No Longer Incentivize Reviews With Samples or Discounts

It doesn't matter if you run a B2B or B2C business, marketing bureau or SaaS company, eCommerce shop, or local store: reviews are important for every business organisation.

Only it can exist tricky to get people to write positive reviews about a business. Every bit Growth Hackers' Jonathan Aufray says, "Most happy customers will never tell you lot that they're happy. Unhappy customers will allow you know."

And then, how do you get happy customers to write raving reviews for your business on public websites? To find out, nosotros asked more than than 100 marketers to share their best tips.

• Why Are Customer Reviews Important?
• How to Enquire Customers for Reviews: 12 Proven Means to Get Your Customers to Write Reviews
• Height Customer Review Sites Your Business Should Prioritize

Why Are Customer Reviews Of import?

I reason customer reviews are of import is that they aid with SEO, especially if you are a local concern. Just speaking of benefits for whatsoever business in general, having reviews on popular review sites lets you ain more SERP existent estate for branded search terms.

Most importantly, reviews are crucial for your business because they have a huge affect on the buying decisions of your prospective customers. Every bit consumers and prospects take turned more to self-guided research, they rely more on the opinions and experiences of other customers in reviews when evaluating options and making purchasing decisions. Our own research as well confirms that "customer proof" is the virtually of import factor when evaluating two (in our example) software products.

Lastly, having positive reviews helps build trust and confidence in your business organization and its products/services.

How to Enquire Customers for Reviews: 12 Proven Ways to Get Your Customers to Write Reviews

If you're struggling to figure out how to encourage customers to write reviews, consider these proven tips that our respondents recommended:

1. Offset Past Just Asking
2. Create a Process for Request for Reviews
3. Automate the Enquire
4. When Making the Ask, Target Satisfied Customers
5. Personalize the Inquire
6. Explicate Why Reviews Are Important
7. Make Writing a Review as Elementary as Possible
8. Provide a Template for Reviews
9. Engage With Your Existing Reviews
10. Offer an Incentive
11. Send Review Asking Emails at the Right Fourth dimension
12. Follow Upwards on Your Requests

PRO TIP: Which review sites your prospects trust the virtually?

Google Analytics referral tracking tin can tell you lot which review site is sending traffic your way including the exact link that'southward directing people to your site. And past analyzing your referral traffic sources, yous can notice which review sites bring in the most leads, where are your customers reading well-nigh your production, which reviews sites they trust, and more than.

Desire to brand sure you lot're sending your customers to the right review sites? To clarify your referral traffic that'south coming from review sites, nosotros recommend tracking the following metrics:

1. Sessions past Review Site: Which review sites bring the most traffic to your website? If a certain review site brings a lot of sessions, it's an indicator that your prospects trust that website.
2. Full Pages past Review Site: How many times has your website been featured on a sure review site? It's like shooting fish in a barrel to maximize traffic from sites where you've been featured at least once. Have advantage of that opportunity.
3. Total Time on Page: If most of your referring traffic sources have very low time on site, there is probably a lot of room for comeback.
4. Full Signups: Number of signups may bespeak which review sites bring in the most leads and qualified prospects.

But tracking these metrics in Google Analytics and similar tools can be overwhelming since the tool is not easy to navigate and the visualizations are quite limiting. It's as well a bit fourth dimension-consuming to combine all the metrics y'all need in i view.

We've made this easier past building a plug-and-play dashboard that takes your data and automatically visualizes the correct metrics to requite you an in-depth analysis of the referrals you become from review sites.

With this Review Site Referrals dashboard, you can apace observe which review site your prospects trust the virtually, including details such as:

• Where should you send customers to review your production? (Sessions by Review Site and Total Time on Page)
• Which review sites bring qualified prospects? (Total Signups by Review Site)
• Where are the best customers reading well-nigh your product? (Sessions by Review Site)
• How many times has your website been featured on a certain review site? (Total Pages)

You tin can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up this Google Analytics dashboard, follow these three elementary steps:

Step 1: Get the template

Step two: Connect your Google Analytics account with Databox.

Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

1. Outset by Just Asking

According to Greenvelope's Alex Kelsey, the best way to encourage customers to write reviews is to "just ask. More often than you retrieve, your fans and customers will be happy to write near their feel with your business, product, or service."

Our respondents offered lots of ideas for how to ask customers for reviews:

• "Inquire in every email you transport, specially if you are on the client back up team. Y'all don't take to get in a big thing, simply something as simple as calculation a link to a review site in your electronic mail signature can work great." (Megan Moseley, Referral Rock)
• "Accomplish out to customers on Twitter and—in a friendly way—ask them to write a review. Nigh of them will!" (Miguel Piedrafita, Blogcast)
• "Subsequently every job, we give our customers a small business-menu sized handout with a QR code that takes them to our Google My Business organisation page. It opens a window on their smartphones that links directly to where they can write a review for our company and postal service it on Google." (Kaitlin Martin Selection Windows)
• "Include a call to activeness on the base of a menu, invoice, or receipt—or even a sign on the back of a toilet door: "While yous're sitting hither, why not give usa a review?" Information technology's a bit cheeky, but if it suits your brand, why non!" (Erica Stacey, Sentry)
• "Hand out flyers explaining how to write a review. Our flyers come with a bit.ly link that sends customers direct to Google'due south review platform." (Dr. Bryan Bruno, Mid City TMS)
• "After a customer makes a positive comment most your concern, enquire the client to post it online while he/she is still on-site. Have the client come behind the desk-bound to your computer or produce a tablet, and directly the person to type in that comment." (Elliott Jaffa, Dr. Elliott B. Jaffa Assembly)

2. Create a Process for Asking for Reviews

One mode to make sure that you're asking customers to write reviews is to have a procedure in place for making the enquire.

"Chocolate Films has been pursuing Google reviews for a year," says Alexandra Lens. "We rapidly reached a five-star rating and have maintained it since."

"To achieve this, we made asking for reviews an integral part of our production process. At the end of each neat video projection, our account managers ask the client to leave a review as part of their sign-off emails."

"Clients and account managers are happy at the end of a successful project and will have established a not bad relationship, so incorporating asking for a review as function of the production process has worked really well for united states," Lens says.

iii. Automate the Inquire

Other respondents use a series of tools to create and automate the process of asking for reviews.

"If you can automate your review process based upon specific actions, then it will be even easier to scale and ensure continuity for review requests," says 9Sail'southward Kyle Kasharian.

As LoclWeb'south Jorge Sheffy says, "Asking for reviews manually is not recommended. It will become also much of a burden on you and volition also be much more inconsistent."

Several of our respondents shared examples of how they automate their review-request processes by creating a poll.

Pop-Up Forms + Follow-Up Emails

"Nosotros use a popular-upwardly form on our site to go reviews after customers accept made a buy," says John Holloway of NoExam. "This form automatically populates the review on Shopper Approved, a third-party review site."

"We so follow upward 2 weeks later on via email and ask customers to write a more thorough review of their shopping feel. We've nerveless over ane,000 user reviews with this method."

Monthly Client Feedback Request Emails

"We transport out customer feedback emails every month asking our clients and candidates to complete a xxx-second survey about our client service," says Fiona Kay of Nigel Wright Grouping. "At the stop of the survey, we ask if they would be happy to submit a Google review."

"Since introducing this, we've experienced a huge increment in the number of reviews nosotros've received, the vast majority existence positive. We now have an average star rating of 4.half-dozen across our nine office Google My Business organization pages."

Online Booking Systems

"Some of our clients use online booking systems for their services," says Niles Koenigsberg of FiG Advertising + Marketing. "Nosotros've used these systems in the past to successfully larn client reviews."

"Later their engagement is finished, customers receive an automated message (text, electronic mail, etc.) that asks them to:

1. schedule their side by side appointment and
2. go out a review to assistance the business organization ameliorate their services."

"It's a cracking tactic to engage with customers when the quality of the service is fresh in their minds. This way, you receive more honest feedback and get that review in quickly before they forget near it."

Review Acquisition Services

"The best style to encourage customers to write reviews is through a defended review conquering service," says Michael Anderson of GeoJango. "These companies will automatically send an email to your customers and ask them to leave a review after a specified number of days."

"Some are geared towards eCommerce and will have their own review-capture platform. Others focus on local businesses and will piece of work towards acquiring reviews through Google, Facebook, and Yelp."

Not a HubSpot Marketing user? No worries. Nosotros have similar dashboards for SendGrid, Marketo, Seventh Sense, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign.

4. When Making the Ask, Target Satisfied Customers

"You shouldn't simply focus on getting reviews," says HealthJoy'southward Rick Ramos. "Y'all need to focus on getting good reviews. You can do this by encouraging reviews after a client has expressed satisfaction."

David Peterson of HealthMarkets agrees: "We've had success inviting reviews from customers who provide us with positive survey results. If they can be stewards for our visitor and make because of the experiences they've had, we encourage that."

So, how do you find out who's had a great experience sending review requests to the right customers? Our respondents offered several suggestions:

• "We utilize an NPS survey that goes out to all of our clients on a quarterly footing. If a customer responds with a promoter score, we send them an automated follow-up electronic mail request if they would be willing to write a positive review." (Jasz Joseph, SyncShow)
• "We apply a combination of SurveyMonkey and GatherUp. SurveyMonkey helps us distinguish happy from unhappy customers. Nosotros extract the happy ones and upload the lists to GatherUp where we take templates and automatic rules for the email sequences that will ask for a review." (Cipher Pupovac , No Bounds Digital)

And Chas Cooper of Rising Star Reviews says you can likewise utilize this process to "plow unhappy customers into happy customers."

"First, enquire the customer to charge per unit your business privately. If the client would give yous a v-star rating, and then encourage him/her to write a review. Merely if the customer gives you a bad rating, ask what you could do better, gear up any problems you lot discover, and go the extra mile to make the client happy. Then encourage a review."

"If you inquire for a private rating earlier asking for a public review, you'll go a second chance to impress unhappy customers, and you'll enhance your average star rating in the procedure," Cooper says.

5. Personalize the Ask

Several respondents said you'll become more than reviews if you personalize the ask.

For case, Casey Hill of Bonjoro recommends "sending a personal video to the customer, thanking them for supporting yous, and asking if they would leave y'all a review. Personalization is a key lever in rapport-building and a keen style to maximize reviews."

Ollie Roddy of Goad Marketing says that "the best thing to do is ask someone personally. Telephone call them and physically go through the feedback/review form with them. It volition only take your business relationship director two minutes, but the likelihood of someone saying no is insanely depression."

"Your submissions rates when sending someone a link though volition be much lower. That's not because people are rude; they're just patently busy," Roddy says.

Some other way to personalize your ask, says Digital Marketing Consultant Rotem Gal, is "to create a specific review funnel for each product/service."

"If someone is buying a product directly from your mobile app, he/she should be able to review it from the mobile app. If someone is ownership a service from your website using a desktop computer, he/she should be able to review the service from the desktop via a follow-up electronic mail."

vi. Explicate Why Reviews Are Important

"To increase positive reviews for your business, inform and educate your customers on how of import reviews are to your business concern," says Miva'south Luke Wester. "The customers who want to back up you will show their back up in the form of positive reviews."

Lauren Triance-Haldane of PathFactory agrees: "Before the vendor sends out a review entrada, we send a heads-up email to our customers letting them know we're about to run a review entrada, request for their participation, and outlining why it's beneficial to everyone to get out reviews."

Brooks Manley of Engenius gives us an case on how to explain why reviews are important for your business: "Push button the idea that leaving a review benefits other consumers. Some people are much more apt to help 'others similar them' find the all-time concern, production, or service—every bit opposed to helping the visitor go i more 5-star reviews."

7. Brand Writing a Review as Simple every bit Possible

"Information technology's of import to remove whatever friction from writing the review," says Garrett Sussman of Class.u.s.a..

"We use an email drip campaign and send customers to our review funnel landing page. The review funnel provides our customers with a few review site options to cull from. Each option has a directly link to the write-a-review URL of the various review sites."

"When customers have a few review sites to choose from, they are more than likely to take the time to exit a review on the site that they're familiar with," Sussman says.

Example review request email template from Course.us

Alistair Dodds of Ever Increasing Circles agrees, recommending that you "send your all-time customers a direct link to your Google My Business review section."

"When sending the e-mail, go on the e-mail curt, make the customer feel special, and include a link to take them straight to the review process," says Hans van Gent of User Growth. "You want the process to be every bit easy as possible for them so that it will have the least amount of time."

And Samantha Kohn of AutoVerify suggests "using a platform that automatically requests the review and takes customers direct to Google, Facebook, and the system's own review platform."

"Review services that have their own platform are the only mode to encourage reviews from not-tech-savvy customers without asking them to sign up for a Facebook or Google account in social club to write the review," Kohn says.

8. Provide a Template for Reviews

Another way to make it elementary for customers to leave reviews and write testimonials is to write some part—or all—of the review for them.

The Blogsmith's Maddy Osman recommends "providing a template in terms of the response you're looking for."

"To give an example, whenever I reach out to people I've done business with to get a testimonial, I share a few bullet points near what I perceive as the highlights of our business relationship that they can either use or ignore."

"A squeamish side effect of this approach is that it allows me to influence what they're going to say. And every bit a bonus, my clients capeesh that they don't have to recollect also hard well-nigh sharing feedback, which increases the likelihood that they'll provide a testimonial," Osman says.

9. Appoint With Your Existing Reviews

Lika Djukic of Best Response Media says that the all-time manner to encourage customers to write reviews is to engage with the people who've already written reviews.

"People who wouldn't by and large get out reviews—regardless of whether they are satisfied or not—will feel encouraged to get out a review if they see replies and feedback from businesses."

"It's better to respond to negative reviews and endeavour and resolve the issue rather than shying away and ignoring the review. The aforementioned goes for positive reviews: a simple thank-you lot bulletin goes a long way," Djukic says.

Lots of our respondents agreed that engaging with your reviews is crucial. In fact, when we asked our respondents how often they respond to customer reviews, 53.5% said they ever respond, and another xxx.seven% said they reply well-nigh of the time.

Some other way to show customers that you're engaged with their reviews is to share your reviews on social media.

Here's a client's review of Databox we shared on Twitter.

10. Offer an Incentive

If you do make up one's mind to offer an incentive for reviews, consider this advice from NeverBounce's Nick Harley: "If you lot're going to offer an incentive, get in articulate in your email subject field line. Otherwise, you may not attract as many respondents every bit possible."

Our respondents offered lots of suggestions for types of incentives that work for their customers.

Discounts/Credits

Another approach: Justin McGill says offering gift cards and credits has worked well for Gist. "We combined a partnership with Capterra to requite $20 gift cards for reviews with three additional account upgrades should users choose to leave a review."

Charitable Donations

"We partner with our G2 Gives programme to create social good through user reviews," says G2's Lauren Pope. "Anyone who leaves a software review on our website can choose a participating 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and G2 will give that charity a $10 donation for their review."

"Currently, nosotros partner with Chicago Tech Academy, and all of the money we donate through our review campaigns goes back into helping gear up the side by side generation of tech employees. It all aligns with our mission of creating an inclusive tech experience and promoting existent-time, fresh user reviews," Pope says.

All-time Company, according to McCall Robinson, uses a similar arroyo: "We run fundraising contests to encourage people to write reviews. For these contests, nosotros partner with a local organization and commit to donating a certain amount of money for every review we receive within a certain time flow."

"This encourages consumers to write reviews on our site because they are, in plough, helping heighten money for a local organization. It's a great style to go the discussion out nearly your company, incentivize review generation, and to do good in the procedure!"

"Customers also love a visitor that is willing to give back to the community," Robinson says.

Free Publicity

"When customers provide us with reviews, we always backlink to their websites and tag them on social media," says Danny Peavey of One Calendar week Website. "We make information technology a priority to highlight 1 or two customer reviews per week. Our customers love the shoutouts and the attending for their businesses."

Vito Michael of Vaetas takes the free publicity incentive even further: "We started a vlog (video blog) and invite our customers on for invitee episodes. We interview them using Zoom and record the interview. They range in time from five to eight minutes."

"The format is:

1. customers provide an overview of their businesses and how they aid their customers,
2. they provide helpful business concern tips, and
3. they explain how they're using our product in their businesses and how it benefits their businesses."

"We besides post a link back to their websites and LinkedIn profiles, besides as share the videos on social media."

"We ship out a personal video email invitation to each customer based on our content agenda. The response has been overwhelming considering it's a win-win strategy," Michael says.

Free Content

"Content is an extremely of import commodity, so information technology'south always an excellent place to start when looking for an incentive," says Angela Ash of MailCharts.

"Create short ebooks that offering information, explain your company in more detail, and provide additional products or services that might entreatment to your current customers. Once a review is submitted, you can automatically email them a re-create of your ebook every bit a thank you for sharing their experiences. It'southward that elementary!"

11. Send Review Asking Emails at the Right Time

Then, when is the best time to enquire for a customer review?

When it comes to getting customers to write reviews, many of our respondents said that timing is everything.

Getting the timing right when asking customers to write reviews is of import, simply it varies profoundly from concern to business.

When Should You Ask for Production Reviews?

If you're seeking product reviews, Graham Charlton of SaleCycle says to "time emails then the purchase is fresh in the customer'southward mind and they've had time to use the production."

Frank Pinder of Oxatis recommends "sending an email after the customer has purchased the production and following up 1-2 days after he/she receives information technology."

However, the type of product purchased should influence when yous ask. As Kim Kohatsu of Charles Ave Marketing says, "If your product is, for example, a skin cream, look until plenty time has elapsed from commitment for the customer to detect the production'due south effects."

"If yous ask for reviews at the right fourth dimension—when customers are feeling positive about your production—they are more likely to get out them," Kohatsu says.

When Should You Ask for Service Reviews?

Knowing when to ask for service reviews, once more, depends on the blazon of service yous're offering.

"Try to ask for a review every bit close as possible to the completion of the service," says Marc Howard of BizPayO. "If you're a digital bureau, ask for the review right later on the project is complete or the payment has been made. Even if the service was a costless consultation, it's notwithstanding an opportunity to enquire for a review."

For service businesses that work with clients on an ongoing footing, Kurt Uhlir of ShowCase IDX recommends asking for reviews at major milestones.

"Even the happiest customers are busy," Uhlir says. "Just when they've worked with your brand and are approaching a new milestone (e.grand. renewal, completion of a entrada, additional buy, etc.), they are unremarkably focused on the benefits of your product/service and are motivated to see you succeed."

"Timing your asking for an authentic review to correct earlier a milestone does 2 things:

1. it improves the chance that they'll accept the fourth dimension correct then to write the review, and
2. it gives you the opportunity to follow up after the milestone with a reminder if needed,"

12. Follow Up on Your Requests

While about of our respondents agreed that request is one of the best ways to get more than reviews, several noted that it's helpful to ask more than than once.

"You should ask for a review," says Donna Duncan of B-SeenOnTop. "And you should besides remind those who are amusing to writing a review just don't follow through."

"We accept obtained virtually 100 Google reviews from our clients inside the past 1-2 years with an email campaign," says Alex Cascio of Vibrant Media Productions. "Both direct contact and follow upwardly were key, every bit many of the customers would put it off or say they would 'get to information technology soon.'"

Top Customer Review Sites Your Business Should Prioritize

There are tons of potential review sites you lot could include in your email when asking for reviews, but you probably don't want to add links to every possible review site. Instead, it'south better to focus on the channels your customers are already using.

To provide you with a starting point, we asked our respondents to weigh in on which business organization review websites they think are the most of import for B2B businesses. The summit responses included Google My Business, Glassdoor, Capterra, LinkedIn, Trustpilot, TrustRadius, and Clutch.

Higher up All, Provide a Great Experience

None of these tactics will work if you lot don't focus on one thing, and that's making sure you're providing an exceptional product or service. In most cases, exceptional customer service is enough to encourage your customers to write a review. Or if nothing else, they will certainly spread the word around. 🙂

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Source: https://databox.com/how-to-encourage-customers-to-write-reviews

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