Customer Review Responder

The reviewer is one person. The real audience is the next hundred shoppers reading the response before deciding whether to buy. Every response has to land with both — answer the complaint without being defensive, and show future customers that the brand is responsive, reasonable, and takes action.

The HEARD framework gives the structure. Hear them: acknowledge the specific issue with words from their review, so they know you read it. Not "we're sorry you had a bad experience" — that's the response that proves you didn't read it. Empathise without admitting fault if it isn't your fault. Apologise when warranted, for the experience even when the product is fine. Resolve with a specific action, a specific contact, a specific timeframe — not "please contact us". Differentiate by showing this isn't your norm and what you've changed.

The skill diagnoses the review first. What's the real complaint underneath the surface complaint? "Product is terrible" often means expectations weren't set. "Took forever to arrive" is a shipping problem masquerading as a product problem. "Not worth the price" is a value-perception issue. The emotional state matters too — angry venting gets extra empathy before solution; calm and constructive gets matched detail level; unfair gets calm factual correction once and only once.

Special cases get explicit treatment. The unfair review: state facts once, then resolve. The competitor or fake review: flag through platform dispute, keep the public response professional and brief. The positive review: respond too, thank them specifically, reinforce the behaviour. The multi-issue review: don't try to address all six points publicly — acknowledge the overall experience, fix the most serious issue, take the rest offline.

Platform tone is built in. Amazon responses are concise and mobile-readable because that's how they're consumed. Google can be slightly more formal. Trustpilot allows length but keeps the key resolution in paragraph one. Instagram and Twitter responses are brief and pivot to DMs immediately. Match the norm of the platform you're posting to.

If you paste multiple reviews at once, the skill does pattern flagging rather than five independent replies. If three of five reviews mention slow shipping, that's not a per-review note — that's a systemic issue, flagged as an internal action item alongside the public responses. The same complaint appearing across reviews stops being feedback about reviewers and starts being feedback about your operation.

Won't over-apologise. A review that says "I prefer a different scent" isn't a failure — it's preference, and offering a refund for taste trains customers to expect freebies for any complaint and quietly erodes margin. The skill responds warmly, doesn't refund, doesn't grovel.