It can seem daunting to ask customers for reviews for a business, especially in person. Even online, you might be worried asking for a review could lead to a bad one. Reviews have become a major part of online presence and reputation, and as a business owner, you have to manage all feedback and reviews. Knowing how to ask customers for reviews can help your reputation score online and increase business.
When to Ask for a Review?
Believe it or not, there are suggested time slots for the best time to ask customers for reviews. The suggested windows to ask for a review is between 2 and 3 pm, or 6-7 pm. The mornings seem to be slower, primarily from 6 am until noon. Based on the statistics, it’s been assumed that people tend to take care of reviews later in the day, once they’re finished with personal obligations. Those time slots suggest people will respond to reviews during a break within their afternoon/evening time.
Use the Phone to Ask for Review
You might feel slightly nervous about asking over the phone. They could refuse! But it’s important to ask and can be the most effective way since it’s direct and personal. The easiest way to make this process simple and routine is to write down what to ask, so you have it as part of your process of ending a phone call with a customer, that way you know what to say and feel confident to hear the answer! It doesn’t have to be long, just a quick:
“We’re so glad to hear everything turned out well. We truly appreciate your feedback and if you’ve had a good experience if you don’t mind leaving us a review. It really helps us out!”
Of course, this response is based on your customer indicating they had a positive experience, but pay attention if they seem frustrated and if so, ask how their service was or did they have a positive experience.
Also, if they weren’t happy, this most likely will be when they address that and you can possibly avoid a bad review by resolving then. Always ask in person or on the phone!
Using Emails for Reviews
Using email campaigns for a business has become a standard protocol for most businesses. It’s also one of the best ways to encourage customers to leave a review. The open rate for emails can be upward of 30% depending on the industry. The average usually falls at 20%. Those are substantial numbers. Therefore, it’s important to use that as an advantage to gain more reviews. But what is the best way to ask for reviews via email?
You can use email to ask for reviews in several capacities; it doesn’t have to be the same each time nor during an interaction– you can initiate an email campaign whenever, even specifically for reviews. Here are a few of the different ways to use email to ask for reviews:
- At the end of receipt or invoice
- Email blast to your customer list, specifically to ask for a review. Keep it short and simple and encourage a CTA (call-to-action) for those unhappy with a product or service, to avoid a negative review.
- Make it personal. Send emails that are personalized to connect with your customers and ask to help your business by leaving nice feedback.
You can be as creative about how you ask, without direct contact with the customer. Emails also invite more opportunities and times to ask for a review, to hopefully improve your reputation score.
SMS is the New Way to Market
Messaging via phones has become one of the most effective marketing strategies. Mainly because everyone is on their smartphone and it usually allows a quick CTA, easy enough to prompt immediately. Based on studies, SMS marketing can have a 99% open rate — which is huge! That means SMS marketing is definitely a worthy investment if you’re trying to up your marketing in the next year.
What’s nice is the messages take little effort to write since they’re usually short. If you are able to create a customer phone number list, you can use SMS marketing, even just to try. Aside from using it as a review tool, it can be used for deals or updates. Overall, SMS marketing is a fantastic tool to stay connected to customers.
Social Media When Asking for Reviews
Using social media to connect with clients or customers is incredibly useful. People tend to have a personal connection to their social media accounts. Using social media is a great way to ask people to leave reviews.
You can make a post explaining the importance of leaving a review and helping a business, then leave a link for people to click and leave a review. You can use any platform you wish as a link and even change at times. Maybe you need more Yelp reviews, so you can post your Yelp link on social media platforms.
Social media is also great to connect directly with customers via messaging. If you have a customer reaching out, saying how happy they were with their service or products, connect with them, and ask for a review! It’s that easy!
Receipts or Invoices to Ask for Reviews
Having a request to leave a review on either receipts or invoices is a great additional step to these others listed, as a small reminder. Most likely, having this reminder in writing might not be effective since people tend to throw them out, file them away, or are too preoccupied with the other information on the paper. Regardless, we still recommend asking on the receipt as a reminder to leave a review. reminder to leave a review!
Automation through Reputation Management Software
Businesses with reputation management software can easily automate requests of reviews by email. At ReviewInc, our Review Flow Preview shows the process of asking for reviews via emails, feedback forms, thank you follow-ups, and more.
With ReviewInc’s reputation management software, businesses can also set up automated text requests asking for reviews via Campaign text. To learn more about ReviewInc’s Review Flow can Campaign Text, request a demo here.
Asking for a review doesn’t have to be intimidating. You have several options to ask a customer for a review, including by phone, email, text, social media, after an interaction, or with automated requests. It’s important to find a strategy that works well so that your business has a system set up to bring in a large number of reviews.
