10 Tips to Get Quality Product Reviews

12 min read

Product reviews are some of the best advertising you can have. Reviews are free, organic, and authentic. Customer reviews are one of the most relied-upon resources for consumers looking to make a purchase online. According to the Trustpilot and Canvas8 research, 89% of consumers read online reviews before making a decision. But, you might be wondering how to get customers to leave reviews on your product.

The importance of product reviews only grows larger for small businesses. A new business without an established reputation has more work to do to establish trust with its target customer. Positive customer reviews are, naturally, a great way to earn that trust. But how do you get positive reviews in the first place? It’s often not enough to simply sit back and wait for good reviews to come in. Even though your products are excellent, most customers don’t leave reviews on their own. So knowing how to get product reviews can make a huge difference, especially for small or new businesses.

In this guide, we will break down how to ask customers for reviews without being too demanding. Then, we will provide additional strategies on how to get customer reviews online.

Best Way to Get Reviews: How to Ask For Customer Feedback

To begin, let’s focus on strategies for asking customers to leave reviews. Oftentimes, this is the most effective strategy for generating authentic positive reviews for your products. But asking for customer feedback is not always simple. You need to pick the right spots, and also use the right language to garner good product reviews.

Picking the right moments

The most effective way to get customer reviews is to simply know when to ask. Finding a moment when the customer is already positively engaged, or has had time to have a positive experience, is key. There are a few moments in the product cycle when you could seek out customer reviews.

In some cases, you can ask customers to leave a review at checkout. For instance, if a customer orders an item twice, or is a repeat customer, they likely have had positive experiences with your company. Asking them to leave a review upon checkout is a great opportunity. You could also ask for reviews if users spend a certain amount of time browsing your products online. Or, ask for reviews after they have posted about your brand on social media.

Leveraging email marketing

Email marketing has a range of benefits. It is often the most direct way to reach your target audience. It’s also a highly effective tool for soliciting product reviews.

Sending a post-purchase follow-up email to customers is one of the best ways to get direct feedback. This helps when it comes to product development as well as getting customer reviews. Waiting a few days or weeks following the customer’s purchase is usually the ideal strategy. This ensures that they have had plenty of time to become familiar with your product. Hopefully, their experience has been a positive one, and they are willing to share that experience with others.

Use open-ended questions

Customers might find it off-putting if you initiate your dialogue with, “Please leave us a review.” An easier way to facilitate positive reviews is to start with an open-ended question. You might ask, “How are you enjoying our product so far?” Or “Has this product met your expectations?”

This is a good strategy to solicit genuine feedback and begin a dialogue with customers. If they react positively, it also opens the door for them to leave you a good review. Once they are already engaged (and satisfied) you can be more direct in asking for a review.

Provide a timeframe

Many customers will hesitate to leave a review due to uncertainty about the process. Nobody wants to start reviewing a product, only to find out halfway through that it’s a long, drawn-out process. Tell customers how long the review process takes when asking for their feedback. This lets them know it will only take a few minutes, so there is no major obligation on their end.

How to Get Product Reviews: Optimization Strategies

In addition to knowing how to ask customers for reviews, you can also optimize their experience to collect more reviews. Once again, there are a handful of strategies you can use to do this. Here are a few effective ways to earn more positive reviews online.

Make it easy

If you want to get customers to leave reviews, the first thing you should do is optimize the review process. Make sure your review form is easy to access and easy to fill out on all devices, especially mobile platforms. Just as uncertainty can turn people away, a clunky or confusing interface can have a similar effect.

With more and more people shopping from their phones, it’s essential to have a streamlined mobile interface. Companies that adopt a mobile-friendly outlook to their customers’ experiences thrive. And the increase of satisfied mobile customers increases their chances of earning positive reviews.

Display existing reviews

Seeing other reviews displayed on your company pages can inspire other customers to leave their own product reviews. Having reviews displayed publicly gives customers a chance to have their voices heard. People like to have a platform to express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. You can take this one step further by allowing, and displaying, all types of reviews. Written reviews, photo reviews, and video reviews all provide unique opportunities for people to share their thoughts about a product.

Share customer reviews on social media

Another way to take review sharing to the next level is to use your company’s social media pages. Sharing customer reviews on social media is a great marketing strategy for several reasons. It builds customer loyalty because those whose reviews are shared feel like their opinions are valued. Organic positive reviews are also highly trusted by other people online who may not already be familiar with your company. And, again, sharing reviews can inspire more people to leave their own reviews.

Incentive customer reviews

If you’re still having trouble garnering feedback, oftentimes the best way to get reviews is to offer simple incentives. You might offer discounted rates, free shipping, or a “buy one, get one” deal to customers who leave a review. This is often the easiest way to make the customer feel like leaving a review is worth their time. It is also an effective strategy to make the customer feel valued, which increases the likelihood of them returning.

Respond to and embrace negative reviews

Most business owners dread and fear negative reviews online. But embracing the negative reviews can actually benefit you in the long run.

Responding to negative reviews allows you to stay on top of any potentially unflattering narratives about your business. It can also transform a customer’s negative experience into a positive one. For customers who are browsing online, seeing that a business engages with its negative reviews can be an encouraging sign. It shows that the business is conscientious when it comes to customer experience.

Negative reviews also give your business more credibility. A company that only has 5-star ratings looks like it has a falsely inflated score (and it probably does). Having a few lower ratings in the mix shows customers that your business is legitimate and trustworthy. That is, as long as the negative reviews don’t outnumber the positive ones.

Lastly, negative reviews give you a chance to identify growth opportunities for your business. If one aspect of your business is consistently mentioned in negative reviews, you can focus on improving in that area.

How to Get Influencers to Review Your Product

One final strategy to get customers to leave reviews is to use a product sampling program. This is a strategy that is intended to generate attention and excitement for your product by allowing influencers to use and review it.

You don’t need to reach the biggest or most-viewed influencers on the web to run an effective campaign. Instead, you can find communities that might already use your products, or similar ones. Allowing members of that community, or micro-influencers within the community, to access your products is great for building a brand. Provided that they return the favor by leaving a positive review, you should also earn many new loyal customers.

How to get bloggers to review your product

So, how do you actually get influencers to review your product? Most of the time, all you need to do is ask. Most bloggers, YouTubers, and influencers make their contact information readily available. Reach out to them however you prefer, and explain what product you are offering, and how it can help them.

One more thing to note is that selectivity matters. When it comes to knowing how to get a YouTuber to review your product, you want somebody that you and the community can trust. Influencers who are more concerned with how to get free products to review than providing honest reviews are less trustworthy. Your goal should be to partner with a reliable influencer who can provide an honest and informed product review.

Want to enhance your company’s review software for even greater success? Read Ecwid’s guide to the best ecommerce review tools to learn more.

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Marketing and Promotion

Dec 20, 2022

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.