How to Ask for a Review Smartly [with Templates]

Customer reviews can make or break your marketing campaign. When asked, 81% of people said they always checked Google reviews before purchasing from any business.

It is easier to influence people to purchase something if the recommendation is personal (like from a friend or a colleague) and surprisingly, it was found that 85% of people trust reviews as much as they would trust a personal recommendation.

The reason for this?

Reviews work as a form of social proof. People are more likely to believe customers (that they can relate to) and find them to be more trustworthy than a business’ claims. It validates their purchase since they believe it to be unbiased as compared to direct advertising.

As a result, it is incredibly important for businesses to collect reviews for their business. However, knowing how to ask for a review, the right time to ask and giving the appropriate response to a review–are areas where many businesses fall behind.

This guide addresses all these questions and more.

Let’s begin.

When Is the Best Time to Ask for a Review?

Asking for the right thing at the right time is crucial when collecting reviews for your business. Reviews can build customer trust and promote your brand reputation to newer heights. Organic reviews are a lot harder to collect.

Harvard conducted a study to find out the answer to the question “When Is the Best Time to Ask for a Review?”

Their findings concluded that when reviews were requested immediately (i.e., a day after purchasing the product) the response was less likely. On the other hand, when a ‘reminder’ to post the review was sent after 13 days, the likelihood of posting reviews suddenly increased.

Let’s take a look at different factors that come into play when deciding the right time to ask for a review.

After a Successful Purchase or Service Completion

Ranking at #1, asking your customers for a review immediately after a successful purchase or service completion. After 1 day is the best time to ask your customers for a review because they will clearly remember all the details related to your product.

Additionally, since they have just bought your product, your customer has already set a few reasons in the back of their mind to justify the purchase. If you can effectively capture these reasons within the review, you will be able to turn other potential customers a lot more easily.

When Customers Express Satisfaction

The next best time to ask for a review is when your customer has expressed satisfaction (especially related to your product or your service). When a customer expresses satisfaction, in a way they are already sharing feedback about how your product or service has made them feel. All there’s left to do is to turn it into a text, audio or video review.

It might bode well to study the response timings of your past customers. Based on the customers in the past, you will be able to set a general timeframe during which customers experience maximum satisfaction while using your product.

For instance, there might be a chance that the results might take longer to show up for products like SaaS or beauty products. On the other hand, if you sell one-time-use products or products that guarantee immediate gratification, then your best bet is to ask for a review right away.

Following a Positive Interaction (Support or Sales)

Lastly, you can ask your customers for feedback when they’ve had a positive experience with you. Let’s say a customer has been encountering issues with figuring out how to integrate your service into their existing CRM. Your customer support team has been working effectively to find a solution for this business owner’s problem.

Once they get it to work, the customer will be incredibly thankful for how much effort your team put in to make their business workflow easier.

It is exactly at this stage that you must ask them for feedback for the entire process and if there are any areas that you could improve upon. Your next step is to ask them to put into words how effective your team’s contribution was, it might encourage them to turn it into a review.

How to Ask for a Review?

Asking for a review can be a daunting task. However, more often than not (precisely 67% of the time), customers who have bought your product or service will be glad to give you a review.

Let’s explore how you can yield valuable feedback from your customers. Here are some strategies that can help your team collect feedback.

Personalize Your Request

Personalizing your review request includes recognizing the individual experience that the customer has had with your product or service. Recognizing their needs and how you met them, how the process has been for them or even remembering their name can make a customer feel highly valued.

Highlighting their unique experience, acknowledging their role in your company’s growth (no matter how small) and showing genuine appreciation can lead to a positive impact and encourage people to leave a review for your business.

Remember these tips:

• Name of the person, their role and their company name.
• Positive interaction or problems solved by your product.
• When they began interacting with you.
• Highlight any special request you fulfilled.
• Appreciate them leaving a review.

Choose the Right Communication Channel

The right communication channel is just as important as the timing. Using the wrong channel might lead to wrongful interpretations, missed opportunities and even reduced trust (in some cases).

The choice of the right channel, i.e., email, SMS, social media, QR scanner, or even requesting a review in person, will largely depend on the past interactions you have had with the customer.

It is important to expedite tasks like link generation to collect reviews for multiple platforms. A tool like Feedspace's Google review link generator can easily generate links to collect reviews on Google in just one click.

Assess the situation that you are currently in, gauge whether the reviewer is easily approachable and how they will be more likely to respond (positively). Keep in mind that multiple factors could be at play.

• Assess the preferred communication method of the reviewer.
• Consider the complexity of the review and whether the reviewer will respond accordingly.
• Dictate the urgency of the message based on the usage of your product.
• Decide whether the review must be informal, formal or has specific requirements based on your reviewers’ past interactions with your company.

The questions you ask in the review can easily make or break the quality of your testimonial. Prepare adequate Customer Feedback Questions for different types of review collection methods as per your customer base.

Keep It Simple and Clear

Review collection is something that you must do over and over again with innumerable customers. While it may be the first time a customer reviews your product, it will not be the first time that you will ask the same questions and receive similar answers.

You want to ensure that the review process is simple to follow and that your reviewer is aware of how they can respond. Frame your review questions in a way that lets them know if you’re looking for a detailed explanation or a simple rating.

Keep in mind that complexity will keep you from collecting honest, authentic reviews. Simple, direct and to-the-point review collection ensures that the reviewer’s and your time is not wasted.

• Include simple, easy-to-follow instructions.
• Ensure that your expectations are clear before you begin.
• Avoid overly complicated questions that confuse the reader.
• Don’t mislead the reviewer to get the desired result.
• Ensure that the process is short.

Tips on How to Ask a Customer for Feedback: The Right Way

You can follow the above-mentioned strategies and gather enough information to help you assess the ongoing trends among your customers. However, to leave a lasting impression, we have compiled a few tips for asking the right questions for effective feedback.

Include Examples

Another great tip is to include examples in the review. As a company, you are more likely to be in the loop about the latest trends and how you want your reviews to look compared to the customer leaving the review. A structured approach that lets your reviewer know the kind of responses that they can give can simplify the review process.

The best way to set expectations is to show examples of past reviews left by customers. Here is a review on AppSumo, left by a happy customer using Feedspace for review management:

Notice how these reviews can include all kinds of points like:

• How your product solved their problem.
• What were the features that they found the most useful.
• Where they encountered a problem.
• How they solved it.
• Different settings in which the reviews were conducted.
• The kind of questions that can be asked.
• The answers that can be given based on these questions.
• How they can structure their responses, etc.

An example of a good review can work as a milestone for customers. They can get a gist of what you expect.

Showcase past reviews as a post

You can leverage the reviews left by customers to encourage other users to leave reviews. Add interesting graphics and make sure to leave a link for anyone who wishes to leave a review.

Example:

• Caption: Happiness is contagious and our customers are proof! 😁

In picture: Positive review

• Caption: Each client is a new canvas, and your satisfaction is the art we strive to create. 🖌️ Your happy faces are the best reviews we could ask for!

In picture: Happy client’s faces.

• Caption: Happy clients, happy us! Incredibly thankful to be a part of your journey. 🛤️

Picture: Positive review / happy client / client using product happily.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Asking for Reviews

Now that you know what you must do to get reviews, let’s throw some light on what you must avoid when asking for reviews from customers.

#1 Being too pushy or aggressive: Being too straightforward, pushy or aggressive about getting reviews can create a negative impression in the minds of your customers.

#2 Asking at the wrong time: Asking for a review at the right time can bring in a good quality review that can be used across different platforms.

#3 Ignoring negative feedback: How you respond to negative feedback sets the tone for your brand’s identity within your industry.

#4 Don’t Forget to Respond: Responding to any and all feedback is important to let your customers know that their opinion is valued.

Avoiding these mistakes can help you easily navigate potholes on your journey to success.

Tools to Automate Review Requests

Review requests can be easily automated using different software. Based on how you reach out to different customers, your review collection tool can vary. These tools can simplify asking for feedback by automating the review collection process. They send out reminders, and requests and even analyze data collected from these reviews on your behalf.

You can check out our detailed blog on Top 7 Feedback collection software for deeper insights. Top platforms like Feedspace, Google Review Link Generators, and email automation tools can simplify tasks and make your review collection appear more professional and well-crafted.

A tool like Feedspace can even help you display the collected testimonials on a ‘Wall of Love’ (a dedicated page that shows different reviews from people). Additionally, Feedspace all in one form allows you to collect reviews in the form of video, audio or text–whichever fits best with your brand’s voice.

Conclusion

To stay ahead of the curve, businesses in the modern world must tread carefully. Skillfully plan your approach to your customers, beget reviews without seeming too aggressive or pushy and lastly ensure that the trust you built over time with your customers does not get affected.

Reviews can serve as highly impactful marketing tools–they keep past customers loyal and get new customers to trust you more. Getting reviews is a daunting task that can be broken down into simple, easy-to-understand steps.

We hope this blog has helped you learn more about how to ask for reviews from your customers. Sign up to Feedspace for free to collect and manage the reviews.