Glassdoor is a website where employees can anonymously rate and review their current or former employers, along with sharing salary information and other details about their employment experiences. 

Monitoring and responding to Glassdoor reviews is important for employers, because there are many benefits that can result from a thoughtfully implemented review response strategy. 

For example, it aids with retaining employees, because it gives you the opportunity to connect with employees who are dissatisfied and in danger of quitting. And, from an SEO perspective, responding to reviews is also helpful for ranking in local searches. 

This guide will show you effective strategies for responding to reviews on Glassdoor and other employment-related platforms, including screenshots of real responses along with customizable templates. 

Let’s start by covering seven best practices for responding. 

How to respond to Glassdoor reviews  

Responding to positive or negative Glassdoor reviews is a way for your business to show that it values transparency, listens to negative feedback, and strives to foster a high degree of employee satisfaction.  

Replying to Glassdoor reviews can also help your business rank higher in local searches, making your company easier for job seekers to find online. That’s especially useful for new businesses, which face the challenge of attracting top talent despite not being widely known brands.  

While there are many benefits of replying to reviews posted on Glassdoor, it’s important to consider your response carefully before you hit that “Publish” button. How you respond to reviews can affect both the quality and quantity of job seekers you attract in the future, along with your ability to retain current employees, making it crucial to follow best practices when replying. 

Here are seven tips to help you write effective responses on Glassdoor in 2024:

1. Respond in a timely manner. Waiting too long to respond to a review reflects negatively on your brand, making it look to job seekers as though your business communicates poorly or is indifferent to employee feedback. You need to respond to every customer complaint or rating as quickly as possible, especially if you’ve received a low rating and/or negative comment. Responding promptly shows that your business cares about providing a good employee experience. 

2. Show gratitude. Whether you receive positive, negative, or mixed feedback, you should always express gratitude to the reviewer. Just be sure to vary the language you use each time you thank a reviewer, like shifting between “Thanks,” “Thank you,” and, “We appreciate your feedback.”  

3. Personalize your response. Research by McKinsey & Company shows that most people want businesses to personalize their content, with 76% becoming irritated or frustrated when they don’t receive personalized experiences. Provide what Glassdoor users want by ensuring all of your responses are customized to the reviewer. You can personalize your responses by referencing details from the review, along with using different language in each of your responses – for example, “wonderful” vs. “delightful,” or, “We strive to…” vs. “Our mission is to…”  

4. Address each point separately. You’ll likely receive reviews about multiple aspects of your business, like employee compensation and workplace culture, or jobsite safety and maternity leave. When responding to these types of reviews, be sure to address each of the reviewer’s points separately, which shows that you have carefully read the comment. For example, if your business receives a mixed review, you need to address both the positive and negative sentiments.   

5. Share the positives. Even when you’re replying to criticism, you can still incorporate positives about your employer brand into your response – for example, “At [Company Name], we’re committed to providing exceptional training and career development opportunities for our team members.” 

6. Keep the conversation going. Your public response on Glassdoor should be succinct – in most cases, a few sentences is adequate. That means it’s important to take the conversation offline, where you can go into more detail discussing and resolving the employee’s concerns. 

7. Provide contact information. Be sure to provide contact information for the reviewer to follow up with the appropriate department or staff member. Since Glassdoor reviewers are anonymous, they may not wish to speak over the phone, depending on the nature of their review. Be sure to provide both a phone number and an email address so that the reviewer can contact you in the way they’re most comfortable with. 

Responding to negative Glassdoor reviews (with examples) 

Even the most highly rated employers on Glassdoor, like Gainsight and Box, don’t have perfect 5-star scores. All companies, no matter how positively rated overall, inevitably receive at least one negative review. 

The good news is that bad reviews don’t have to drive away future employees. While you can’t prevent Glassdoor users from writing or reading negative reviews of your business, you can make a positive impression on job seekers by handling online criticism skillfully. 

Here are a few examples of effective replies to negative reviews on Glassdoor, including screenshots of how the employer responds, plus templates you can use.

Example #1 

A one-star review with limited information 

Issues mentioned in this review: Site safety, management 

‍Example response template: “We appreciate your [candid feedback, detailed comments, in-depth review] about [Company Name]. We will share your [feedback, input, comments, review] with our senior management for consideration, as we are always striving to [improve our level of service, deliver the best service possible, deliver the best experience for our patients and their families, etc.]. Best wishes from our team, and thanks again for [your time, your review, sharing your feedback].” 

Example #2

While this reviewer ultimately left the business 4 stars, they also shared some extremely negative feedback. 

Issues mentioned in this review: Communication from upper management 

Example response template: “We at [Business Name] appreciate you taking the time to share your [feedback about, comments on, impressions of] our workplace. We’re delighted that [reference to the positive feedback here]. We will, however, share your feedback about [reference to the negative feedback here] with our [senior, upper, executive] management for discussion and review so that we can continuously work to improve our performance in that area. We thank you again for your [candid feedback, time and candor, honest review].” 

Responding to positive Glassdoor reviews (with examples)

Responding to a positive review is usually easier and more straightforward than responding to a negative review. However, that doesn’t mean no rules or standards apply. Here are two examples of professional, effective responses to positive feedback on Glassdoor. 

Example #3 

Positives mentioned in this review: Good compensation and job benefits, workplace culture, flexibility for employees 

Example response template: “Thank you for your positive [comments, feedback, review] and [4-star, 5-star] rating. We’re [pleased, happy, thrilled, delighted] that you found our [positive detail from the review] to be [4-star, 5-star] worthy, and we truly appreciate your contributions to [Company Name’s] mission of [delivering the best possible care, providing the best possible service, etc.]. Best wishes, and [many thanks again, thank you again, thanks once again] from the management here at [Company Name].” 

Example #4 

Positives mentioned in this review: Fulfilling work, hardworking team members 

Example response template: “Thank you for your feedback about [Company Name]. We [value, appreciate, are grateful for] your review and will be sure to share your comments with [the relevant department or staff member]. We hope that you’ll consider working [with us, at our location, on our team] again in the future, and wish to thank you again for your support.” 

Respond to Glassdoor reviews easily with ResponseScribe 

No time to track and respond to all your reviews?

ResponseScribe is an end-to-end service that tracks and responds to reviews on behalf of your business. Every response is personalized and gets published in 24 hours or less. Depending on your preferred strategy, we generate responses using AI technology, experienced human writers, or a combination of both approaches. 

We monitor over 50 online platforms for consumer and employee reviews of your business, including Glassdoor, Indeed, Fairygodboss, Vault, Kununu, Career Bliss, Google, Facebook, Yelp, and more. Here are four ways that ResponseScribe helps you grow your business faster: 

1. Save time. ResponseScribe spares your businesses the headache of managing review responses manually. Our dedicated team handles the entire process, from monitoring your review platforms to creating and publishing the responses, enabling your businesses to focus on other priorities.

2. Gain expertise. More than 10,000 businesses trust ResponseScribe to provide effective review responses and enhance their online reputation, including Denny’s, Burger King, Chik-fil-A, Sizzler, Jersey Mike’s, Storage King, Wyndham, and more.

3. Ensure consistency. The responses you provide to your reviewers need to align with your voice and branding. ResponseScribe ensures that all responses are customized and on-brand, ensuring your company is represented professionally. 

4. Never miss a review. ResponseScribe monitors and generates responses on more than 50 review platforms, including Glassdoor and other employment review sites. That empowers your business to manage its reviews across multiple platforms with a single secure and convenient service.

Effortlessly respond to your company’s reviews on Glassdoor

Whether your goal is to increase employee retention, turbocharge your talent acquisition strategy, or create a company culture where employees feel empowered, replying to Glassdoor reviews can help you accomplish all three. 

ResponseScribe makes it fast and easy by responding to employee reviews on your behalf, eliminating the need for your business to generate or publish its own responses.\

Stop spending time replying to reviews – and start attracting top talent on Glassdoor. Start your free trial of ResponseScribe today.