For the most part, your happy customers want to help your business. All they need is a nudge or two so that they know you’d like them to go online and leave a review. They understand the importance of reviews, and as long as they’ve had a good experience, they won’t be annoyed if you ask them to leave a review online. In this post we outlined some key items to consider when asking customers for reviews.
1. Ask the customer in person.
One of the most effective ways to get online reviews is to ask your customers in person. The idea is not to pressure them, it’s simply to let them know that you value online reviews and that it takes less than a minute to help. I.e:
I hope you had a good experience with us today, would you mind taking a few seconds to leave us a review online? We would appreciate it.
Even if they don’t leave a review immediately, asking will get them to think about it and increase the odds they do it later.
2. Provide a clear and easy way to leave the review.
An issue that often comes up is that customers agree, say they will leave a the review and then forget to do it or don’t end up sharing it online.
To help them follow through on their promise, send them a request by email or by text message (we recommend using text messages they have an open rate of almost 100% vs 30% with email).
The message you send should have the sole purpose of requesting a review. It should also include a clear call to action. For example, the content could be:
Thanks for Choosing us. Can you leave us a review? It will only take 30 seconds. We appreciate it! Leave us a review on Google, Facebook or Yelp.
The request will act as a strong nudge and give the customer an easy way to access your online profiles.
You can also make the in-person request more effective by mentioning the incoming text or email request, for example:
I hope you had a good experience with us today, if you have a few seconds, could you leave us a review online? We will send you a review request by [Text/Email] and you can just follow the link to leave your review!
3. Can’t talk to the customer in person? Send a request anyway.
Speaking with individual customers after a transaction can be difficult. Don’t hesitate to send them a review request, even if you didn’t get to speak with all of them. As we mentioned above, customers are happy to help your business, they just need an easy way to do so. Sending a review request remains an effective way to get reviews, even if you don’t talk to the customer beforehand.
So to recap:
- – Whenever possible, in person, ask your customers if they can leave you a review.
- – Mention that you will send them a review request by text or email.
- – Send a review request with an easy and clear way to leave an online review.
- – Send it to all your customers following a transaction, event if you haven’t asked them in person.
Getting reviews is often seen as time consuming and difficult, but it doesn’t need to be. You just need to invest a bit of time upfront to establish a process: Design the request you want to send, make someone responsible for asking and sending the requests and take a few seconds after each appointment (or a few minutes at the end of each day) to send it! It will be worth it. Each positive review online will help you bring in more customers.
How we can help:
If you are looking to streamline the process and make sure all your customers get a review request, our ReviewEdge tool can help. The tool allows you to easily send review requests by text message or email and let’s you customize the request itself, so you can tailor it to your business and customers. You can take a look at this page to learn more:
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Don’t hesitate to chat with us if you have any questions!
