What's the right response to a review that mentions a former employee?
Aug 5, 2026 · 5 min read
Short answer: respond to the customer’s experience, note that the situation has changed if it truly has, and say nothing - nothing - about why the person no longer works for you. The review is about their visit. Your response is a public document about how you treat both customers and the people who used to work for you, and two different bodies of law are reading over your shoulder.
The situation comes up constantly and almost no one covers it: “Marcus at the front desk was rude and dismissive” - and Marcus left three weeks ago. The temptation is enormous. “Marcus no longer works here” feels like the perfect response: it distances the business, signals the problem is solved, and costs one sentence. It’s also where the tripwires are.
Tripwire one: defamation runs both directions
A response that blames the departed employee - “Marcus was let go for exactly this kind of behavior” - is a public, written statement about an identifiable person’s professional conduct. If it’s exaggerated, or the real reason for the departure was something else, you’ve handed a former employee with no remaining loyalty a defamation claim with a screenshot attached. The same math we walked through for suing over a false review applies in reverse: even a weak claim costs you a lawyer and a year, and this one comes with an obvious paper trail.
Tripwire two: implying reasons touches employment law
Publicly characterizing a termination can also collide with whatever separation terms exist - many severance agreements include mutual non-disparagement, and a Google reply absolutely counts. And if the departure had any dispute attached (an NLRB charge, a discrimination complaint, unemployment contest), a public statement about the firing becomes evidence. The broader collision between review platforms and employment law is its own mess - see can employees review their employer - but the response rule stays simple: the departure is a personnel record, and personnel records don’t go in review replies.
The script that works
Riverbend Physical Therapy in Missoula got this review after their office coordinator left:
“Great therapists but the woman at the front desk (Dana) made scheduling miserable - canceled on me twice with no callback. Three stars only because the actual PT was excellent.”
The response their owner posted:
“Thank you for this - the two cancellations without a callback shouldn’t have happened, and I’m sorry they did. Scheduling is handled differently now: we’ve moved to confirmation texts with a direct reschedule link, and our front desk is staffed through the lunch hour, which is when callbacks used to fall through. Glad the therapy itself served you well - if you give us another shot, book directly with me and I’ll make sure it goes smoothly. - Karen Ostrander, owner”
Notice what it does: owns the specific failure, describes the operational change (which is what actually reassures the next reader), and never mentions Dana - not her name, not her departure, not whether the process change had anything to do with her. The reviewer knows the experience was heard. The next 40 prospects see a business that fixes systems instead of blaming people. Dana’s lawyer sees nothing.
What about “they no longer work here”?
The bare fact of departure - no reason attached - is legally much safer than characterizing it, and sometimes it’s genuinely the information a reader needs. If you use it, use it neutrally and once: “the team member you mention is no longer with the practice, and here’s what we’ve changed since.” Never as the whole response - standing alone it reads as “we found the scapegoat,” which tells prospects your fix for problems is turnover. And skip it entirely when the departure is recent, disputed, or covered by a separation agreement you haven’t re-read.
The part nobody tells you
Your current staff reads these responses too. A reply that throws a former coworker under the bus tells everyone still on payroll exactly what will happen to their name the week after they leave. The businesses with the best long-run review profiles treat departed employees the way they treat customers in responses: as people who might be reading. If you want scaffolding for the wording, there’s a template set for employee-mention reviews covering current-staff, former-staff, and named-praise cases - and the general framework lives in the negative review playbook.
One sentence of restraint now beats a year of correspondence with someone’s attorney later.