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How to Get More Reviews: Tips and Tricks for Boosting Your Online Presence

Luca MicheliMar 08, 2024
How to Get More Reviews: Tips and Tricks for Boosting Your Online Presence
Contents

As 93% of customers say online reviews impacted their purchase decision is no wonder why it’s become increasingly crucial for businesses to build a solid online reputation through positive reviews.

But how do you get more online reviews, especially if you’re just starting out?

In this article, I’ll share some tips and tricks for boosting your online presence.

[BONUS] At the end, you will get a real success case you can copy and paste that brought a client of ours from 11 mediocre reviews to 1200 excellent ones on Trustpilot.

I guess you are now all ears.

Wait for a second.

Let’s understand why it is so important to collect customer testimonials.

Why getting more reviews is essential?

Getting reviews is important for several reasons. Here are some reasons why you should start today to increase the number of reviews you have.

Product Reviews Increase Traffic

When you collect a good amount of online reviews, your traffic will increase as a direct consequence.

The reason is simple, every review platform is going to recognize your hard work and keep you on top of the results.

Whether it is Google reviews, Trustpilot, Capterra, or G2, you will start getting more visits while you grow your reviews.

The same thing happened to us when we decided to send our customers to Capterra and we have been featured as one of the top live chat software in the world thanks to the customer reviews.

Customerly is one of the Top Live Chat in the world

Add Social Proof

Reviews provide social proof of the quality of a product or service. Potential customers are more likely to trust and purchase (93%) from a business with many positive reviews.

Improved SEO

SEO is the ultimate strategy to lower your Cost Per Acquisition nowadays.

Reviews can improve a business’s search engine optimization (SEO) by increasing the amount of user-generated content on the website.

This can improve the website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results.

Provide Valuable Feedback

Reviews can provide valuable feedback for businesses to improve their products or services. It’s all about meeting and satisfying customers’ needs so businesses can use this feedback to identify areas for improvement and make necessary changes.

Customer engagement

Encouraging customers to leave reviews can increase customer engagement and loyalty. Customers feel valued when their opinions are heard and taken into account.

You can see how SurferSEO (a SaaS tool we suggest here) uses customer reviews to create continuous social proof when you log in and increase customer engagement.

SurferSEO uses customer reviews within log-in and sign-up pages

Competitive advantage

Having more reviews than competitors can give a business a competitive advantage. This can help a business stand out and attract more customers.

Whether it is on AppStore, Google Maps Platform, or Capterra, having more reviews will always put you on top of your competitors.

How the most performing businesses out there are asking for customer reviews, then?

So if you want to improve your social proof by getting more reviews, this is the right tutorial for you.

Let’s get started 👇

10 Proven Ways to Encourage Customers to Write Reviews

How do you encourage customers to write a review for your service or product when, as humans, we leave reviews only when we have had a bad experience?

This stat is clear: only 22% of travelers will post an unsolicited online hotel review.

And what if they are being asked for a review?

Well, that skyrockets to 80% the chances you are getting more reviews.

You definitely need a strategy to encourage them to review your business. Here you can find 10 ways to help you:

1. Ask for a review after a purchase

Follow up with customers shortly after their purchase and ask them to write a review. We’ll see how our client managed to get 1100 more reviews with this simple trick at the end of this article.

2. Offer incentives in exchange for customer reviews

Offer a small discount, a freebie, or a chance to win a prize for customers who leave a review. At Customerly, we have been using Capterra services to offer a freebie in exchange for a fair review.

3. Make it easy

Provide direct links to your review pages and make the process as easy as possible. You will see how to get more customer reviews later.

4. Respond to online reviews

Respond to both positive and negative reviews to show that you value customer feedback. This will encourage your customers to re-evaluate negative reviews or to spread the word in case of positive feedback.

5. Display positive reviews prominently

Feature customer reviews prominently on your website and in your marketing materials.

Use your customer reviews as social proof to convince your next customer

6. Use email marketing

Use email marketing to request reviews and send reminders to customers who haven’t left a review yet. You can use a template like to following one to ask for a review on autopilot.

email-template-preview-Ask for user review Email Template

Ask for user review Email Template

Use this email template to ask for a review to your best users. You can use this template with a workflow and a list of your best customers to ensure the best results

7. Provide exceptional customer service

Provide exceptional customer service to encourage customers to leave positive reviews. Using one of these 15 customer service tools might be useful to improve your business performance.

8. Personalize the request

Personalize the request for a review and thank the customer for their business. Use their name in the email using the template above for better results. Overall everyone likes their names. Be sure to include it in your campaign.

9. Respond to negative reviews

Respond to negative reviews professionally and constructively.

This will show that you care about your customers and you are committed to providing excellent customer service.

It’s also an opportunity to address any issues or concerns the customer may have had and will help you potentially turn the customer’s negative experience into a positive one.

Responding to negative reviews can positively impact a business’s reputation. It shows potential customers that the business is proactive in addressing customer concerns and is committed to providing excellent customer service.

10. Make it clear why reviews are important

Explain why reviews are important for your business and how they can help other customers.

Create a Process for Asking for Reviews

The process is one of the key aspects of getting more reviews. When do you ask for reviews? How do you ask them?

A simple and repeatable process will help you collect thousands of reviews as you will see in our success case at the end of this article.

When Should You Ask for Product Reviews?

96% of customers are more willing to release a positive review immediately after a great experience connected to a positive emotion.

It’s clear that to get positive reviews, you have to ask your customers when they are at their peak of emotions. At the right time, with the right message.

A few questions to help you understand when you should ask for a review.

  • When do my customers say WoW the most?
  • When is my customer experiencing the most of my product?
  • When is it more likely my customer is feeling emotional about my service?

That’s exactly when you need to ask for a positive review.

Ask for reviews in person

If you can meet your customers in person, ask them to review your services.

Remember to ask for a review only After the user has experienced your services.

When you see your customers are getting emotions out of the experience you provide, that’s the right moment to ask for a review.

Ask for reviews via email

If you have online service and you will never get to meet your customers, then the right way to ask for reviews is via email.

Trigger reviews emails after they purchased or received the value they were searching for.

There is no way someone is going to leave you a positive review if they never experienced the value purchased.

Fair enough?

Monthly Customer Feedback Request Emails

You can also build a workflow to request customer feedback every month.

Ok, maybe once a month is too much, but we saw great results with review requests asked every 6 months or so.

As in our success case, I promise you will read it very soon.

Pinky Swear

PRO TIP: Which review sites do your prospects trust the most?

Choosing the right review site is as important for your online review strategy as the timing or the process.

If you own a local shop, then the right place to redirect your users is either on Google Maps or Yelp.

You should ask yourself: Where do my prospect get to know my business?

If you provide a SaaS for B2B companies, then the right choice is either Capterra, G2, or TrustPilot.

Let’s discover which are the most popular review websites.

Most Popular Review Websites

Here is a list of the most popular review websites you should consider redirecting people to when it comes to reviewing your product or services

SaaS:

Agencies:

Restaurants/Food:

  • Yelp
  • OpenTable
  • Zomato
  • TripAdvisor
  • Google Reviews

Hotels:

  • TripAdvisor
  • Booking.com
  • Expedia
  • Hotels.com
  • Travelocity

Products:

  • Amazon
  • Best Buy
  • Consumer Reports
  • CNET
  • Wirecutter

Services:

  • Angie’s List
  • HomeAdvisor
  • Thumbtack
  • BBB (Better Business Bureau)
  • Trustpilot

Medical/Healthcare:

  • Healthgrades
  • ZocDoc
  • WebMD
  • Vitals
  • RateMDs

Automotive:

  • Edmunds
  • Cars.com
  • Kelley Blue Book
  • CarGurus
  • AutoTrader

Real Estate:

  • Zillow
  • Redfin
  • Realtor.com
  • Trulia
  • Apartment Ratings

These are just a few examples and it might change by country. The best way to understand which review website to use is to search for your competitor’s presence.

Search on Google “Competitor name” reviews and you will get the answer where you should invest your time and effort to redirect your people.

As one of the best Intercom alternatives, if we search for our competitor “Intercom reviews” we know that we need to invest our effort in G2.com or GetApp.com

Check your competitor name on google + reviews

Automate your customer review process

Now that we know which review website we want to use, we have to automate our customer review process. But how?

It’s actually easy.

First of all, you need a marketing automation tool to automate your email sending.

Send Review Request Emails at the Right Time

Once you have your marketing automation tool ready, import your customers or make sure every time a customer purchases, you update your list on your marketing automation tool.

Customerly also provides multiple ways to synchronize your customer’s info with the CRM and will let you automate the whole process. Whenever someone is pur

Let’s create a workflow to automate this process.

Go to the Outbound section and select Workflow.

Customerly Outbound Section to create a Workflow

Now you can select the blank template.

Create a new Blank Workflow

Now we need to select the contacts that will receive the review email automatically. To better understand how to filter the right contacts check out this tutorial.

Select an audience to deliver your automated email

Check your audience preview; if everything is fine, it’s time to add the email to this workflow.

Apply and close the panel on the top right.

Now from the right panel, drag & drop an email action to your workflow, as shown below.

Drag & Drop and Email action

It’s time to choose which email template you want to use. If you go to Community templates, you will find the “Ask for user review Email Template“.

Click to edit and tweak that template.

Preview and Save Email template

Now that you are sure your email message is perfect, Save it.

As soon as you save it, your workflow will need one more step before going live.

Connect Workflow Actions

It’s time to publish your workflow and make it work for you.

That’s it!

Follow up on customer review requests

Sometimes happens that your customers cannot leave a review or they are just not ready yet.

It’s a good practice to ask again for a review within a few weeks of the first email.

This is why we suggest checking if the contact clicked on the link you sent in the first email, and if they haven’t clicked yet, maybe is time to send another email to follow up.

How?

1. Add an “If/then branch” action to verify if the contact clicked on the link you provided

Add if/then branch

2. Add a filter on the previous campaign and change the action to clicked on.

3. Now enable the option “Keep contact waiting for a defined interval unless conditions are matched” and add the desired amount of days. (we suggest from 7 to 14 days)

4. Add another email campaign by dragging & drop another email action

5. Select an existing email template or create a new one.

6. Connect the False branch with the new email you have created.

You have successfully automated your review process with a few steps!

Want to go next level?

Then follow this tutorial on how this Enterprise created its own process that got them from 11 Mediocre reviews to 1200 Excellent ones.

[Bonus] Success Case

Fatture in Cloud success case of customer review on Trustpilot

Fatture in Cloud is the leading Italian invoicing platform, and it’s one of the success cases we will discover what changed their online presence entirely with thousands of excellent reviews.

Before this strategy

As you can see, before starting this strategy, they had 13 reviews with 2 stars (Mediocre results).

Only the unhappy customers were going on Trustpilot to complain about their issues.

As you can see, your business’s public appearance can be at risk without a strategy.

Fatture in Cloud TrustPilot Before

After this strategy

Now after enabling this strategy, Fatture in Cloud has 1135 reviews and counting with an excellent rating.

Fatture in Cloud TrustPilot After

What has changed, meanwhile?

The following chart shows the average monthly review vote on the top and the number of reviews by month on the bottom.

Before and After the Review Strategy. Average rating on top, Number of reviews on the bottom

Before they used this strategy, they received a few spontaneous reviews. Often by angry customers.

As soon as they enabled this strategy, they got hundreds of reviews from super happy customers in a couple of months.

What’s their strategy?

In May 2020, they enabled the Customerly NPS Redirection feature, which changed everything.

What’s the NPS?

We covered extensively what the NPS is in this article. Still, if you don’t know it yet, it is a type of customer satisfaction survey you can send via email to understand who your promoters are, passives, and detractors.

Fatture in Cloud has used Customerly NPS since the beginning, but when we released the Promoter redirection feature, they activated it immediately.

How the Promoter Redirection Feature Works?

It’s very simple; after someone votes for your service with a score of 8+, they are considered promoters.

And if they are willing to promote your product with a friend or colleague, they will be more inclined to leave you a positive review.

Sounds fair, right?

From Vote to Review Site Redirection

As you can see in the GIF above, the customer vote by clicking on the email button.

If it’s a promoter, customerly automatically redirects the contact to your dedicated review website, where you collect customer reviews.

How do you set up your promoter redirection like our customer did?

It’s easier than you can imagine.

1. Start a free trial if you don’t have a Customerly account.

2. Go to the Feedback section, then NPS settings.

Net Promoter Score Settings

3. Paste in the dedicated section your desired review service URL.

That’s it, folks.

This brought Fatture in Cloud hundreds of positive reviews on Trustpilot and helped them build an exceptional brand image publicly.

To enable Customerly NPS, you can follow this tutorial here.

Conclusions

Online reviews have become a critical component of a business’s online reputation in today’s digital age.

A good review strategy can help your business increase visibility, build customer trust, and drive more sales. However, manually collecting reviews can be time-consuming and challenging for businesses.

That’s why an automated review collection system can be highly beneficial.

It streamlines the process of collecting reviews and allows businesses to gather customer feedback quickly and easily. This helps businesses to improve their products or services, address any issues, and ultimately build a stronger relationship with their customers.

Customerly Feedback is a powerful tool that helps businesses automate their review collection process. It simplifies gathering customer feedback and provides valuable insights that businesses can use to improve their products or services.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to automate your review collection and gain valuable insights into your customers’ experiences.

Luca Micheli

Luca Micheli

CEO @ Customerly

Luca Micheli is a serial tech entrepreneur with one exited company and a passion for bootstrap digital projects. He's passionate about helping companies to succeed with marketing and business development tips.

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