Yesterday, Google announced that verified business owners can reply to reviews left on their Google Places (Maps) pages.
Google of course set up some ground rules and provided instructions on how to reply to reviews. Like me, I bet most people won't read them fully before replying.
I decided to reply to a review on my business listing:
I clicked on respond publicly as business owner:
I typed in my message:
I hit post:
As you can see, you can always edit or delete your response.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.