Not every unhappy customer wants to write a public review. Private feedback is what they tell you directly instead. It lands in the same feed as everything else, carries its own tag, and is never posted anywhere.
Where it shows
A private feedback card carries the Private feedback tag and the note "Sent through a review request and never posted. Answer it by email, not on a site." It has stars like any other review, so a 2-star note sits next to the 2-star public reviews in a rating filter.
A review card tagged Private feedback, with the note that it was never posted and should be answered by email.
To see only private feedback, open the saved view Private feedback, or tick Private feedback only in the filter drawer.
Why it is never posted
The customer chose to talk to you rather than to the public. Posting your answer under it on a review site would publish a conversation they kept private. So nothing here can post it:
- The composer offers Copy and mark replied, never a post button.
- An AI agent drafts a reply for it and never sends it on its own, whatever its mode or rating bands say.
- An approval cannot post it either. Private feedback never waits in the Approvals queue to be posted.
Answer it by email
- Press Reply on the card.
- Write your answer, or use Draft with to have an agent write one for you to read.
- Press Copy and mark replied.
- Paste the text into an email to the customer and send it from your own mailbox.
The reply composer on private feedback, with the note that the reply is copied for you to send by email.
The card is marked as answered, so it leaves the Needs a reply view. Your text is kept on the card, so the next person to open it can see what was said.
What to write
Private feedback is the one place a customer has told you what went wrong before telling everyone else. A good answer:
- thanks them for telling you directly;
- names the specific thing they raised, so they know it was read;
- offers one concrete next step, such as a refund, a call or a replacement;
- comes from a real person with a name.
Leave out anything that reads like a template. Your agent's instructions can carry the same rules, so its drafts start in the right place.
Automating around it
A rule can react to private feedback the moment it arrives. The trigger Private feedback fires on it, and the useful actions are Notify the team, Assign to a team member and Send to a webhook for your CRM. A reply action on such a rule writes a draft only, for the same reason as above. See Rule triggers in detail.
What this costs
Reading private feedback and answering it by hand are free. An AI draft for it costs credits, shown under the draft. A rule action on it costs 1 credit.