How to Get More Reviews for Your Business

Did you know that the average consumer reads at least 10 reviews before approaching and trusting a business platform? Believe it or not, they do!

10 reviews per customer! This finding does it all. The importance of getting reviews cannot be explained better. A prospective customer first runs through the reviews before making any decision, because no one wants to spend their hard-earned money on something that’s not worth it.

Be it SaaS, eCommerce or any business for that matter, reviews are highly influential in getting more traffic to your website and even more customers. And that’s why you cannot afford to ignore the power of online reviews and the necessity of getting more reviews for your businesses.

7 Effective Tips to Get More Reviews for Your Business

In this article, we will be discussing 7 of the easiest and most effective ways to get more reviews for your business. Take a look:

1. Extend your Online Presence to third-party Review Sites

You can’t deny the fact that third-party review sites are becoming increasingly popular. Be it you or me, most of us rely on the reviews posted on these sites before even approaching a product platform. So, registering yourself or claiming your business in sites like Yelp, Facebook, Google My Business, G2crowd (for software reviews) etc. would be purely advantageous as thousands of customers bank on them.

If you can get your happy customers to leave reviews in these sites, then there’s nothing better! In fact, many of the sites will even lend a hand in getting more reviews for your business by offering incentives or sending review collection emails to your customers. All in all, adopting such an approach would be your best bet. No second thoughts!

Before progressing towards my next suggestion here’s something to be noted: Ensure that the communications taking place in your profile is regularly monitored and respond to reviews as well. Responsive businesses tend to get highlighted. The average response time and response rate will be exhibited by the review sites.

Let’s not just make a profile for namesake and leave it at that. That would be a business blunder for you will not be aware of what your customers say about you, especially the unhappy ones. When you are unaware of what the reviews are, neither will you be able to get a chance to address their issues and resolve them nor will you be able to build a good online reputation for your business. When that’s the case, the boon would soon turn into a bane. So, track and respond!

2. Put those NPS Surveys into Good Use

It apparently exhibits simplicity, but NPS surveys are one of the most powerful weapons to lay the cornerstone for a thriving business. Well, all of us know that NPS surveys can help gauge customer loyalty with much ease. But how many know that the same can be applied for procuring more reviews? Surprise! Yes, it can!

Being able to segregate customers based on their NPS scores to promoters, passives and detractors is one of the biggest virtues of the net promoter system. A very few would think otherwise. This data can also help us get more reviews. Let me tell you how.

The first step evidently is to forward an NPS survey to your customers. Then collect the responses and identify the passives, detractors and promoters.

Now you can ask the promoters why they have scored you a 9 or 10 and then request them to leave a review on platforms like Google, Facebook, Capterra etc. Make sure you send them the link to your profile along with these requests. For all you know, the client may not have the time or patience to go searching for your profile in the review sites.

In fact, you could automate this process with the help of display and skip logic offered by capable NPS software. With such a tool in place, you can set up exclusive steps for your customers depending on what they score you.

If it’s a promoter, you can set up a message or a question to him/her and then redirect the customer to a review platform be it via an in-product prompt or an automated email. Once the review is provided you can set an incentive to send to them as a token of gratitude. If not, send an automated follow-up mail, but make sure that you don’t spam your customers.

As for the passives and detractors, you can position exclusive questions to know the reason behind their scored and then generate a ticket and close the loop. You can’t ask them to drop a review yet.

But here’s what you should do. Take appropriate actions, resolve their issues and then convert them into promoters. This may be a gradual process for a customer review strategy but it can definitely get you more online reviews and improve your reputation.

3. Make the most of an Email Campaign

Email Campaign is one of the most popular and cost-effective methods to get more reviews for your business. It may sound outdated but is still leveraged by many big names in the business world including Nike and Apple.

You can simply automate emails to be sent to your selected customers. Let the number be in tens of thousands, and it gets done before you can say, Jack Robinson!

Now, you would definitely want a good open rate and a click-through rate. For the purpose, you can make your mail short, simple and pertinent. That works fine. You don’t have to overdo it by adding chunky graphical designs or too much text.

Also, personalising your emails would be a fantastic idea. Your customers are human too and a touch of personalisation always helps. It’s equal to telling them they are cared for. Now, that’s one pro tip you can’t afford to miss.

4. Offer Rewards for Customers who Review You

You probably noticed it already. This process has been hinted a few times earlier in the article. Yet, I had to mention it once more to stress its importance. Offering rewards is a tried and tested technique that can actually help you get more reviews.

Well, we when we say rewards, we don’t mean the fancy exorbitant ones. You can reward your customers with something simple as a gift voucher or a discount or why even a box of chocolates can do the trick! The point is not to pay top dollar but to express your appreciation and gratitude for their time and consideration.

Make certain of it that the approach does not sound or look too ambitious or tactful. It should look and feel like a token of appreciation.

5. Identify the Right time to ask Review.

There is a right time for everything isn’t it? Same applies here. When it comes to asking reviews, there sure is no better time than the right time! You are probably hearing a lot of ‘rights’ that now, it does not seem very right to you! No worries! Let me explain.

You should identify the right moment of the customer journey if you wish to get more reviews. Consider an instance where you have an enquiry about a certain product. You need to get it resolved urgently. You immediately get to chatting with the customer support and a prompt pops up suddenly in the midst of it, asking for a review. Wouldn’t it drive you up the wall?! That’s exactly why you should set a customer review strategy that includes the right time.

Here are some instances when you can actually get reviews from your customers:

• When your customer has had a smooth and successful experience working with your product.
• When a customer spends a long session on your website or even your social media page.
• When your customer refers a prospect to you.
• In the case of a re-purchase.

You can rely on in-app messages, pop-ups, prompts or emails when asking your clients for online reviews. The aforementioned were just a few cases. You can spend some time and pick out a few more. The more you find the better!

6. Simplify Review Processes

We all live in a busy world and that’s something you should keep in mind whilst engaging with customers. It is, therefore, necessary to make it certain that the process involved with online reviews are made a cinch for the customers. Don’t make them navigate through tons of pages to finally leave a review.

Try to make the process concise by sending people straight to the review page. They should be able to reach the page with a click, write a review, submit and then leave. The more easier you make these processes, the more reviews you get.

7. Be it Positive or Negative but Respond to Reviews

We are bound to make mistakes. Also, every deed can’t please everybody. These aspects are like the two sides of the same coin I would say. So, you can expect a witheringly snide remark or a single-star review once in a while, however good your product or service might be or of course, it could actually be a result of your flaws as well.

Yet, it doesn’t mean you should ignore those reviews and move on. In fact, they are your actual trump card! A study by Harvard Business Review has found that responding to reviews can make all the difference.

Yes, Indeed. A timely response to reviews can truly help your business in the long run. Before darting into the case of negative reviews, let me warn you not to ignore the positive ones.

When you receive a positive review, you could appreciate the gesture with a simple thank you mail or even a gift card! It will simply reinforce their trust and loyalty towards your organization.

Coming to negative reviews, you can apologise to the customer and promise a solution to their problems. But do keep the promise. Deliver the solution as quickly as possible and then notify your customer.

When so much is done the customer feels valued. You not only evade the risk of losing a customer to the competition but also increase the number of happy customers. All this can eventually lead to a spike in the total number of positive reviews. Now that’s a win-win situation!

Winding Up!

If you already have a good customer review strategy in place, then well and good. If it’s otherwise, then linger no more, get working on it because customers aren’t very enthusiastic about writing a review as they are in reading one. In fact, only one in ten people write reviews every time. So, go through the steps suggested, get your team, huddle up and curate an impeccable strategy to get more online reviews for your business.

Content Marketer at SurveySparrow