spotted a typo? Or realised you sounded snippier than you meant to? It happens.

To edit:

1. Find the review with your posted reply.
2. Click Edit reply.
3. Update the text.
4. Click Post updated reply.

To delete:

1. Find the review.
2. Click Delete reply.
3. Click Delete to confirm.

Still, it’s worth getting it right first time, since the reviewer is emailed when you reply.

What a good Trustpilot reply looks like

Trustpilot’s rules here are short. Keep replies polite and professional. Don’t include personal information, threats or aggressive language, otherwise Trustpilot removes the reply. So no full names, no order details that identify someone, no sarcasm dressed up as politeness.

What if you disagree with the review? If it doesn’t breach the guidelines, it stays up, and Trustpilot recommends replying and telling your side so readers can weigh it. Trustpilot also generally doesn’t get involved in disputes about what actually happened unless the law requires it. So your reply is where you get to tell your side.

Here’s a short one for a late delivery.

Fictional example. “Thank you for telling us about this, and I’m sorry your order arrived later than promised. We’ve looked into it and found a delay at our end when the parcel was dispatched. That’s not the standard we aim for. If you’d like to get in touch with us directly, we’d be glad to look at what more we can do.”

It says sorry once, owns the problem, stays calm and stops. No essay. If you want a hand with wording, try the review reply generator. Most of the advice in how to respond to negative Google reviews carries over to Trustpilot too.

When you can flag a review (and when you can’t)

Flagging isn’t a way to get rid of reviews you dislike. Trustpilot is clear that disliking a star rating, or disagreeing with a negative review, isn’t a valid reason. It also won’t remove a review just for mentioning a competitor, or for not naming your business.

Valid flag reasons are these:

1. Harmful or illegal: hate speech, terrorism, threats or violence, obscenity, defamation. An opinion like “I didn’t like their service” isn’t defamation, though.
2. Personal information: but not if it’s on your own profile or website, or it’s the reviewer’s own.
3. Advertising or promotional.
4. Not based on a genuine experience.
5. About a different business.

Don’t recognise the reviewer? Usernames needn’t be real names, so that alone proves nothing. You can ask the reviewer for a name, reference number, email or phone number, and they get three days to respond. If they don’t, and you believe there was no genuine experience, flag it as “Not based on a genuine experience”.

Flagged reviews stay visible while Trustpilot investigates, except ones flagged harmful or illegal, which are hidden meanwhile. And flag fairly: flag 5-star reviews for the same reasons as 1-star ones. Misusing the flag tool, whether by flagging too quickly or for the wrong reasons, isn’t tolerated.

Disagree with a decision? Reply to the decision email. Still disagree? Use the appeal link in the footer of that email. For more on the wider picture, there’s a guide on fake reviews and UK law.

One more thing: reviewers own their reviews and can edit or delete them any time. Trustpilot recommends they update a review if a problem gets resolved, but they don’t have to, and you should never pressure them.

Trustpilot’s rules on asking for reviews

This bit matters, because misuse can lead to features being suspended, a Consumer Warning on your profile and a hidden TrustScore. That’s a big price for a clumsy email.

What you should do:

1. Invite people with a genuine experience, one invite per experience.
2. Invite everyone the same way, at the same point in the customer journey, whether the experience was positive or negative.
3. Give people time to experience the product.
4. Use fair, neutral, unbiased language.

What you shouldn’t do:

1. Ask for fake reviews, or invite family, staff or shareholders.
2. Pressure, blackmail or threaten reviewers to write, edit or delete a review.
3. Be selective: only inviting happy customers, timing invites so only happy customers get them, or sending happy customers to review and unhappy ones to contact you directly.
4. Offer incentives: discounts, promo codes, prize draw entries, refunds, freebies, any benefit at all.
5. Suggest only positive reviews, like “If you like us, please leave us a 5-star review”.
6. Collect reviews on business devices such as a business computer, tablet or phone.

That last one is easy to miss. Handing a customer your shop tablet to “just pop a quick review in” feels friendly, but Trustpilot doesn’t allow it.

If you’re drafting invitations, the review request generator can help keep the wording neutral. And if you also collect reviews elsewhere, there’s a separate guide to replying to Tripadvisor reviews.

Anyway, claim the profile, reply politely, flag only when you genuinely can, and keep your invitations even-handed. Simple, really.

Questions people ask

Can I reply to a Trustpilot review without claiming my profile?

No. Trustpilot only lets businesses that have claimed their profile reply to reviews. Claiming sets you up with a business account, adds a "Claimed" label to your profile and gives you the free plan features. You can still flag a review without claiming, but replying needs the claimed account.

Does the reviewer find out when I reply?

Yes. Trustpilot emails the reviewer when a business replies to their review. If they want to respond to what you said, they edit their original review, and Trustpilot suggests they add a clearly labelled update so other readers can follow the conversation.

Can I ask a customer to change their review after I've fixed the problem?

Trustpilot recommends that reviewers update a review if their opinion changes or a problem is resolved, but they don't have to. Its guidelines say you should never pressure them to do so, and you can't offer a refund, discount or any other benefit in connection with editing a review.

Will Trustpilot remove a review because it's unfair?

Not on those grounds. Trustpilot says disliking a star rating or disagreeing with a negative review isn't a valid reason to flag it, and it generally stays out of disputes about what happened. If a review doesn't break the guidelines, the recommended route is a reply giving your side.