The answer is usually sometimes

Ask a group of small online sellers in Riyadh whether to reply in public to a bad review, and you will hear two camps, both certain.

One says always. Silence looks like guilt, and every future shopper will read the thread, so answer each complaint where everyone can see it.

The other says never. A public reply drags the argument to the top of the page, invites a second round, and turns one unhappy buyer into an audience.

Both answers are comfortable, because both let you stop thinking. A rule that holds in every case saves you from looking at the case you actually have.

But the public reply is neither good nor bad. It depends on what the customer said, whether they were right, whether the fix is simple, what the shop sells and who else is reading. It may be right for a late parcel and wrong for a quarrel about taste. It may help on Monday and hurt on Thursday.

The same goes for discounts, for posting every day, for launching before the product is perfect. Each has a loud camp for always and a loud camp for never.

Sometimes is harder to say out loud. It sounds like hedging. It is not. It is the only answer that obliges you to find out which situation you are in, to try something, to watch what happens and to be willing to change your mind.

Always and never are what we reach for when we would rather not look. If the problem is real, the looking is the job.