There are a lot of factors that become into a client'south conclusion to make a purchase from your company.

When I'm deciding whether or not to purchase something, for example, I typically ask my friends for recommendations and so practise a lot of online enquiry of my options.

And since information technology's so fast and easy to make purchases online without e'er connecting with a sales rep, the cyberspace usually does the selling for you -- and that can take a huge touch on if a customer purchases from you or non.

The fact of the thing is, your company's best marketers and sales reps aren't your employees -- they're your existing customers.

Free Download: 45 Customer Referral Templates

Why Customer Reviews are Important

Customer trust in businesses is fading. HubSpot Research found that customers trust recommendations from friends and family over whatsoever type of online marketing and advertising your brand can create. And in the absence of trusted recommendations, co-ordinate to BrightLocal, 85% of consumers trust online reviews equally much equally personal recommendations -- the single most trustworthy and credible source of "advertizement" out there.

HubSpot Research also found that sixty% of consumers believed customer reviews were either trustworthy or very trustworthy -- meaning that businesses that tin accumulate positive reviews had a proficient chance of them helping a customer make a purchase determination.

The same BrightLocal survey constitute that positive customer reviews make 73% of customers trust a business more, and 57% of customers visit a company's website after reading positive reviews. That also means that, in order for businesses to grow in today's competitive, online-commencement marketplace, they need happy customers sharing positive reviews of their experiences in order to even get visitors coming to their site for the offset time.

The good news is, your customers are usually more than happy to help you out with this: The same survey found that, of the 74% of customers who were asked to provide feedback, 68% were willing to exercise information technology. And then don't exist intimidated by the prospect of asking your customers for a favor -- because all you have to do is inquire, and they'll likely be happy to aid you lot out.

Expert/Positive Customer Review Examples

one. HubSpot

A great customer review will be one that is detailed and specific. In this example, a HubSpot employee left a review on Glassdoor. They noted how long they'd been working at HubSpot, what they liked about it, and what they're most proud of in terms of company growth.

Additionally, a great way to continuously encourage positive customer reviews is to respond to your reviews. In the screenshot below, you'll run into HubSpot's Primary People Officer responded to the review with gratitude and understanding.

Positive customer reviews: HubSpot Prototype Source

2. Amazing Lash Studio

Positive client reviews oftentimes telephone call out amazing customer service. This is a not bad instance because the client discussed who they had been seeing at the Lash Studio, and why her customer service was and then excellent.

Additionally, the customer proclaims that she is a customer for life, and her review indicates that she has gone from a client to an advocate because of the peachy customer feel.

If y'all become a detailed review that calls out your customer service, then y'all're doing something right.

Positive customer review example: Lash studio Image Source

3. Ashley Leavitt Photography

This is 1 of my favorite positive client reviews because the customer felt and then compelled by her experience that she updated a previous review.

The photographer provided an splendid customer experience in 2020, and then the client left a review. Then, she used her services once again a year later and left an even more detailed review citing why the experience was then positive.

Additionally, the best customer reviews volition have photos. This user included several photos she got from her photoshoot, which helps potential customers make up one's mind whether they want to hire this lensman.

Positive customer review: Ashley Leavitt Photography Image Source

Then, how do you go your customers to write glowing reviews that help close deals? How do you ensure a customer is satisfied and happy enough to ask for the kind of positive reviews you demand? Read on to adopt strategies that will make generating positive customer reviews a sure-fire.

1. Place the right moments to ask according to their buyer'due south journey.

Make sure you lot're soliciting customer reviews at the right moment in their journey with your business to get optimal results.

Business organisation relationships accept natural ebbs and flows, from times of sticker shock or buyer'south remorse before a successful result to times of euphoria after their pain/problem is successfully resolved.

Think about it: If you ask for a review at the wrong moment, it could result in a customer leaving a negative review that hundreds of more than people read when considering whether or not they want to buy from your business.

Ask for customer reviews at strategic moments along the customer journey, like:

  • Subsequently they experience or demonstrate success with your product or service
  • When they re-purchase or re-social club
  • After they tag your make in a post on social media
  • If they are spending time on your website browsing other products or services
  • If they refer some other client to you

These are just a few examples of signs that your customer is satisfied enough that they would leave a positive review of your business.

For case, Etsy asked me to review a recent purchase approximately one calendar month after I received it. I ordered a political party favor for a friend's bridal shower, and so one month later was the right time frame to make sure I had fourth dimension to savor and utilise my production.

email from etsy asking for review on product

On the other hand, some products and services will piece of work within unlike time frames. For the ride-sharing app Lyft, I usually receive a prompt to review my experience with my ride and driver immediately after the ride ends. For the language-learning app Duolingo, I receive a prompt to review the app in the App Store after completing a lesson or achieving a milestone in the language I'm learning.

two. Cull a method that works for you at scale.

According to BigCommerce, 50 or more reviews per product tin hateful a 4.vi% increase in conversion rates. The big takeaway here is that more reviews mean more proof and, therefore, more trust in your brand. In add-on, dated reviews inspire less confidence than recent ones.

To truly fuel your flywheel and benefit from testimonials as social proof, getting them should get a regular part of your process. Hither are some common avenues to help y'all inquire for reviews at scale:

  • Railroad train your team to ask for reviews subsequently every successful project or service
  • Incorporate requests for reviews as part of your email marketing automation campaigns
  • Utilise NPS to place promoters (your happiest customers) at scale and accept your service team foster relationships with them
  • Include review links afterward checkout or on thank-you pages as an optional final step

Whatsoever you cull, information technology should be consistent and often.

three. Enquire the customer in person.

If y'all work in a client success manager or account executive office and you have close relationships with the portfolio of customers yous piece of work with, don't hesitate to add a personal touch and ask your customers to review their experiences in person.

If you're taking your customers out to coffee or dejeuner, or if you invite them to 1 of your company events, keep things conversational, and inquire them how they're doing with your product or service. (Ideally, yous'll know if they're achieving success or not based on your regular communications, and so you'll ask customers that you know are achieving goals already.)

If your customers tell yous they're seeing success, let them know that you value their opinion and their loyalty and that you'd appreciate them helping you get the give-and-take out to potential new customers. Remember the information from the beginning of this postal service? Most customers will leave you lot a review -- all you accept to exercise is ask.

four. Leverage moments of client happiness.

If y'all've just made a major breakthrough for a client, or if yous've received praise or positive feedback from them, you've but come up to a point of client happiness. At these moments, they may non only be more inclined to give you lot a review every bit a way of providing reciprocity for good piece of work, just they are also more likely to give you a good review.

five. Begin with an open-concluded question.

Don't start by coming out and asking directly for a client review.

Instead, kickoff a chat -- and use an open-ended question to kick off the process.

By request customers "How are you liking the product?" or "Are you ready to renew/purchase again?" or "How was your recent interaction with customer support?" you lot can showtime a chat and gauge their level of satisfaction before actually asking for the review.

This is helpful in 2 ways:

  • You can source helpful client feedback
  • You tin avert the awkward error of asking a client for a review earlier learning they had a bad experience

Apply the open-concluded question to genuinely collect customer feedback -- and to sneakily make sure the client is happy before offering them a reason to submit a review. There'due south nada yous can practise about negative reviews coming onto various sites, only if in that location'due south a customer who needs a resolution, focus on that before yous inquire them to rate your business organisation.

An open-ended question in an email subject line -- as BioClarity did here -- prompted me to get gear up to requite an answer as a respond or in the form of a review:

bioclarity email asking for review with line: "how is your skin liking our nourishing Essentials Routine?"

6. Reduce the friction where you can.

If leaving a review becomes a hassle, your customer will be less likely to do information technology. That means you should make it as piece of cake as possible, especially when asking for a testimonial over email. Hither are some ideas:

  • Include multiple options so that the customer can choose the platform they're almost comfortable on
  • Include a link direct to the page where they leave a review to minimize the number of clicks or steps they must take
  • Requite them a prompt so they're never at a loss on what to write (east.one thousand. "Will you leave a review about your experience with your near recent shop visit?")

7. Allow them know how long it will take.

One of the biggest points of friction that should exist chosen out is time. If the customer perceives that they don't have time to fit in a review, they won't. Withal, if you address this objection beforehand during your ask, you can change their thinking while you have the momentum. For instance, you might say or write "It volition only have two minutes" as a side-note or post-script to the request.

i. Create dissimilar spaces to leave reviews.

Before potential customers even brand it to your website to learn about your business, brand sure they can learn about you no matter where they're conducting online research nearly making a purchase.

There are a few typical tertiary-party review sites people consult to acquire more about a business or a production:

Yelp

BrightLocal institute that Yelp and Facebook were consumers' most trusted sources of customer reviews in the U.S., so brand sure your business is registered and upwards-to-date. You can acquire how to claim your business (or add it, if your business concern is brand-new) using Yelp for Business Owners.

Make sure you're regularly monitoring communications coming from this profile -- responsive business owners are highlighted with an average response time and response rate that could encourage readers to move forrard in the process towards becoming a new customer.

Yelp request a quote and response time and response rate

Facebook

You should besides merits your concern' Facebook Folio so potential customers tin detect you to larn more virtually you without having to leave their social network. This is another site that rewards high levels of responsiveness, and so brand certain you assign someone to monitor incoming messages across the channels you're trying to optimize for new client conquering.

Facebook response rate notification

Google

Next, utilise Google My Business concern to claim your business organisation on the earth's biggest search engine, where potential customers might find y'all if they're searching for information on Google, or searching for directions in Google Maps. (This is of particular importance to brick-and-mortar businesses trying to attract pes traffic -- learn more nearly local SEO in this blog post.) People besides leave reviews using Google, which appears in the search results for your business, as shown below if you Google "HubSpot."

HubSpot's Google My Business Card With Google Reviews

Amazon

If y'all're an Amazon seller, make sure to claim and customize your Amazon page.

Amazon serves up a lot of different results for different searches, so brand sure your Amazon page tells your business' story the same way your website does. If a shopper finds your brand over the class of an Amazon search, make sure your Page highlights product details, testimonials, and reviews.

Amazon Store Results Page With Product Listings and Corresponding Reviews

Image Source

Amend Business Bureau

For businesses in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, you can annals with the Better Business Bureau -- another highly trusted source of customer reviews. By claiming your business on the BBB, you can access more aboveboard client reviews and become accredited on the site -- which lends greater credibility and trustworthiness to you if customers are deciding between options using these reviews and ratings.

HubSpot's Better Business Bureau Page With A+ Rating

There are likewise industry-specific review sites you should claim if they're pop within your business's vertical -- such equally TripAdvisor and Oyster in the travel and hospitality industries, G2Crowd, and Finances Online in the software industries, and OpenTable and HappyCow in the eating place industries. Make certain your contact information, website, hours, and primal offerings are available on these more niche sites, too.

ii. Optimize your content.

Your customer reviews might be coming in unsolicited from happy -- or unhappy -- customers on 3rd-party sites.

But once people are already on your site, make sure it's piece of cake for them to leave reviews there, as well.

Optimize your website, blog posts, social profiles, and emails to provide quick and easy avenues through which to write reviews by:

  • Setting up website badges to speedily and easily straight visitors to your Yelp, Facebook, and Amazon pages to read and exit reviews
  • Optimize your website for mobile devices for people who come to your website when they're browsing social or conducting searches on their phone
  • If you're asking for customer reviews via email, go on the asks short and sugariness.

Here's a review request I received from a bout company in Charleston. It wisely included a link to various ways to review the visitor on the actual receipt of my purchase shortly subsequently taking the tour. (For those curious, I highly recommend the haunted graveyard tour if y'all're always in Charleston, SC.)

Bulldog Tours Email With Buttons to Request Reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google

three. Create incentives.

Your time is valuable, and so is your customers', so make certain y'all're giving customers a reason to leave a review.

Offer incentives to make your customers want to write a review -- such every bit disbelieve or coupon codes, archway into a contest for an even bigger prize, or gift cards for coffee, online shopping, or cold difficult greenbacks.

g2crowd "have a coffee on us" incentive for testimonial

A review asking (with a caffeinated incentive) from G2 Crowd

iv. Meet customers where they are.

Don't electronic mail your customers to enquire them to leave you lot a positive review on Yelp.

Instead, make sure your requests match up with the artery where you want your customer to write a review. If you're sending out an e-mail asking for a client review, brand sure the email links to exactly where they can leave their feedback. If y'all want reviews on your Facebook Page, ship the request via Messenger. And if yous have to enquire for a client review cross-platform, brand the asking every bit integrated as possible -- for example, by linking to your Yelp page in your email signature, or asking customers to review their purchase from your Amazon store in a follow-upwards email post-purchase.

Here's a review request I received from a third-party Amazon seller -- along with some helpful tips for how best to apply the product I had recently purchased:

litter mat request for review along with tips for using the product effectively

five. Respond to every review -- even negative ones.

Nobody's perfect, and mistakes sometimes happen that effect in a customer leaving a scathing 1-star review on your website, on Facebook, or on Yelp.

When you get a 1-star review, though, brand certain to take the time to respond thoughtfully, without being defensive, to come to a resolution. It's the right matter to do if you piece of work in client service, and it could actually assistance your concern in the long run.

Harvard Business organisation Review plant that businesses responding to negative reviews online really resulted in amend ratings overall. Your customers are human being beings too, and the value of empathetic and compassionate customer service strikes a chord and really leads to an uptick in full reviews, particularly positive ones.

Here'southward an case of how HubSpot responds to reviews on our Glassdoor page. Although non technically "customers," showing prospective employees that HubSpot responds to feedback and takes it seriously helps our employment brand, too.

hubspot glassdoor review response to neutral rating with negative feedback

vi. Share positive customer reviews you've already received.

When you get-go receiving positive reviews from your customers, keep the momentum going by highlighting and sharing them so other customers are inspired to exercise the same.

On Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Glassdoor, and many other reviews sites, business organisation owners (and site visitors) tin can marking certain reviews as helpful, which is like upvoting and moves reviews farther upward on the site and so more people tin read them. Make sure to periodically do this to positive reviews so your company's page highlights the cream of the ingather.

Y'all could also share positive reviews on your brand'south social media channels to open up the option to your audience there. You could reshare positive Facebook reviews in a mail service on your page, or you could format positive reviews as quotes for Instagram to mail service for your followers.

Social proof is a powerful marketing tactic -- it means that, if customers see other people like them sharing reviews, they're more than probable to exercise the aforementioned past following the oversupply. So brand sure that, in improver to asking for new customer reviews, you're promoting the positive ones you receive beyond your brand's channels for promotion.

7. Give your customers a positive review first.

If you want customers to leave y'all a review, you could leave them one first to get the ball rolling.

This may not always be possible (depending on your manufacture or product), but in a lot of cases, you can become customers to reciprocate your positive words.

If your production or service allows customer profiles to be reviewed -- Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, VRBO, and TurnKey are examples -- so go out them a positive review if you'd like them to review you in render. Of form, if they were bad customers, you lot don't have to do that, merely if you want to garner more reviews, taking the first step could prompt them to leave you i in return.

Some other practiced option is recommending your customer on LinkedIn. If you're in an account management role and y'all work with individuals over a long menstruum of time, you could leave them a recommendation or endorsement on LinkedIn. Those go a long way for their own personal branding and might compel them to reciprocate on their ain by leaving your business a positive review. And if they thank you for the endorsement, y'all could politely ask them for a specific review on a unlike platform during that commutation.

Customer: Thanks for endorsing me on LinkedIn! I appreciate it.

Business Representative: You lot're welcome! I've enjoyed working with you over the last few months and wanted to make sure other people know how skilled yous are at web pattern. If yous've enjoyed working with me as well, I'd appreciate a review of our product on G2 Crowd if you're up for it.

I simply recommend this strategy if you've built a relationship with the individual over the course of working together. If an unknown person starts endorsing the customer for random skills on LinkedIn, that might seem creepy, and likely won't result in them reciprocating.

8. Host an issue.

To create opportunities to ask for reviews in-person as details in the previous strategy, and to create the conditions where customers are more probable to leave positive reviews, host a remarkable user briefing or industry event to create more value for your customers beyond but the products or services y'all sell.

By creating an engaging and useful experience for customers, where they can network with a community of people similar them, go access to new product releases and discounts early on, and meet their points of contact at your company, you'll increase their positive sentiment toward your business and engender the likelihood that they'll leave more reviews.

Yous could even make client reviews a part of your post-event feedback process -- after customers consummate a survey asking how they'd rate their experience, you could ask them to share highlights of their experience at the event on a public review site.

i. Use social media.

While using social media to gather reviews isn't exactly clever, the identify you lot ask for them tin can be unique. For example, if yous have a Facebook group or LinkedIn grouping, yous could ask those members to go out a review.

Chances are, that if they're in your social media group, so they like your company and will provide a positive review if y'all ask.

Additionally, you tin can apply social media to promote your reviews. For example, one company I follow on Instagram, Bowmar Diet, responds and reposts reviews to their Stories every single day. As a follower, I know that if I leave a review on Instagram, it'll be shared past the visitor. This provides an incentive because it helps develop a relationship with your customers.

ii. Send a handwritten note and gift card.

It might seem a little old school, simply if you're running a company, a handwritten note to your customers will go a long way. Your sales reps can write these if you're at a mid-size or larger company, or if yous run a small business, you tin can write them yourself. Y'all might consider sending a gift card to your loyal and happy customers, but thanking them for being a client.

While you tin't and shouldn't ever purchase reviews, it's okay to send your customers a squeamish cheers gift, whether they go out a review or not. Your note could say something like, "We wanted to thank you for being a customer with this gift bill of fare! If you lot ever experience inclined, we'd love to get your honest feedback in the course of a review."

3. Help your customers when they demand it.

When times are tough, exist there to assistance your customers. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, HubSpot offered reduced prices for prospects and customers, increased limits for customers, and offered a six-month advance on commissions from HubSpot to all Platinum, Diamond, and Elite Solutions Partners.

Again, we weren't doing these things just so customers would leave practiced reviews, merely and so we could actually help customers during an unprecedented time. Many customers, new and onetime, were and then positively impacted, that they felt compelled to leave a positive review.

Helping your customers and putting them outset will requite you lot goodwill and then inspire positive reviews.

four. Give employees rewards for positive customer reviews.

A calendar month ago, I went to an escape room with my family unit. After we escaped the room (with 5 minutes to spare, I might add together), we were talking to our guide and asking him questions.

Later on our discussion, he told the states his name again and said that he'd actually appreciate it if we left a review because they get extra tips if a review calls them out specifically.

Offering your employees a reward for positive reviews gives them a reason to enquire happy customers for a review. It too incentivizes customers. I wanted to help our guide because we had such a peachy experience, then my family and I all left separate reviews calling him out.

To brainstorm implementing customer review tillage at calibration, the best thing you can exercise is comprise it into your concern equally a process. This starts with an active strategy for client service equally well as online reputation and testimonials. Beginning by building from templates and asking your existing customers for reviews.

Editor'southward note: This mail service was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Free Resource: How to Reach & Engage Your Audience on Facebook

45 Free Customer Referral Templates

Originally published Aug iv, 2021 11:xv:00 AM, updated January 12 2022