Now that you have registered and generated your Rate Us review collection page, you may wonder, “where do I go from here?”
We want to ensure you waste as little energy as possible pondering this question, therefore in this guide we seek to answer:
- Where/how should I share my link to encourage customers to leave me feedback?
- How to ask for reviews to get the best response from customers?
- Should I run an incentive to encourage reviews further?
- How to share positive reviews to aid your existing marketing efforts?
- How to download customer emails and add them to your marketing database?
- How to make changes to my Rate Us site via my dashboard?
Throughout you will also find useful templates and resources to allow you to quickly implement your chosen review collection strategy.
Let’s Get started!
Sharing your link
There are countless ways you can share your review link and naturally each industry will have a method that suits it best, but here we have compiled a list of the most popular methods we have come across, where applicable to your industry we suggest utilising as many methods as possible.
The more exposure you give your link the more feedback you will encourage.
How to ask for reviews
Here we have put together some useful templates to aid you in requesting reviews in various different scenarios.
Consider which approach is best suited to your industry and then apply these suggestions directly or use them for inspiration when asking your customers for feedback.
In Person
In our experience, if you are customer-facing or work in an industry with high walk-in traffic such as a restaurant, where you do not always have the luxury of customer contact details such as phone or email, requesting a review in person is the best approach to take.
In order to do this you will want to use Review cards
As a rule, the best time to request the review is toward the end of the customer’s journey with you. Using a restaurant as an example, once the customer is presented with the bill the wait staff has a prime opportunity to ask how the customer’s experience was and at which point present a review card with the bill and politely ask if they would support the restaurant by leaving them feedback via the card.
The personal touch goes a long way in encouraging people to take the time to review and adds a feeling of obligation on the part of the customer.
Where do I get a review card?
We have made obtaining review cards very easy, you can order them directly from ourselves here (UK Only) or download our review card template if you wish to print your own or make changes to fit your house style.
Visit our store for other options such as QR code review stickers and strut card displays. (Or download and print your own here)
Do you use business cards?
If you print business cards we suggest downloading our review template and adding it to the rear of your business card on your next print run.
Via text message/instant messenger
A text message is a highly effective method of review collection due to its 98% open rate. It also gives customers instant access to your link in a single click making the whole process very smooth.
In our experience text message is well suited to sole traders who often use this as a routine and direct method of contact for their clients. For example, a tradesperson can quickly and easily request a review via text message shortly after completing the job while also thanking the customer for their business.
A text message is also well suited to companies who employ a CRM system with an SMS facility, with this you can easily set up a text campaign to automatically request reviews via your link once your customer has purchased from you.
View our text message templates here and save/adapt them for future use.
Via Email
Email is perhaps the most popular method of requesting a review, like text messages it gives your customer instant access to your review page via the link.
There is no hard and fast rule of when to introduce your review link to the customer via email and for many businesses, it will depend on the scale of their operation.
For small/medium size businesses where the interactions are personal, we suggest asking for a review as part of your follow-up process or in the form of a final thank you email.
Again, businesses using CRM software may choose to incorporate an automatic review request email into their existing email campaigns.
You can download email templates here
Via letter
No, Snail mail isn’t dead
It takes a little more effort but in a world where your customers are bombarded with information digitally, the age-old art of writing a letter can really cut through the noise and deliver results.
Like the email, a thank you letter can go a long way in the eyes of the customer and delivers that all-important personal touch that helps maximise review success.
By adding a QR code you can catch the customers eye and allow them to quickly and easily access your review page via their smartphone.
Should you incentivise your customers to leave reviews?
This is entirely down to you, we have found that for many industries offering an incentive is the little carrot customers need to take action there and then once receiving your review request.
Although it is proven to work across all industries we find that businesses that have a short interaction with customers benefit the most. Eg. Hospitality and retail.
Offer your customers £2500 incentive at no cost to you
For our UK users, we offer the option on sign up to enter your customers into a prize draw to win £2500 when they leave feedback, this has proven very popular and generates fantastic results, the best part is all of the administration and of course, the money is all paid for by wow reviews. Sadly due to legal reasons we can currently only offer this to our UK subscribers at this time.
If you are a UK user you can turn on or off our prize incentive at any time in the dashboard.
Make your own incentives
Administering your own incentive is easy and can be done in place of or alongside our £2500 incentive.
As our platform always collects your customer’s email address and name you can easily offer an incentive of your own and then administer rewards to your reviewing customers with ease. Just make your customers aware of your offer when sending requests and you are all set.
(See below how to access your customer’s emails)
I don’t want to use an incentive
No problem, some companies choose not to use any incentive as they do not feel it fits in with their brand image, they prefer to rely on the relationship they have built up with their customers to ensure the review.
In our experience if you have delivered a quality service as one would expect then there is no real reason why you would need to run an incentive, it is simply an extra option to help grease the wheels.
Remember to share your new reviews on social media and beyond
If you have followed the above tips then you should be well on your way to a flurry of new positive reviews across the major platforms, but why just leave them there?
Let’s say for example you receive a glowing google review, you should consider doing the following:
- Screen grabbing the review and sharing it to your social media platforms
This not only increases its reach but also sharing reviews helps you with content creation and keeps you at the forefront of customers’ minds.
- Share reviews on your website
Keeping your testimonials page up to date is always advised, you can do this manually or many of the review sites allow you to enter a line of code that will display your new reviews automatically.
- Share your reviews/overall review scores on marketing material
Displaying reviews on digital media is important but it is equally important on print media, you can have the best sales pitch in the world but nothing is more powerful at relieving customers anxieties than the positive reviews of other people.
How to download customer emails and add them to your marketing database?
Sign in to your back office account at wowreviews.co.uk and visit the submissions tab.
How to make changes to my Rate Us site via my dashboard?
Hopefully, this post lays out some actionable next steps to guarantee results when using our platform. However, all things considered, nobody knows your business and your customers better than you do, so it is important to think outside the box and take opportunities to collect reviews any way you can.
We love new ideas so please follow us on social media and share any additional review collection methods that work for you and your company.
@wowreviews.co.uk
