Having stellar customer reviews for your business is essential to getting new customers.
Today consumers don't trust brands as much as they did once. They want to ensure they make the right purchasing decision by learning about other people's experiences with the same brand.
Did you know 72% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations?
Customer reviews can convince other customers to take the plunge and purchase your products because they trust real people's honest opinions about businesses.
Consumer expectations have skyrocketed, and even the slightest of unpleasant experiences or one negative review can make your customers choose your competitors over you.
The importance of customer reviews can be appreciated by the fact that around 35% of shoppers are less likely to buy a product/service, 32% will hold off until they do more research, 23% will have a tough time in making the buying decision, and 2% wouldn't buy at all.
Source: CSP Global
93% of consumers read reviews online before making a purchase decision. However, asking your customers for reviews is not a simple task. A review request that appears forceful or spammy can do more harm to your business than having no reviews.
So how to ask for a review from customers? Below we will discuss 12 proven strategies designed to get more customer responses when asking for reviews.
Table Of Contents:
- The Benefits Of Collecting Customer Reviews
- 12 Proven Strategies To Get Your Customers To Write Reviews
- 8 Effective Channels To Ask For A Review
- How To Ask For Reviews On Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, & App Stores?
- The Don'ts Of Asking A Review
- Ready-To-Use Review Request Templates
- Ask Your Customers To Leave A Review Now!
- FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
You can directly jump to a section of your choice or keep scrolling.
The Benefits Of Collecting Customer Reviews
Why do you want reviews in the first place? There are several benefits to having customer reviews on your website and other review listing sites. Here are the most essential ones to keep in mind.
Leads To More Purchases
Customer reviews are a highly trustworthy source of increasing sales conversion rates. Potential customers like to see user-generated content as proof that others have bought and are satisfied with your product and services, which nudges them to complete their purchase process.
Collect Customer Feedback For Actionable Insights
Some customers, while sharing reviews, signal opportunities for improvements in your products and even in your customer service. You will find a lot of such opportunities in the negative customer reviews. You can use such customer feedback to identify and improve the friction points in your customer experience.
Help With SEO And Search Results
Up-to-date customer reviews are essential for ranking on Google. And ranking highly on Google is essential for marketing, especially if you are a newer brand that depends on Google search results and ratings. Getting reviews and ratings front and center on search, and leveraging SEO, will help you stand out from the competition. High-quality and positive customer reviews increase the likelihood of a potential customer visiting your location.
12 Proven Strategies To Get Your Customers To Write Reviews
Follow these 12 tactics to get your customers to leave a review.
- Begin By Asking For Reviews
- Then Create A System
- Ask From Your Happy Customers First
- Personalize Your Ask
- Describe Why Reviews Are Essential For You
- Use A Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
- Simplify Review Writing Process For Your Customers
- Provide A Sample/Template To Write A Review
- Respond To Each And Every Review
- Offer Rewards In Exchange For Reviews
- Keep Timing In Mind Post-Purchase
- Follow Up On Your Ask
1. Begin By Asking For Reviews
The best way to encourage your customers to write reviews is just to ask them once. More often than you think, your customers will be happy to write about their experience with your brand, product, or service.
Here are the different ways to ask customers for a review:
- Ask in the email you send, especially from the customer support team. Adding a link to a review website in your email signature can do the job for you.
- Reach out to customers on Twitter and ask them to write a review.
- Send your customers a QR code to your Google My Business page. Scanning the QR code will link directly to where they can write a review for your company and post it on Google.
- Include a call to action (CTA) on the base of your invoice, or receipt.
- After customers make a positive comment about your brand on social media, create a post on your social handle with its screenshot.
2. Then Create A System
One way to ensure that you are asking customers to write reviews is to have a proper process in place for making the ask.
Decide at which stage of the customer journey you will ask for a review. Also, decide how you are going to ask for a review. Keep a templated response prepared just to fill in the customer details while asking for a review.
Standardizing the review-asking process will save you time. It will also be easier for any of your team members to take up the job, thus increasing the reviews you will receive.
3. Ask Your Happy Customers First And Share On Social Media
You shouldn't just focus on getting customer reviews. Instead, you should focus on getting good reviews. You can do so by asking for reviews after a customer has expressed their willing satisfaction.
First, ask your customer to rate your business privately. If they give you a 5-star rating, then encourage them to write a review. But if they give you a bad rating, ask what you could do better, fix any problems they might have, and go the extra mile to make your customers happy. Then encourage a review.
Going a step further, you can share positive feedback on your social media and encourage other users as well to share their experiences using the product.
4. Personalize Your Ask
You are likely to gather more reviews if you personalize the ask. Personalization is a key lever in relation-building and an excellent way to maximize reviews.
Another way to personalize your ask is to create a specific review funnel for each product or service.
For instance, if someone is buying a product directly from your mobile app, they should see an option to review it from the mobile app itself. But if someone is buying a service from your website using a desktop, they should be able to review the service via a follow-up email.
5. Describe Why Reviews Are Essential For You
To increase positive reviews for your brand, inform and educate your customers on how reviews are essential to your business. The customers who wish to support you will come forward with their support in the form of positive reviews.
Push the idea that leaving a review will benefit other customers. Some people are much more willing to help others to find the best business, product, or service - as opposed to helping the company collect more reviews.
6. Use A Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
Review emails are all about asking your customers to perform certain tasks. That's where your call-to-action strategy becomes essential. You should ensure your CTA is clear and instructive.
The email body asking for review should be devoid of cluttered or moving pieces. Use bold texts and big and interactive buttons for a call to action. Usually, it's a good idea to stick to one CTA so that you can finish your email strongly.
Use action verbs and phrases while customizing your CTA button. A few great CTAs would be Review [product name] today, Spread the word, Click to rate, etc.
7. Simplify The Review Writing Process For Your Customers
It's essential to remove any friction from writing the review. You should make the process as easy as possible for your customers so that it will take the least time for them to review your business.
Provide your customers with several review site options to choose. Use review services that have their own platform to encourage reviews from non-tech-savvy customers without asking them to sign up for a Google or Facebook account in order to write the review.
8. Provide A Sample/Template To Write A Review
Another way to make it simple for your customers to leave reviews is to write some part of it for them.
Provide a template in terms of the response you are looking for. As a bonus, your customers will appreciate that they don't have to think too hard about sharing reviews, which increases the likelihood of them providing a testimonial.
9. Respond To Each And Every Review
One of the best ways to encourage customers to write reviews is to engage with those who have already written reviews.
Customers who wouldn't generally leave testimonials (regardless of whether they are satisfied) will feel encouraged to leave a review if they find the brand responding to reviews from other customers.
Using a review management tool like Statusbrew will ensure that you don't miss out on replying to reviews from your customers, be it positive or negative. Statusbrew helps you manage reviews on Google My Business, Play Store, App Store, Trip Advisor, TrustRadius, Yelp, and more all in one stream.
Not just review sites, but Statusbrew helps you manage communications on several social and messaging channels as well, such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Whatsapp, Line, and more, from the same dashboard.
Here's how Statusbrew can help you manage reviews:
- Turn on notifications for reviews
- Understand audience emotions using AI-powered sentiment analysis
- Automatically route reviews to a particular inbox/team member based on their specialty
- Handle customer queries along with your team
- Mitigates compliance issues using controlled team member access and no password sharing
- Auto-hide spam and trolls across your social real estate
- Keep track of customer journey across platforms using the inbuilt CRM
- Identify new customers with listening solutions
- Get in-depth brand reputation insights
10. Offer Rewards In Exchange For Reviews
In most cases, your customers would be happy to help you with a product review. You can make the deal sweeter by offering a reward. For customers who think it takes too much effort to rate or review a product, you can strengthen your case with a coupon, code, or product perks.
You can distribute coupons to upsell products by offering discounts on your next purchases in exchange for reviews. By offering rewards to your loyal customers, you can cultivate a sense of community while encouraging them to leave honest and authentic reviews.
11. Keep Timing In Mind Post-Purchase
When it comes to getting your customers to write reviews, timing is everything.
When asking customers to write a review, it is essential to get the timing right, but it varies greatly from business to business.
If you are seeking product reviews, time the email to ask for reviews in such a way so the purchase is fresh in your customer's minds and they have had time to use the product.
When you ask for reviews at the right time, i.e., when customers feel positive about your product, they are more likely to leave a review.
12. Follow Up On Your Ask
While asking for reviews from your customers is one of the best ways to get more reviews, it's helpful to ask more than once.
While your customers might agree to give reviews, they may forget it sometimes. Because let's face the fact: your customers are busy. They will fill out reviews only when they find the time.
That's why you should follow up with your customers regularly to fill up reviews. But don't bombard your customers with follow-up requests. Otherwise, it might fed them up and make them upset with your brand.
8 Effective Channels To Ask For A Review
Design A Landing Page For Collecting Reviews
An excellent way to encourage customers to share their experiences with your brand is by creating a landing page dedicated to collecting customer reviews. The landing page can be created through a survey form, review generation software, or a review widget embedded on your official website.
Once the landing page is set up, you can develop a communications plan with your team to drive customers to this landing page after purchase to leave reviews. For example, you might want to include the link to this landing page in the email signature of the customer service team.
Image Source: GETitOUT.io
Use Email
This is one of the most effective ways to ask for customer reviews. Email helps you to target your review requests based on customer loyalty and satisfaction and connect your request to a recent transaction.
Your email should direct the customers to a site where they can leave reviews. Make your ask short and personalized. Several customers prefer to send feedback through emails. So, extract quotes from customers' emails and showcase them on your website or in your marketing materials.
Image Source: REVIEWS.io
Use SMS
In this age of bite-sized reviews and voice dictation, it’s easier for your customers to write a review directly from their phone. This simply means that if you send a review request to your customers through SMS, it is highly likely that the customer will click through and even give a detailed review using voice dictation.
Research shows that the open rates of an SMS are 98% higher than the 20% open rates of emails. However, it is worth noting that crafting the request may be more time-consuming because of character limits, but it will yield strong results.
Image Source: EmbedSocial
Review Your Social Channels
If you review your social media pages, you will be surprised to see the organic feedback that your customers are already sharing. They offer positive quotes in the comments of your posts, so start finding out what these customers have to say.
When you find a compelling review, reach out to the customer and ask for permission to share the testimonial they have already written. This doesn’t require any extra effort from the customers, and it’s already out there for your prospective clients, but in an unorganized manner. So you only need to compile these reviews in an organized manner and ask for their permission.
REVIEW US TODAY!
— Finewood (@finewooddoors) March 8, 2023
Help us improve our customer service by leaving a review on Google and Facebook.#keepitlocal #customerservice #customerfeedback #customer #reviewus pic.twitter.com/cxLnPMBdKm
Are you tired of logging into each of your social media accounts individually to respond to comments and messages? Do you want to be able to monitor what people are saying about your brand online and respond in real time? Then SB Engage is the solution you have been looking for!
With SB Engage, you can manage all your incoming conversations from your favorite social media platforms in one place and respond to comments and messages directly from your inbox, so you never miss an opportunity to connect with your audience.
With our powerful reporting tools, you can ask for reviews wherever your customers leave positive feedback and track your progress over time.
Give Statusbrew a try and see the difference it can make for your business!
Conduct An Interview
You can also obtain reviews by interviewing your customers about your products, services, and overall experience with your brand. Some examples of questions you can ask your customers include:
- Can you share more about your experience with our brand so far?
- What made you decide to buy our product/services?
- Where did you hear about us?
- What was the most beneficial aspect of our product/services?
- Why would you recommend other users to use our product/services?
These open-ended interview questions will help you extract a review from your customer and guide them through the story-telling process.
You can even incentivize them in exchange for an interview, such as offering a discount, extending the free trial, free resources, etc. This would motivate them to get on an interview call with you and share their honest feedback.
Ask For Reviews In-app
Focus on creating in-app review prompts. Prioritizing in-app reviews will allow you to get more reviews as your users spend significantly more time using the app than on any review site and are also familiar with the platform.
Use different UI tools, such as banners, pop-ups, and slideouts, to create several types of engaging customer review surveys, including NPS (Net Promoter Score), CES (Customer Effort Score), and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score).
Image Source: Google Developers
On Review Sites
Another way to gather customer reviews is through review sites such as Google My Business, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. Customers can leave their reviews and ratings on these sites. The reviews left on these sites can be seen by anyone who visits your business page on these sites.
Use Statusbrew For Review Generation & Management
Google review generation software can automate the process of requesting reviews from customers. You can also request reviews in bulk from these tools, making it easier to collect customer feedback and improve your online reputation. These tools even help you monitor and respond to customer reviews in real-time so that you can address any negative feedback as soon as possible and get the matter resolved at the earliest.
Statusbrew’s review management feature can help businesses like yours automate the process of collecting and managing customer reviews on different review platforms like Google My Business, Trip Advisor, Yelp, and more. You can easily request reviews from customers and even send bulk requests.
Statusbrew even allows you to monitor and respond to customer reviews in real-time, quickly addressing any negative feedback and maintaining a positive online reputation.
Here are some of how Statusbrew can help businesses generate more reviews, manage negative reviews, and turn them into positive ones:
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Review Generation: Statusbrew's Engage feature lets businesses connect easily with customers on social and review platforms by consolidating all conversations in a unified inbox. Businesses can create custom messages and even templatize them to encourage customers to leave reviews on sites like Google My Business and Facebook.
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Listening: Statusbrew's social listening feature allows businesses to create custom queries for keywords related to their brand or industry. By monitoring these keywords, businesses can identify opportunities to respond to positive feedback or address negative comments.
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Comment Management: Businesses can use Statusbrew's comment moderation feature to prevent negative comments from razing their brand reputation on social media. They can choose to hide or delete spam comments and take the matter to private conversations for negative conversations.
Get started with Statusbrew’s review management feature today to enhance your customer feedback collection and management process.
Suggested read: 12 Online Reputation Management Tools
The Don'ts Of Asking A Review
Now that we have covered the right way to ask for reviews, let's also look at some strategies to avoid when trying to bolster your online reviews.
Don't Buy Reviews
You should not buy fake reviews! Review sites like Google are pretty advanced and have numerous ways of detecting fraudulent behavior when it comes to online reviews. Be aware that you can be penalized, or your business listing could get canceled from the site for such behavior!
Don't Spam Customers for Reviews
Nothing will annoy your loyal customers more than spamming them with too many requests to get reviews. Repeatedly asking for reviews will make your customers prone to leaving your business with negative or inappropriate reviews. It can even take a happy customer and turn them into a sour one.
Don't Ask For A Specific Kind Of Review
While it's always good to make it easy for your customers to leave reviews and provide them with some samples and templates for inspiration, asking for a specific positive review or 5-star rating is not recommended. You shouldn't even ask your buyers to remove a negative review (although there are steps to outsmart fake negative feedback).
How To Ask For Reviews On Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, & App Stores?
How To Ask For Review On Google?
Step 1: Go to your Business Profile.
Step 2: Select Customers -> Reviews -> Get more reviews.
Step 3: Click the “Share review form” button
Step 4: Share the link with your customers directly.
How To Ask For Reviews On Facebook?
Here’s how you can enable reviews on your Facebook Business Page:
Step 1: Log into your Facebook business page through the main administrator account and open the home page.
Step 2: Click Settings from the left menu, then click Privacy in the left menu
Step 3: Click Page and Tagging.
Step 4: Toggle Allow others to view and leave reviews on your Page?
Send an email or text message asking your customers to leave a review and include a direct link to your Facebook business page so they can easily leave feedback.
How To Ask For Reviews On Trip Advisor?
Here's how you can get the link to the actual review page of Trip Advisor:
Step 1: Go to your TripAdvisor page.
Step 2: Find the review section.
Step 3: Click on the Write a review button.
Step 4: Copy the URL or Website address in your web browser address bar.
Share this link with your customers and encourage them to share reviews on your Trip Advisor page.
How To Ask For Reviews On App Store & Google Play Store?
Asking for reviews from your customers on the App Store and Google Play Store is challenging, but the in-app review API and pop-up message can make it much easier.
You can display a pop-up message within your app asking users to leave a review on the App Store or Google Play Store. Ensure to include a clear and concise message that encourages them to provide feedback on their experience while using your app.
Using the in-app review API, you can prompt users to submit their ratings and reviews without leaving your app. This built-in feature provided by the Google Play Store allows users to rate and review your app on Play Store without leaving it.
Ready To Use Review Request Templates
Review Request Template For New Customers
Dear [Customer First Name],
We are happy to hear you were satisfied with your recent [Product Name].
If you're happy with the purchase, please provide a brief review on our Google Business Page (add direct URL).
Should you have any immediate feedback or concerns about your [Product Name], feel free to get back to us.
Thank you for your time!
[Email Signature]
Review Request Template For Repeat Customers
Hi [Customer First Name],
Thanks for being a loyal customer.
Will you be willing to write us a review? It should only take a couple of minutes and would make an immense difference to our company.*
If you are willing, you can follow [Insert a link to add review] to submit your review.
Thank you again for your business and time!
[Email Signature]
After A Recent Purchase
Hey [Customer First Name],
Thank you for your recent purchase of [Product/Service]! We are eager to know about your experience with us. You may leave us a review at [add direct URL to leave review].
We appreciate your time and thoughtful response.
[Email Signature]
Ask New Users
Hey [Customer First Name],
Thank you for doing business with us! As you have done business with us for the first time, we would love to hear about your first experience. So please leave us a review at [add direct URL to leave review].
We look forward to hearing your feedback.
[Email Signature]
To Long-Term Customers
Hey [Customer First Name],
You have been using our service for [X] years now, and we are happy to stay in touch with so long! We would be very grateful if you could share your experience at [add direct URL to leave review].
Thank you for being a loyal partner in our journey.
[Email Signature]
Request From A Social Media Mentions
Hey [Customer First Name],
We just saw your positive comment about our [Product/Service/Feature] on [Name Of Social Media Platform]. We are overjoyed to receive your comment, and thank you for mentioning us! We would really appreciate it if you could leave a review at [add direct URL to leave review].
Feel free to reach out with any questions.
[Email Signature]
Request With An Incentive
Hey [Customer First Name],
We are excited to offer you a [X]% discount on your next purchase. All you need to do is claim this offer by leaving a review at [add direct URL to leave review].
We look forward to you redeeming your offer!
[Email Signature]
Ask Your Customers To Leave A Review Now!
Customer reviews are powerful tools to build trust and support your marketing efforts. They can greatly impact a prospective customer's purchase decision and your business goals.
Now that you have a clear vision of how to ask for a review from customers effectively, it's time to start putting thoughts into action.
Take what you learn and put your efforts behind the best performers. That way, you will have positive customer reviews rolling in while your competitors are still trying to figure out how to ask for a review in the first place.
Need help tracking your online reviews on Google My Business, Google Play Store, App Store, Trip Advisor, TrustRadius, Yelp, and more? Sign up for a free demo with Statusbrew today to know how we can help! ?
Statusbrew is an all-in-one social media management tool that supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, and even Google My Business.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Here are some commonly asked questions on how to ask for an online review:
How do you politely ask for a review?
Request your customers to drop a review. Do not follow up on short intervals with your customers. Respect their time and make them understand why their reviews and feedback matter to your brand and other customers as well.
How do I ask for a review without sounding desperate?
Provide your customers with several options to drop in their feedback. Make writing a review simple for them. If possible, provide them with samples and templates of reviews that can help them write a review easily.
How to ask for a Google review?
Here's how to ask for a review on Google:
- Send an email to your customers
- Include a link to review or to your business page in the email itself
- Ask your customers at the right time
- Use a review management tool like Statusbrew to organize all reviews and respond to them quickly
How do you turn customers into brand advocates?
Use these tips to turn your customers into brand advocates:
- Improve customer service
- Ask for feedback
- Introduce a loyalty and referral program
- Keep them informed
- Build a community
How do you encourage customer feedback?
You can encourage customer feedback on your product/service through:
- Website feedback forms
- SMS surveys
- Telephone
- On your social media
- Asking them to review you on review sites
Explore the Statusbrew range of social media tools
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