Nowadays, buyers and consumers turn to reviews for validation of a product or service. Reviews can also help a company stand out among competitors, and deliver insights into your business and your product or service. This will provide you and your business with feedback, ultimately explaining what you are doing well and what you can improve on.
Think about the times you have been on the fence about making a purchase and only followed through because of the customer reviews. Alternatively, think about the times you had something in your shopping cart and before taking the plunge you read several negative reviews that turned you away from the product or service.
Reviews are a powerful thing.
Unfortunately, a few reviews won’t cut it. 85% of consumers do not trust reviews that were written more than three months ago, and 40% of those consumers will only look at reviews from the last two weeks.
This is why it’s important to ask your customers for Google reviews regularly.
We see the value in having a personal take on a product or service, but how do you ask for those reviews in the first place?
People generally love to share their opinions. Here are some of the best practices and techniques to help you achieve the best results and optimal response rates.
Customers you should Request a Review from
Although it might seem like a great idea, do not blast out a review request to every single customer you have. You want to request reviews from your happy customers, the ones who are most satisfied with your business.
Do not risk the chance of getting a negative review, think carefully about the people you are sending a review request to.
Request Reviews in Response to Praise
The easiest way to get a positive review is when a customer approaches you with unsolicited praise. In this scenario, express your appreciation for the customer feedback and make a suggestion.
For example, your kind comments really help prospective customers to feel more confident in choosing us. If you don’t mind writing what you just said in a quick review, we would greatly appreciate it.
Request Reviews via Email
Did you know that 70% of reviews come from post-transactional review request emails?
One of the most effective ways to generate new reviews is through review request email campaigns. These typically take the form of customer feedback surveys, but they can also be much more simple and more straightforward.
If you are new to review generation, email should be at the top of your list for requesting reviews.
When you request reviews via email, you can also tie your reviews to transactions that took place. This offers valuable authenticity to your reviews.
How to Ask for Customer Reviews via Email
- Know your goals. What do you want to achieve? Are you trying to measure loyalty or do you want to get feedback on how you are doing with customer service? By identifying your goals, you will be able to ask the right survey questions and collect the right information.
- Personalize your email. Put careful thought into your review request emails and write them in a way that individually acknowledges each recipient.
- Keep it short. If your own review request email takes too long to complete or read, you run the risk of respondents abandoning it before completion.
- Ask for a rating right away. It is a crucial request that demands a gut reaction.
- Have middle options. If you are providing a rating scale in your review request, provide a neutral option or middle category. If you are not using a scale, stick to “Yes” or “No” questions and provide multiple-choice answers.
- Respond immediately if necessary. If you receive negative review feedback, act as quickly as possible, and respond to let the customer know you are working on the issues that they pointed out.
- Test, measure, and adjust in order to achieve the best response rates and collect the most useful feedback
Request Reviews via SMS
56% of all online reviews are posted from mobile devices, making SMS review requests a requirement. The age of voice dictation typing and tweet-sized reviews has ushered in the ability for consumers to engage with businesses and write reviews straight from their phone or tablet.
Text messages are opened at a 98% rate. If you send customers a text message survey or a review request via SMS, there is a good chance they will click on that link. Requesting a review via SMS requires careful thought due to character limitations.
Design Landing Pages for Collecting Reviews
More businesses and marketers are creating and distributing their own dedicated landing pages with hopes to generate new reviews and collecting valuable customer feedback.
This is a fantastic way to encourage customers to be more transparent about their experience. Your landing page can be facilitated through the use of review generation software, survey forms, embedded review widgets on your company website or you can build your very own.
Once your landing page is live, you have the ability to identify key touchpoints at which you can most effectively drive customers to your landing page. You can share the link across your social media channels as well as give customers a friendly reminder in post-transactional situations.
Use Review Request or Review Generation Tools
Perhaps you are managing a business that has multiple locations. In this scenario, an efficient way to request customer reviews is by using a review request or review generation tool and software.
Automate your Review Requests
If efficiency is important to you, automation can help you get more review generation work done at a faster rate. Customers who automate their review requests can often double or trip their review volume, without the time and resources spent on manual work.
For businesses like Eternity who have a developer team in place, it is worth finding solutions to integrate your organization’s customer relationship management (CRM), support ticketing, social media listening, or sales commerce platform with the process, tool, or workflow you are currently utilizing for requesting reviews from customers.
If you want to take it to the next level, you can harness the power of the automation platform Zapier, where ReviewTrackers offer an integration.
