Modern consumers are cynical and distrusting of marketing. According to Hubspot,
Customers trust recommendations from friends and family over any type of online marketing and advertising your brand can create. And in the absence of trusted recommendations, according to BrightLocal, 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations: the single most trustworthy and credible source of advertising out there.
What does this mean for business owners today? Your business’s online reputation is more important than ever and customer reviews are one of your most convincing and effective marketing assets.
Generating positive reviews doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming when done right, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach to review generation. How do you go about asking for customer feedback in an unobtrusive way? When is the right time to ask your customers to leave a review? How can you encourage more customers to leave a review? The answers to these questions will differ depending on your business, but the underlying strategies remain the same. We asked marketing professionals and business owners across the globe to chime in and provide their most effective tips and tricks for developing a stellar online reputation, and they responded! Read on to learn how reputation management experts generate positive reviews for businesses of all kinds.
Top Review Generation Strategies: According to the Experts
“Make sure that you monitor and keep an eye on your online reviews. You should be aware of what your customers are writing about you on every single website where your business is listed.
Once you have clarity of your business reviews, you need to make sure you respond to them in a timely manner. Even if you have a 5-star reputation on multiple review sites, you still need to seek new positive reviews. If your overall review count is low, a couple of negative reviews can run a risk of destabilizing your online reputation. Make it a point to request each of your customers to write reviews – each one of them. The industry average of request to review conversion is under 10%. So more review requests will ultimately result in more reviews.
Showcase your reviews on all of your own digital properties like your company website and your social profiles so that more people have an opportunity to see what sort of feedback the company is getting from their current customers.”
– Rameez Ghayas Usmani, Digital Marketing Executive, PureVPN
“Feature reviews on your social media pages. People love to get attention. That’s why they use social media a lot. When you get positive feedback from a customer or when they post your product on a platform, go the extra mile by posting it on your socials as well. It can be an exciting moment for customers to see they’ve been featured by a brand. This can encourage others to leave a review as well. Plus, it’s an authentic testimonial that can gain more potential customers.
Offer incentives in exchange for a review. Even if a customer did enjoy your product or service, that doesn’t mean they’re willing to leave a review on your site or in other platforms. You can find a way around this by offering them an incentive, such as a free ebook or a free product. You can also give them a discount coupon on their next purchase. This encourages them to really think about your product and write positive things about it. When you incentivize, you’re essentially thanking people for taking the time to write a review. It makes them feel appreciated, and would actually build trust and customer retention.”
– Laurie Wilkins, Founder, Call Outdoors
“My best tip for effectively generating reviews is to have an editable template sent to a client as soon as they have praised you for your value. At the times when they’re the happiest, you should capitalize by asking for a review, whilst making it extremely easy for them to write one.
If you’re trying to get a review on Google, for instance, have the link ready to send them that goes directly to your GMB review page. Tell the client that they can change parts of the review if they wish, and mention that it will take only a few minutes of their time to publish the review.”
– Itamar Blauer, SEO Consultant, itamarblauer.com
“The most effective way to generate positive customer reviews is to simply ask for them. Remember, customers are much more likely to leave reviews when you prompt them. You need to remind your customers to leave reviews as much as possible. While they may write a review on your site, it’s better to ask via email after the customers receive their order. If you want testimonials about your service or on-site experience, ask customers for reviews after they’ve interacted with your company in some way.
Bottom Line: Simply ask your customers to leave a review.”
– William Taylor, Senior Career Advisor, VelvetJobs
“First and foremost, you might already be getting more positive reviews than you think. When you see your customer is satisfied with what your brand has done for them, don’t miss your chance to ask for permission to publish this feedback on your website, social media, or some other marketing channel. But this is too obvious, right? However, not all business owners keep that in mind. Most often, managers receive some positive feedback, share it with their team, and that’s it.
So, before you come up with incentives that will encourage your customers to write positive reviews, call your team to keep track of all the feedback that they receive. Remember that every single comment on social media or anywhere else is a review that works as effective as a detailed quote.”
– Adelina Karpenkova, Content Marketing Manager, Joinative Native Ads Agency
“Once a month we track our customers’ Gmail addresses across the web to see if and where they have left positive reviews for other companies. This shows customers that have a penchant for leaving reviews or at least – are not averse to leaving them.
We then cross-reference these with the customers that we have done a particularly great job for and then email them with a request to leave a review on our Facebook. We use bitly URL amender to make the review link more user-friendly (for example bit.ly/Rateus&ReviewUs).
Before employing this tactic, our conversion rate was around 3%, 1 review for every 30 emails we sent. Now, we are hovering around the 15% mark (around 1 review for every 6 emails we sent).”
– Christopher Prasad, Marketing Manager, Jooksms
“Positive reviews will come naturally if you do good work of course; however, naturally we focus on the bad experiences and take to online mediums to let others know that we’ve had a negative experience. It’s a different story for the positive: we actually need to be encouraged to make a review if we’ve had a positive experience.
I believe that the most effective being a simple reminder, whether it’s via email, a phone call, or even face to face. You are maintaining contact with your customer and at the same time asking for a simple 5 minutes of their time to give you a rating which will ultimately help you to be noticed by more potential customers.”
– Andrew Roderick, CEO, Credit Repair
“Having a review management work process set up for your business is indispensable to developing your pool of positive client experiences. Research has proven that 68% of customers write reviews for businesses that have rendered services to them after being asked to do so.
Additionally, it was found that 80% of customer reviews are produced from email requests sent to them by the organizations they’ve engaged with. Requesting reviews from clients is a viable method to accumulate positive experiences they’ve had with your business from them. Ordinarily, clients don’t give a review to services rendered to them since they are not requested it or neglect to respond to the request after they’ve been conveyed, this among a couple of different hiccups may act as a test to collecting and managing feedback.
With having a customer review & feedback tool you can easily follow a predefined review management workflow which ensures a smooth process from customer conversion to review publishing.”
– Naheed Mir, Owner, Rugknots
“Positive reviews are essential for any business. Millions now have access to the internet. People are also becoming smarter and they know how to check the reputation of your business. If you have positive reviews associated with your business, then you are more likely to gain that new customer.
Friendliness and professionalism are strategies that will help increase your positive reviews. If customers have questions, provide a detailed, but short answer. This helps the customer understand more about your business and helps to avoid confusion (negative reviews are often caused by confusion).
Make sure customers know how to leave a positive review: add a review section on your website, for example. It is also a good idea to send a personalized email after the customer has bought from you to check in with the customer and ask them for a review.
Bottom Line: Offer a friendly and professional service, and remind the customer that they can leave a review.”
– Joe Flanagan, Lead Developer, GetSongBPM
“Research shows that 91% of people use reviews. At Shelley’s Social Media, we run a review campaign about once a month. It’s important to make it easy for people to give a review so we create a link to that particular review we want to be submitted and send it to our past/present clients or students. When sending out via email we don’t get as great of results as we do when we send it out on other platforms that we want a review on.
For example, if we want them to make a review on Facebook, we create the link and send it via messenger to that person or company. We get great results from every review campaign. It’s fair to say that we usually get 75% of the people to give us a review. “
– Shelley Iverson, Owner, Shelley’s Social Media
“According to HubSpot research, ‘60% of consumers believe customer reviews are either trustworthy or very trustworthy – meaning businesses that can accumulate positive reviews had a good chance of them helping a customer make a purchase decision.’ Also, a BrightLocal survey found that, ‘positive customer reviews make 73% of customers trust a business more, and 57% of customers visit a company’s website after reading positive reviews.’
Therefore, every company needs happy customers such that they can share positive reviews and gain more clients. According to research,’74% of customers who were asked to provide feedback, 68% were willing to do it.’
If your customer is finding time to review your product or service, then, you must appreciate their effort by providing them with rewards. Let it be a discount or coupon code or gift card. You must provide your customers with some kind of motivation to leave a comment on your website.
Ask for reviews in person from your clients. Arrange conferences, industry events, or parties for them. Make them feel valued. This will create more opportunities to get positive reviews. By creating an engaging and useful experience for customers, you will increase their positive sentiment toward your business, and this will increase the chance to leave more reviews.”
– Hima Pujara, Digital Marketing Executive, Signity Solutions
“There are two simple yet effective ways to inspire your customers to leave positive reviews: be proactive and share positive reviews.
85% of consumers are willing to leave reviews. All you need to do is give them a chance to do so! Create spaces for people to leave reviews at highly trusted sources of customer reviews, such as Yelp, Google, or social media apps such as Facebook. Make sure you have a presence on these platforms as people like to consult these before making a buying decision.
Incentivize your customers to leave reviews. For instance, you can give them a code when they give you a review on a certain platform, which they can utilize to avail of a discount/special offer.
Always promote the positive reviews of your customers on social media, your website, and other platforms to motivate other customers to do the same as well. Certain review sites allow you to mark certain reviews as helpful. Make it a habit to mark your exceptional reviews from time to time so your company’s page highlights the cream of the crop.”
– Hamna Amjad, Tech Expert, Smith Thompson
“My company is in the service industry and we believe positive reviews are extremely important for both our brand and overall business. A few ways that we’ve improved our reviews and generated more reviews is to verbally ask our clients about their overall experience and ways we can improve. Once we’ve had this conversation, we ask them if they would be interested in giving us a review. If so, we email them a link to provide a Google review for us.
By doing this, we’ve done the following:
- spoken directly with the client to ensure their satisfaction
- addressed any concerns that the client might’ve had
- uncovered the favorable things the client has to say about their experience with us
- made the process easy for them by emailing them a link to review our services”
– Charlie Bowen, Director of Technology, Vaco
“The most effective way that worked for Meetanshi to generate positive reviews is politely asking the customers who came for live chat support. We follow a practice where a link to pages where the customer can leave a review is messaged to the customers at the end of free live chat or call. This method is very effective to generate positive reviews because at the end their experience, the customer’s mindset is inclined to be positive for our business. So far, by this method, we’ve collected 171 5-star Google reviews, 78 Facebook reviews, and more.”
– Aastha Shah, Senior Content Writer, Meetanshi
“You need to be proactive in understanding your clients so that you don’t get a bad review. We survey our clients every few months and we specifically ask them if they would rate us 5 stars. If they say yes then we ask them to fill out our Google and BBB reviews and most of them will.”
– Stephen Halasnik, Owner, Financing Solutions
“Offer Incentives. What’s in it for your customer to leave a review? Give them motivation in the form of some incentive to write about your brand, product, or service. That being said, bribing your customers or faking reviews is unethical; instead, offer them some good deal, a discount, or something worth their time to write a review for you.
Also, make sure to give customers multiple review options. Limiting your customers with one or two social platforms to post about your product/service is limiting the number of reviews you will get. Make your business available on different platforms your target audience is using on a daily basis.
Most importantly, make it easy for customers to leave a review. Your customers might like your product or service but they won’t go out of the way to post about it, so give them a simple and easy way to share their experience, and post the review be it directly on your website, via a link to the review platform, etc.”
– Eric Jones, CEO, Couture Candy
“The first thing you need to do to generate positive reviews is to start asking. Ask as part of a follow-up email, text, or call, ask at the point of sale, ask out of the blue. This campaign of asking for reviews should be coupled with a customer-centric business model. That is to say that your customers shouldn’t feel like it’s hard to find good things to say about your products or your brand. Make it clear that if everything wasn’t exactly what they expected that you have a way to make things right (this isn’t only good customer service, but it can help cut down on critical reviews).
One final tip, when sending emails or texts you are best served by only presenting one call to action per message. When asking for reviews, make that the focus of the message, don’t tack it on to a sale announcement or another similar message.”
– Benjamin Sweeney, Content Manager, ClydeBank Media
“The most effective ways to generate positive reviews are to provide a quality service or product, ask for the review, and make it easy for the customer or client to write the review.
The first step is to provide something worthy of a positive review. If you already have negative reviews online, take a step back, and assess them for common themes. Is there something within your process or product that needs to be fixed before you start asking for reviews?
Avoid the temptation to pay people or give something away for free in exchange for a review. This is actually frowned upon by sites like Google and it changes the motivation of the reviewer, which can impact the truthfulness of the review. If you have to pay someone to say something nice about you, then it’s not a good strategy.
Next, always ask for a review. Most people will only write a review if they had a bad experience, but even if they had a great experience they often won’t think to write a review. Encourage them and show gratitude for taking the time to share their experience so others can discover their business as well.
And finally, make it as easy as possible to leave a review. There are 3rd party review collection services that help with this process, but the easiest way to do this is to create a one-click review link in your Google My Business account. Simply set up and claim your listing (it’s free), and on your dashboard, you’ll see an option to set up a short name and a review link. Then, simply share that link with your audience at key touchpoints and all they need to do is click the link and it opens a window for them to leave a review on Google!”
– Allison Chaney, Chief Digital Training Officer, Boot Camp Digital
“Using an exclusive Facebook community to generate positive reviews is one of the most recent and effective ways to generate quality, honest, and positive reviews from users that I have observed in the past year. This method is common among tech businesses but can be used by any business. I have observed many WordPress developers use this method to gather an average of 5 stars review out of a maximum 5.
It is all about creating an exclusive Facebook interactive group for users. Every user who purchases a product or uses a free/trial version of a product is invited to join the exclusive Facebook group where they can freely discuss with developers and interact with other users. Users who join the group have access to test new features (beta version) before they are integrated into the live product. In the group, users can ask questions, share challenges they encountered in using the product and get help and suggestions from other businesses and users.
The leaders of the business regularly post tips and welcome new members. They respond to questions. They also share news from behind the scenes. The goal of everything is to make the group highly interactive and resourceful for users. Then occasionally, the developers ask users to leave a review on the product. Because the group is interactive and exciting, the reviews are mostly positive.”
– Mfon Abel Ekene, Digital Entrepreneur, targettrend.com
“To generate positive reviews and to play by the rules you have to think outside of the box.
When we launched our office in Nashville we were unlucky in getting a negative review right off the bat. The reviewer never actually even used our service however left the negative review confusing us with another service. We appealed to Yelp, but they would not take the review down; we even reached out to the person to get them to correct the review, and they never responded. We were distraught because it is very difficult to overcome a cold start when launching a new market and negative reviews with no positive reviews can be almost impossible to overcome.
We knew we had to develop some sort of strategy to get reviews no matter what to push the bad review down with positive sentiments. After brainstorming we came up with an idea to tap into our customer’s souls through their pets. When a homeowner signs up for our service we gather information on if they have pets, and if so what are their names. We do this so our lawn vendors know to be careful when entering the lawn. We decided we could use this info about our customers to send a personalized gift to our customers’ pets, addressed to them.
This really wowed our customers, we received personal thank you notes, photos being posted to Yelp and Facebook, and thank you tweets. It worked really well for the time and money we invested. Our Nashville office now has 27 positive reviews. We have seen several Yelp reviews that specifically reference receiving the gift for their pet so we are going to continue the strategy and engaging our customers and making a personal connection.”
– Bryan Clayton, Co-Founder, GreenPal
“The fastest way to generate positive reviews is on the back of helping someone with a problem. If someone needs help, and they can reach you and get that help, they are far more likely to leave a review than just another satisfied customer.
It’s vital to have a good CX team in place and offer the support people need in a timely manner. Make sure your support staff is fully trained in both the tech side of things as well as how to deal with customers. It’s vital the customer feels there is someone waiting to help them if they need it, as the times when they do need it are when you get to show why your company is better than the competition.”
– Morgan Taylor, CMO, LetMeBank
“When it comes to generating positive business reviews, you need to do three things every time: offer an amazing product or customer service experience, send an email to your customers asking them to leave a review, and respond and take action on every review, even if the customer was 100% in the wrong. In our experience, this has gotten many people to share their experiences. This strategy has allowed Quality Logo Products to collect over 1,640 reviews with an average rating of 9.9 out of 10 on Reseller Ratings and on other popular 3rd party review sites like TrustPilot and the BBB.”
– Bret Bonnet, Co-Founder and President, Quality Logo Products, Inc.
“The best way for businesses to generate positive reviews is to target customers, or in our case, clients at the ideal time during their journey with the company.
As a law firm, we solicit reviews from clients within a week of them receiving a positive outcome on their case. Before the pandemic, this was done in-person; however, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve adjusted this to include personal phone calls and emails. These emails are custom written for each client and are not sent via automation.
By providing this personal touch, we’ve been able to track the reviews in which clients submitted positive responses, which averages around 75% of solicitations sent. We know our clients, many of whom serve on the frontlines of the pandemic, are our best advocates for generating new business. We are honored to represent them.”
– Lauren Dranoff, Community Marketing Specialist, Pond Lehocky
“Having a 100% customer satisfaction mindset is the most effective way to generate positive reviews. Without a quality product or service, you haven’t earned the right to a positive review. A positive review is always a result of great customer experiences and quality products.
The real secret method of getting positive reviews is to ASK for positive reviews. I have found that satisfied customers will gladly give five stars or a written review when you ask them. Ask your customer as soon as possible after the sale to provide you with a positive review. Happy customers are loyal, and they are your greatest asset in generating ratings and positive reviews. Make sure you immediately respond and show appreciation when a customer gives a positive review. Immediate responses are a great way to build trust and rapport, and a great way to generate new business leads.”
– Randy VanderVaate, Owner and President, Funeral Funds
“The best way to generate positive reviews for an online business is to install a review service. Since most people will never go out of their way to write a review without being asked, it’s essential to have a dedicated service that will actively contact customers for you. Additionally, some services allow you to moderate reviews so that you can reject overtly negative reviews with little to no merit. In our case, we’ve received a couple of hundred product reviews through Okendo since installing their product review service. Before Okendo, we used Broadly and were able to raise our number of Google reviews, which are much more difficult to obtain, from 8 to 47 in just a couple of months.”
– Michael Anderson, Marketing Specialist, GeoJango Maps
“This may be way too obvious and on the nose, but the best way to generate positive reviews is to provide top-notch service. As professional real estate agents, our business is built on our reputation. The better we take care of our clients, the more referrals we inevitably receive. Sure, real estate is a sales business, but sales are made when we can convince a customer that we have their best interest at heart. As long as the client’s interests are put first, we expect 5-star reviews every time. “
– Brad Pauly, Real Estate Agent, Pauly Presley Realty
“First, and most importantly, people are more likely to give a review if they receive a personal invitation (i.e., a person associated with the business personally invites them to give a review).
Second, businesses should fully understand the terms of each channel for which they request reviews. For example, requesting a Yelp review violates their terms.
Third, review gating is not an acceptable practice for some channels (e.g., Google) and should be avoided. Review gating is where you weed out customers who may give a negative review, such as first going through a process of receiving customer feedback and then requesting a review from customers who gave positive feedback.
Fourth, sending a text message to ask for a review is extremely effective; however, businesses must have express written consent on paper or electronically before sending a text message, according to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).”
– Allan McNabb, COO and Vice-President, Image Building Media
“According to Search Engine Land, 70% of people will leave a review for a business when they are asked, so, all you have to do is ask, preferably at the right time. For us, that means about a week after the customer starts using our software; this is how long it usually takes for our customers to perceive value in our product and it’s a good time to send an email and ask for a review.
My tip is to always ask for a review, don’t wait for it to happen naturally. People are not naturally inclined to give good feedback. They only tend to leave reviews when they’re not satisfied. For good reviews, you have to put in some elbow work first.”
– Malte Scholz, Co-Founder and CEO, AirFocus
“Generating a positive reputation is undoubtedly one of the best ways to grow a business. It’s important to realize that the onus is on you as a business owner to garner positive reviews. You can use free resources like your company’s Facebook page to ask for reviews from clients, especially if you are small or just starting. You can also reach out to former customers individually and ask them to write a quick 1 to 2 sentence review.
Another strategy is to offer a small incentive or discount to encourage people to leave you a review. This reward could be a discount on a course or a free piece of promotional merchandise. The last tip is to be transparent and follow-through on your offer.”
– Grant Aldrich, CEO, Online Degree
“A study by MarketingLand shows that 90% of consumers make their buying decisions based on reviews. So, it is essential to start generating some positive reviews for your business/brand. But how?
Running a Giveaway is a clever way to get some positive reviews. WPForms, a popular WordPress plugin, runs a giveaway every month. One of the tasks to enter the giveaway is to submit an honest review of their product in other review platforms and upload a screenshot. Who wouldn’t love a chance to grab an iPad?
If you are introducing a new product, you can offer your product to a community for free and they will be glad to review your product in return. Anil Agarwal, an Indian Blogger, recently launched an eBook and offered it for free to his Facebook group for a limited period of time. As a result, reviews got flourished and sales picked up.
What’s common with the above techniques is offering something valuable that your customer wants. It could be anything simpler that you can offer. This is the coolest way to get positive reviews.”
– Nirmal Kumar, SEO Expert, BlogHeist
“If you want to generate more positive reviews, a simple, sincere thank you message can create some positive reciprocity. That combined with making it easy for them to leave a review can turn on the positive review faucet for your business!”
– Colin Little, Owner, Social Launch Marketing
“Of course we take it as a given that you’re providing a service or product worthy of positive reviews; the question is how do you persuade your customers to share their experience in the form of a positive review. In my view, as with many things, timing is the key to getting that positive review. It might be tempting to ask for a review after the transaction is complete but by that point, the experience has worn off and your clients have moved on to the next experience.
Particularly if you’re a service business like we are, give the client an exceptional experience, generate some gratitude, and at that moment you should ask for a review. When your client is still experiencing the positive experience you’ve created for them is the best time for them to review that experience in full fidelity, and it also happens to be the moment they’re most likely to make the effort to do something generous for you as well.”
– George Hammerton, Director, Hammerton Caribbean
“One of the most effective ways for businesses to generate positive reviews is to simply to ask for feedback. For service businesses, we suggest sending a short survey of no more than five questions after service is complete. For each client, we email a survey the day after service is complete with the headline ‘Please confirm completion of service’. The email has a 78% open rate and gives us a generous pool of customers to ask for a review. The last survey question is a link to an online review, where the customer can rate the client’s service and leave a comment. With permissive use, once the review is complete, we can use the review as a testimonial on our website, on social media, and in other digital assets.”
– Katherine Hunter-Blyden, Principal, KHB Marketing
“The best way we’ve found to generate positive reviews is to ask for them! After someone books through our site, we ask them to review us if they liked their experience. We also include reminders to review us in our email campaigns. We’re never pushy about it so as to not frustrate our customers, but, we’ve found that many people enjoy giving a review, they just often forget to do so since it is not a priority. Using wording that shows our appreciation for reviews and noting that it helps us do our jobs better is a great way to encourage the review process along.”
– Jesse Silkoff, Founder, MyRoofingPal
“Most people don’t just sit around and write a review of businesses that they like/don’t like for no reason. You have to ask for a review and make the reviewing process as easy as possible.
The easiest way to do this is by using a Google feature that not many people know about. All you have to do is log into Google MyBusiness and select the Home ribbon on the left. Once you click on that, there should be a rectangle on that page that says ‘Get More Reviews’, with a button inside that says ‘Share Review Form’. This button will give you a link that you can share with your customers to quickly and easily provide a review for your company. I recommend that you include it in a final email to your customer and ask for them to rate your service (you’ll be surprised how many people will actually leave a review if you make it that easy for them).
In terms of keeping those reviews positive, remember to only send this link to those who have had a positive experience with your company. For example, as a private investigation company, we only include the link in the final email if we know for a fact that the customer was satisfied with the investigation that we conducted for them.”
– Lisa Ribacoff, Licensed Private Investigator, International Investigative Group
“The best way we have found to generate reviews for our business is to simply ask for them. We’ve tried the automated services, and they do work, it can make some people upset though because they sometimes get repeated emails asking for a review. We send personalized emails and always mention something about the person or project that was positive and memorable for them.
Once we started doing the personalized emails from their main contact with our company for their work our conversion rate went up over 75%. We are careful who we email as well since some of our clients are not allowed to give online reviews, and some don’t have time and we know that.”
– Ben Walker, Founder and CEO, Transcription Outsourcing, LLC
“Research shows that up to 90% of purchases are influenced in one way or another by online reviews. It is more important today than ever that your business maintains a positive online image that compels new customers to try your products and or services.
Three of the most effective ways for businesses to generate positive reviews are by identifying the right moment to ask for a review, providing customers with multiple convenient ways to leave reviews, and being clear with customers about how long your reviews will take.
Customers are much more likely to leave you a review if they know it won’t take much time. If, however, you sell an expensive product or a complex service there is no reason to think your customers will be unwilling to spend a few minutes leaving you a positive review. You just need to make sure you ask them at the right time and give them a convenient way to do so.”
Kevin Miller, Founder and CEO, The Word Counter
“Businesses can use a combination of several methods to gather positive reviews. One successful method I’ve observed is retaining a list of customers and following up with them about their experience. The businesses that work with Best Company can send a phone or email list to solicit reviews. When we conducted a case study of one company working with us, they had a 13% review conversion rate with an average of 4.5 stars. Another company saw an overall two-star increase when they began working with us to solicit reviews from their customers.”
– Rochelle Burnside, Content Specialist, Best Company
“Having a great product and superb customer service is clearly the best way to generate positive reviews. We are always communicating with our community and customers to make sure they are feeling great about our products. Following up and asking for feedback is an integral part of that process.”
– Catherine Balsam-Schwaber, CEO, Kindra
“Make it easy for customers to get in touch with you and able to leave feedback. Before potential customers make it to your actual website, make sure they can learn about your business through third-party review sites such as Facebook or Amazon. Also, be sure to thank everyone that leaves a review of your product, it shows that their feedback is valid and your business cares for their input.”
– Ashwin Sokke, Co-Founder, Wow Skin Science
“First things first, you want to create different spaces to leave reviews, whether it be through Facebook or a review page on your website. It’s all about listening and being responsive to your customers. Make everyone a priority, and even in bad reviews you still want to make that your problem. Respond thoughtfully, without being defensive, to come to a resolution. Once you start receiving positive reviews from your customers, highlight and share them so other customers are inspired to do the same.”
– Brandon Monaghan, Co-Founder, Miracle Brand
“We ask for reviews from our customers using a series of emails after their first use of our product. Since our product is free and can only save you money at the retail pharmacy, generally speaking, that leads to good reviews all the time; however, sometimes a free 10% discount isn’t good enough these days! So, when we ask for reviews from customers, we create a series of questions through Typeform and then direct only high-quality responses through our logic workflow to the appropriate social channels. Given their answers, we expect a solid review online. Any review that doesn’t meet the standard of a high-quality review for us, we direct to our customer service team to address one-on-one with the customer. That moment of a personal customer service experience actually ends up leading to positive reviews for us as well.”
– Chris Riley, CEO, USA Rx
“Ask for a review. It can seem so forced and unnatural and feel wrong to do so, but practice makes perfect here and you really do just need to ask so that people are reminded to do so. A lot of people tend to only leave reviews when they have had a bad experience, so just by simply reminding individuals that they can and should leave a review for positive experiences as well, you will be bolstering your percentage of positive reviews indefinitely. “
– Andrew Taylor, Director, Net Lawman
“One of the most effective ways for businesses to generate positive reviews is to simply ask customers for them. The key is to make sure you’ve already reached out and the person is satisfied, and when they are, it is much easier to reach out and ask if they are interested in leaving a review. This is a good way to make sure the majority of the reviews you get are positive as well since you’re building a relationship with the customer and screening before asking.”
– Stacy Caprio, Founder, Accelerated Growth Marketing
“I’m sure you’ve been told a few hundred times that to get good reviews, you need to ask. This is obviously true but how you ask is just as important. Don’t simply send an email to customers asking if they like your product. Do your research.
Studies have shown that minor changes to the wording of your review request can make a big difference. For example, adding your business name in the subject line of an email requesting a review can increase conversion by nearly 4%. When you ask for a review is also important. The nearer the review request is to the service, the more likely you’ll receive a positive review. As time passes, the likelihood that something could go wrong with the product or service increases and you don’t want to give the customer a reason to tell others about it when they may have just let it go.”
– Phil Strazzulla, Founder and CEO, Select Software Reviews
“Create a process for asking for reviews, perhaps after purchase of your product you send a follow-up email asking them for feedback. Make sure there are a few platforms where conversation can happen and reviews can be made. Having many positive reviews helps build trust within your business and gives potential consumers the confidence to purchase your products. Reviews are crucial for your business because they are important to your customers.”
– Derin Oyekan, Co-Founder, Reel Paper
“When generating reviews, you want to make sure there is always a platform for your target audience to be able to leave feedback. Earn your clients’ trust by providing excellent customer service; don’t be afraid to reach out whether it is through email, face-to-face, or a phone call to get these reviews. Always thank your clients, and assure them that great clients like them are what help you grow.”
– Judson Hill, Vice-President of Business Development, Bespoke Financial
“One of the keys to getting customers to write positive online reviews of your business is to ask them at the right time. When is that? There are two times that often arise. The first is when you have made significant progress and received praise from a client about the value your team has added. When they offer you praise, follow-up by thanking them and asking if they would be willing to leave a review on a specific website you have in mind. The other ideal time to ask a customer to leave a review is right after they have stopped working with you. In general, you only want to ask if they are ending the relationship on good terms. For example, if their business is pivoting and no longer in need of your service or if they don’t need to buy your product again. Most happy customers will feel a little guilty for ending the relationship, especially if they were pleased with the results. One way they can feel better about ending the relationship is by providing your business with long-term value by leaving a positive review.”
– Ricardo Mello, Managing Partner, Manhattan Miami Real Estate
“Encourage happy customers to leave reviews because it helps your business grow. The problem with most businesses needing positive reviews doesn’t stem from not having happy customers: it’s simply that those customers don’t think to leave a review after their great experience.
Often, people only leave reviews due to bad experiences; they need to be encouraged to leave positive feedback after good ones. To do this, I recommend letting customers know how important positive reviews are in growing your company. According to Harvard Business School, a one-star increase in average Yelp reviews leads to a 5-9% increase in revenue. If your customers had a great experience with your company and want you to stick around and keep growing, let them know that positive reviews will directly affect that. Try leaving a short, friendly reminder that positive reviews help company growth (and in turn, helps them as customers) after every transaction or client project. It could be in an email, a thank you note, or could be implemented into your product. However you want to communicate it, make sure your customers know how important it is (and how grateful you’d be) that they leave positive reviews.”
– Michael Dean, Co-Founder, Pool Research
“Try asking for customers to leave reviews on social media. Social media platforms can be a great way to ask customers to leave reviews, mainly because they’re already online. The problem with many businesses asking their customers to leave feedback is that it seems like a lot of work because they have to get their device, go online, and find the correct website. Not only that, but they might also forget by the time they have access to their phone, laptop, or an internet connection. When asking on social media, this problem is eliminated because customers are already online. They’re only a click or two away from finding your website (or Yelp) and writing a review in 30 seconds to a minute. When you ask for feedback online and on social media, it feels like a lot less work and a much faster process for the customer.”
– David McHugh, CMO, Crediful
“As a content ambassador, I have been relying on social media accounts for the feedback on my articles. Lately, there are more powerful ways on how businesses can generate positive reviews and one of those is the help of influencers. Bloggers and vloggers nowadays are the most influential people in the online platform because they have a huge number of followers. When you form an alliance with them, it is guaranteed that your sales will increase and you will receive a lot of positive reviews right away. You just have to offer the influencers a partnership that will be beneficial for both parties so that they will be active in promoting your brand.”
– Samantha Moss, Editor, Romantific
“You can achieve a good number of customer reviews by building and keeping an active presence on such well-known websites as Facebook, Yelp, and Trip Advisor. You should also encourage your website visitors to give reviews. This can be particularly effective in follow-up emails after they have had your product or service for a set period of time. Another method that can be effective for generating reviews for eCommerce brands is to include handwritten notes in with the product. This will explain what to do if the customer is not happy but most importantly where to leave good feedback if they are. It’s worth bearing in mind that your customers are likely to be short of time; however, they might well be prepared to share their expenses in return for rewards such as discounts and gift cards, often competitions are used to achieve this. Be sure to ask open questions for the encouragement of detailed reviews and always respond; no matter whether they are positive or positively scathing.”
– Ryan Pitylak, Founder and CMO, ZenBusiness
“Ensuring that customers experience a positive buying process is the best way to generate positive reviews. When customers feel that a business’s entire sales funnel is convenient, fast, secure, and reliable, it affects the perception of the customer to incline towards the positive side of the spectrum. Businesses can achieve this by constantly asking for feedback on how to improve their current system. Then, they can make the necessary changes to address customer concerns. The desired result is an improved purchasing process flow that generates happier, more satisfied customers. It is a trial and error process, however, and business should always practice this to continuously improve customer experience.”
– Yaniv Masjedi, CMO, Nextiva
“The most effective way to generate positive reviews is to create opportunities for your customers to leave a review. Giving your customer a reason to leave a review by giving them discounts, coupons, and different kinds of incentives. This will drive their interest in leaving good reviews since they have benefited from it and it shows how you value your customers by giving them various opportunities.”
– Martin Seeley, CEO, MattressNextDay
“I think the best way to generate positive reviews is through unparalleled service, nonetheless. If customers are more than satisfied with their experience from your company, the good reviews will naturally come, along with recommendations and referrals. You won’t even have to ask! “
– Sonya Schwartz, Founder, Her Norm
“Most businesses fail to utilize the power of their social media followers. According to Brightlocal, a massive 87 percent of people aged between 18 and 34 have reviewed a local business on social media. When businesses don’t do anything to encourage their followers to write a review on social media, it leaves an enormous opportunity untouched. The best part about people leaving positive reviews in social media is that it is also an effortless way to market your business. Even people that don’t know you can discover you through your follower’s reviews about you.
Conducting a promotion that gives freebies, discounts, and exclusive promos to people that write positive feedback is the best method to generate positive reviews. You can add an extra action like sharing the review on their profile so that their network can see it. There are also other actions you can do for people to qualify for the promo like requiring them to upload a receipt from a recent transaction, which can boost sales tremendously if multiple people participated.”
– Sherry Mae, CMO, Tankarium
“Influencer marketing is an unorthodox way of generating positive reviews. The best part about it is that one positive review from an influential person is worth more than a hundred or thousand people’s reviews of your business; however, choosing the right people for the job is also critical.
The secret to fully maximizing the benefits of influencer marketing is for the influencers to encourage their fans to leave a positive review about you. When that happens, it becomes an effortless way of amassing free positive reviews. If you’re a local business, I recommend starting with the most influential people in your area, preferably retired geniuses that excelled in their prime years but are still famous today. For businesses with a broader scope, partnering with social media influencers is the most suitable option. The more relevant people you partner with, the wider the spread of your brand’s positive reputation. “
– Brian Patrick, CEO, Pest Strategies
“Positive reviews can build up the company’s image and give first impressions to new clients even without having contact with the company itself. As of 2016, 90% of customers read reviews first before actually engaging with the company itself. As the CEO of an online business, I don’t take reviews for granted and I cherish every comment that I’m receiving may it be positive or negative. Of course, I always want to receive positive reviews from my clients and my number one technique on gaining positive reviews is by beginning my request for review with an open-ended question. Asking for a review right away makes the customer feel forced which is supposed to be not. Asking questions like, ‘How do you like our service? Let us know how our products are doing!’. This also gives customers an idea or topic of what to say on their reviews which can make them write easier.”
– John Howard, CEO, Coupon Lawn
“Integrating a review widget with your website while encouraging customers to leave a positive review by offering discounts for their transaction is the best way to receive positive reviews. Offering discounts for their next transactions works best on customers that enjoyed and loved your service. This tactic performs best on service-based business where staff can study the facial reaction, body movements, and satisfaction levels of the customer. When your team deduces that a customer is more likely to leave a positive preview, they can converse with them to leave a positive review online in exchange for a discount on future transactions.
For the widget part, one hidden feature is the ability to combine all relevant reviews from multiple sources like your social media channels and other review sites into a single platform. When customers see the massive compilation of reviews, it also encourages them to leave a review of their experience.”
– Erik Rivera, CEO, Thrive Talk
“We all want to build brand credibility and to do that we have got to get our followers and our new audiences to give us positive reviews. Plus, it also makes us stand out from our competitors. As for my law firm, we always ask our clients to leave a review or a testimonial on our website, but the only way for our clients to give us positive reviews is if we really do some really great work and they’re satisfied with the work that my firm did.
So, the first thing to remember is to do quality and satisfactory work. The second thing you could do is ramp up on everything social media. You have got to have a social media presence. This is the fastest way for us to generate leads, conversions, and also build a strong reputation online and of course generate positive reviews and testimonials.”
– Jacob Sapochnick, Founder, Law Offices of Jacob J. Sapochnick
“When it comes to asking customers for reviews, think about all the possible touch-points, and then filter down to those that are most likely to get engagement. A customer might be more likely to spare 5 minutes to leave you a review following an interaction with your customer support team than when they are in the middle of checking morning emails.
Remember that not all positive reviews come with a 5-star rating. Encourage your customers to leave an open and honest review that shows where your product shines, but also where they’d like to see improvements. Nobody expects any product to be perfect, and a string of 5-star reviews may end being less impactful than a mix of 4 and 5-star reviews that are more transparent and authentic. Your reviews will only be as good as the product and service you provide your customers, and vice-versa.
By sharing reviews with your company internally, whether that’s product designers, customer support, or key decision-makers, they will be driven by the praise and also take on board the feedback. This in itself creates a culture of striving to achieve excellence, which ultimately drives more positive reviews.
These are among the strategies we have in place at TalentLMS and in a period of 6 months we saw a 158% increase in reviews and an improvement in our position on key software sites like Capterra and G2 where we currently hold a 4.6/5 rating.”
– Gina Lionatos, Partner Marketing Manager, TalentLMS
“A business can only generate positive reviews if they’re providing high-quality products, services, and customer service. It all boils down to the quality of your offerings and how you treat your customers. Based on my experience, listening to what the customers need, and providing them with customized packages and services are integral in customer satisfaction, which will then generate positive reviews.
Another thing to focus on is your customer service team. Issues with your products may be inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be a terrible experience. How your customer service team treats your clients, whether prospects, first-timers, or returning ones, says a lot about how you care about the people that keep your business alive.”
– Derek Gallimore, Founder, Outsource Accelerator
“With all the purchases on our website, we use TrustPilot to build up reviews from our customers. While this platform does work to build reviews, we want to ensure our customers write us a positive review when possible. That is why we have set up another system that sends out a postcard 10 days after they place an order with us. This postcard talks about how happy we were that they shopped with us and telling them to contact us right away if they ever have a question. The review request from TrustPilot goes out 21 days after they place an order, so they get it after the postcard is delivered as well. We have seen much more positive reviews after doing this strategy to enforce positivity with our company.”
– Jeff Moriarty, Owner, Moriarty’s Gem Art
“Getting positive reviews for your products or services will definitely help your business, but, not all consumers take the time to leave positive reviews online despite being satisfied with your products or services. Among the strategies that we have tried in order to generate more positive reviews, the most effective one is to seize moments of customer happiness. Once your customers have given you their feedback about your product or service, ask them if they could take the time to share their feedback online. Customers who are happy and satisfied with your product or service will definitely be willing to do so.”
– Jake Rheude, Vice-President of Marketing, Red Stag Fulfillment
“As a business owner, I observed that positive customer reviews help increase credibility and build the brand’s reputation. There are several ways on how to get a positive review, one is to make it easier for your customer to give a review. No matter how good your services are if they find it difficult to give a review they wouldn’t. Provide an easier link to your review section or make a pop up where they can easily click 5 stars. This doesn’t only give importance to their time but also you will be able to get what you want.
Another way is to encourage customers to leave a review by giving back a token of appreciation for every review. This can increase the interest of your customers in giving a review. Oftentimes than not, people give positive reviews when they know they will get a reward after.”
– Scot Chrisman, Founder and CEO, The Media House
“In these interesting times, people are more sensitive than ever. A small helpful act could give you an advantage. As a finance expert, I know for a fact that people have great value for money. If they get a service that is way more than what they’d paid for, you’d be rewarded with outpouring support and great feedback. Ask your customers personally. Make them feel that you are interested to know if they’re satisfied with the service or not. Ask for feedback and what they think you can do to make it better. Assure them that you will do your best to accommodate what they need. “
– Timo Wilson, CEO, ASAP Credit Solutions
“In retail, what I find produces good reviews is offering a complete customer service experience. Obviously, you need to start out with a great product, but it’s so much more than that; it’s having an accurate size guide and training customer service staff to deal with questions regarding fit, it’s offering multiple types of quick and easy payment, it’s ensuring fast and painless shipping, it’s having a great customer service team that is responsive, professional, and helpful, no matter what the customer needs.
Social media also plays a huge part: customers appreciate open communication, so having active socials where you can interact with customers always adds some extra stars to reviews. It’s an easy way for people to ask questions and actually receive answers from our company or the community.
When you go above and beyond to provide your customer with the best experience possible, they will actually leave you good reviews even when they’ve had issues or they don’t like the product. We’ve had people review us positively after experiencing delays with their orders just because we were professional in handling the situation and didn’t create extra unnecessary aggravation.
Remember that people don’t bother to leave reviews unless they have an exceptionally good or an exceptionally bad experience. Make sure they never experience the latter.”
– Sandra Hurley, Operations Manager, Hayden Girls
“In our experience, the number one way to generate positive reviews is to reach out to your customers within a week or two of their receipt of your product and express genuine interest in how they are enjoying your product. If they react positively, you can politely ask for an honest review, and in many cases you will get one. If they react negatively, you can use this as an opportunity to make it right and convert an unhappy customer into a delighted customer.
In engaging in this process, we recommend sending personalized emails to your customers, as this will convey sincerity. Sending an automated email may turn your customers off and decrease the likelihood that they will take the time to leave you a review. Based on our experience, we found that for every 10 customers we contacted in this manner, 5-7 would respond with comments and 2-4 of them would take the time to write a review.”
– Megan Smith, CEO, Dosha Mat
“Blogger outreach is one of the most effective ways to generate positive reviews and PR for a brand. By reaching out and building relationships with bloggers, they can provide invaluable reviews that reach their audience.
An outreach strategy with a proper incentive can catch the attention of bloggers and lead to positive organic mentions. We are currently doing this for Respona to help bring traffic and users into the platform. Especially in a niche like link building and outreach software, bloggers influence a great deal of the industry opinions.”
– Farzad Rashidi, Co-Founder, Respona
“The most effective way for business to generate positive reviews at scale is to combine high users satisfaction and an incentivized offer in exchange for a review.
For example, about a month ago, I bought a new laptop from Lenovo. And I loved it from the get-go, and still do. About a week later, I got an email from Lenovo asking me how I liked my computer and if I’d like to review it so they can know what I think of it and possibly improve in the future. They also said that all those who leave a review will get a chance to win a new high-end product from them (don’t remember which one, also a type of computer). I shared my thoughts about the laptop I bought, partly because I was still thrilled with my new computer and partly because I wanted to have a tiny chance of winning another high-end gadget.
This tactic works, but it wouldn’t have worked had I been unsatisfied with my computer. Product quality comes first, but then you also have to ask for a review and in a time frame that falls between total excitement from getting a new product to eventually cooling off completely. Had Lenovo waited three weeks instead of just one, it would’ve been too late for them to gain my glowing 5-star review.”
– Nikola Roza, Owner and CEO, Nikola Roza- SEO for the Poor and Determined
“The most effective way to generate positive reviews is very simple; produce a great product. Although it’s a simple concept, I will never say that the task itself is easy. If you go out and create a high-quality product or one that addresses a problem your target market is facing, you won’t have to spend as much time working to generate positive reviews. Customers love a high-quality product that solves their problems, and if you create that, they are much more inclined to be a brand evangelist and write a review without you ever even asking them to.
You might be wondering, how exactly do you produce a great product that will delight customers and have them writing raving reviews? The answer to this question is product research. Look up products similar to the one you want to create and read the reviews, paying close attention to negative reviews. What issues are customers having with existing products that provide you with an opportunity to solve those issues, create a better, differentiated product?
In addition to producing an outstanding product, the way you package your product can have a big impact on generating reviews. The goal is to present your product in a way that will delight your customers. The packaging is the first thing a customer sees, before even seeing the actual product so be sure your packaging is well thought out to give a great first impression.
Creating a superior product and using better packaging is a good start, but don’t stop there. After you go out and create a great product that will wow customers when they receive it, the final step is to ask for a review. Now some customers will be so delighted they will write one on their own; however, to increase your review rates I’d recommend implementing both an e-mail (or Facebook messenger) and in-packaging review request. The best way to request a review via email or messenger is to build the review request into a sequence. What that means is that the first point of contact with your customer should not be asking for a review. After your customer places an order you should contact them and thank them for their order. Once tracking shows their order is delivered, you should send another message asking them if they have received their order and to make sure everything arrived ok. You also want to let them know your customer service team is available and ready to assist them if they have any issues. This will not only show you have great service but if an issue ever arises, it will give you the opportunity to resolve it and therefore prevent negative reviews. The last message in the sequence should be sent a couple of days after the product is received and they’ve had a chance to use it; simply request the customer leave a review to share their insight with other customers and help provide you with feedback so you can make the best products possible. Since the second email you sent was to address any customer issues, by the third email most of your customers should have had a positive experience with your product and company.”
– Patrick Connelly, Co-Founder, Stellar Villa
“Honest reviews are more important than positive reviews but hopefully, your honest reviews are positive. That is to say, consumers know a fake or forced positive review from a genuine honest one. So start there.
A great way to get reviews is to simply ask for them. If you send out a product, put an eye-catching card in the package asking them to leave a review if you gave 5-star service but to contact you ‘here’ if you have any issues. Follow-up orders with a polite email requesting a review. Personalize it and make it sound from-the-heart. Make them feel appreciated for choosing you. Make the steps to follow for leaving the review easy to understand. Links are really helpful.
You can also use social media for review-sourcing. Create a hashtag for customers to use when opening their packages or using your product. When they do, respond to their posts or videos and share them on your own feed. People love attention on social media and future customers will see that you actually do watch the reviews.”
– Eric Sachs, CEO, Sachs Marketing Group
“I recommend that clients use well-known bloggers and vloggers to help generate buzz for their company or product. A simple way to do that is to send out a sample product to them and ask them if they will create content to share if they like it! You want individuals with large social followings, but if you can find locals who have a more concentrated presence in the area, those can sometimes be more beneficial because they are home town and, therefore, more reliable since they live in the area of the product is from.”
– Sarah Franklin, Co-Founder, Blue Tree AI
“Consumers are a lot more likely to leave a review following a negative experience than a positive one. To curb negative online reviews, we suggest incentivizing your employees with rewards to garner positive reviews. In the past, we have recommended our restaurant clients to hand out review cards with the bill and encourage guests to share their experience with us, mentioning the server by name. This tactic resulted in more positive reviews populating the restaurant’s Yelp, TripAdvisor, and OpenTable profiles. It also resulted in improved customer service from every server participating and kept employees motivated throughout the workday.
Some businesses use paid management tools like GatherUp, ReviewAbility, or Net Promoter Score (NPS), to gauge customer experience. As an example, NPS sends an automated email following the customer’s visit, asking how their experience went. If the customer rates their experience less than 7 out of 10, it asks for feedback and improvements, essentially capturing their negative review privately). If the customer rates their experience between 7-10, they are asked to leave a public review.”
– Veronica Figueroa, Public Relations Strategist, Laughing Samurai
“The best way to get positive reviews is to ask for them. 70% of consumers will leave a review when asked. Anecdotally, most of these are positive. Research confirms this: brands can expect their star rating to go up after prompting users to leave reviews via email.
In my experience, the best thing you can do is include review requests in your messages, e.g. via: E-mail campaigns, post-purchase follow-ups, in-app prompts, etc. Conversely, not asking for reviews can mean getting a higher proportion of negative ones. That’s because consumers with negative experiences are more likely to leave a review in the first place. In other words, you get negative reviews naturally, but getting positive ones means asking.”
– Trond Nyland, Founder and CEO, Mattress Review
“Genuine positive reviews from consumers are all about the experience and the value they derive from businesses. If your business is able to provide a unique experience to consumers, then it’s much easier getting a positive review out of them.
The real trick is to engage with consumers in a way that makes them feel in control. They don’t want businesses hounding them for reviews when all they want is to shop or browse in peace. That’s where lead magnets and email marketing comes into play.
Lead magnets are a great way to provide consumers with value in exchange for their contact information. Businesses provide them with reports and e-books they want in exchange for their email address and then follow up later on. Besides, written positive reviews by customers are worth so much more, and lead magnets can help gain them.
Once businesses acquire contact information through lead magnets, email marketing is the next step to follow up to try and fish a review. According to Brightlocal, 86% of customers consider writing reviews for brands they like and it adds to the assurance of the business. Not to mention, the perception of customer experience is instantly improved and at the end of the day, positive reviews are a direct result of good customer experience.
Try and be smart about how you approach customers to gain positive reviews because this approach is as much a part of your brand’s customer experience as the product or service you offer.”
– Muhammad Jalil, Founder and CEO, Mountainise
“Don’t be afraid to ask! At the end of all of our podcast episodes, we ask that if anyone who listens is finding value in our content to please leave a review. We started including links to do the same on our website and we started seeing more reviews come in.”
– Richard Carthon, Founder and CEO, Crypto Current
“I usually make it a habit to reach out to people I’ve worked with and ask for their testimonials. I usually get the best answers when I ask questions like, ‘What was a memorable a-ha moment for you?’ or, ‘What were your greatest takeaways?’
Additionally, it’s always a good thing to ask how my service has directly affected them for the better.
One last helpful tip is to ask for reviews or testimonials in different formats (i.e. written reviews, video testimonials, etc.)”
– Laura Louis, Licensed Psychologist, Atlanta Couples Therapy
“For starters, you need to walk the walk as they say. In order words, if you are a locksmith service and being on time is one of your promises and you show up an hour late, well then there goes your credibility! If you SAY you’re going to do something, and you actually DO it, the customer is going to be ecstatic, and maybe even surprised you actually DID it! This will in turn move them to recommend your service to others.
You actually have to come out and ask for a review, because people aren’t always motivated to do it on their own. Mention it to them right after you provide them the service, send them a card, or in an email if they are on your subscriber list. Make it easy for them, but just don’t forget to do it as it will certainly increase the chances of you getting more reviews.
Everybody likes a gift or freebie these days, and a referral is the best kind of gift that will provide a win-win for both of you. Give them a discount on their next service or a gift card to a local restaurant just for providing you a positive review or referral that completes a service with you. This leaves them a happy, returning customer and you with a positive review, and potential customers coming your way. You both WIN!
In the end, no amount of giveaways and incentives are going to help you if you do shoddy work, so make sure you don’t drop the ball and are actually providing quality work for your clients or customers. If you do end up with any negative or not so positive reviews, be sure to get with the customer that left it right away and see what you could have done better to make that a positive review, so you can prevent that from happening in the future.”
– Christie Etter, Founder, Christie Love Wellness
“Online reviews are increasingly important to how your business performs on- and off-line. In fact, the more high-quality and positive reviews a business has the more likely it will rank in local search over competitors, and reviews have a big impact on conversion. The purchase likelihood for a product with five reviews is 270% greater than that of a product with no review. What’s more, a study showed that 68% of consumers left a review for a local business when asked, so you’ll want to proactively invite customers to share their experiences with your brand.
The secret to requesting reviews is all in the way that you ask: it’s about requesting feedback. Asking for feedback is inherently different than asking a customer to go online and say great things about your business. Asking for feedback, whether it is good or bad, means that their opinion matters, that they are being heard. Actively generating reviews by inviting public customer feedback is one of the best ways to get the word out about how great your business is.
There are many ways to ask clients for a review:
- include a call to action on your email and or receipt
- follow up a service call with a customer survey and at the end of the survey ask the client to leave an online review
- send a text message or email to clients with a link to your Facebook or Google My Business profile and ask them to leave you a review
Once the reviews start to coming in, it’s important to monitor and engage with customers who leave you a review, both positive and negative. Responding to negative reviews shows future customers that you are committed to customer satisfaction and will work to resolve issues. Take the time to respond to every review, whether the customer left comments or not. Your attention to detail will go a long way with future customers.”
– Laura Cole, Vice-President of Marketing, Vivial
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