Product reviews and customer testimonials are one of the greatest marketing tools. The more the product reviews, the better it ranks. Product reviews help in organic ranking as well. While most eCommerce sellers know the importance of buyer reviews, they find it difficult to get honest feedback from the buyers.
Most of online buyers check the product reviews before making a purchase. And many only buy from a site if it has product reviews and customer testimonials. Proofs like these can reassure shoppers of their purchase and provide them with additional information (end-user experience), significantly reducing returns.
Are you struggling to get reviews on your website/mobile application? Your customers are not providing valuable feedback? Don’t worry. Many online sellers like you often see this roadblock. To make things easy for you, we are compiling a few pro tips on how you can get quality reviews and how product reviews can be beneficial for your business.
Tips to Get Product Reviews
Ask your Customers Directly
It is not that your customers don’t wish to write a review, it’s just that they don’t remember. So, the best way to get product reviews is by directly asking them to write one. Ask the customers for a review a few days after the product is delivered. Or maybe later if the product is not meant to be used immediately. However, ensure that you ask for a review while the product is still top of mind of your customers, or else they will forget the touch and feel of your product.
You can send follow-up emails to your customers for reminding them to write a review. You can also ask your customers to post something with a hashtag on their social media handles.
Make the Process Easy
Don’t send your customers a lengthy form with a lot of unnecessary fields to answer. All you need is a name, contact number, email address, and product rating and review. If required, you can also ask your customers to write a review title. Or you can also provide a field to upload the images or videos of the product.
The easier you will make it to fill the form, the more reviews you will get.
Offer Incentives
Incentives are a good way of motivating your customers to write a product review. This can range from offering a few bonus/loyalty points or creating a new reward program. Or you can also offer coupons, discounts, or gift certificates.
You can also run a campaign where you don’t tell your customers that a discount coupon is coming their way. The surprise factor will add more to the customer experience.
Run a Contest
People love the feel of winning something – this is human tendency. You don’t have to give away something expensive but something like movie tickets or vouchers. Just keep things simple. You can also offer accessories, merchandise, your most popular product, gift card, etc. Entice your customers to write a review.
Ask for Product Pictures
Product reviews with product pictures and videos tell a different story than a text-only review. People who love the product especially like to share a review with a media file. You can also ask your customers’ permission to repost the photo they have shared on their social media handles. This is very common among fashion brands. This is one of the most credible forms of posting a review.
Ask only What’s Required
Ask only those questions whose answers you require. To do this, make a list of answers that you need to add to the reviews. What is that interests your target audience? What is the biggest pain point of your customers? What do they look while making a purchase? Getting answers to all these questions will help you come with the right questions.
When asking for a review, your main aim is not just to know what your customers liked. But you must also know how they used the product, who would they recommend the product to, and if the product changed their life in any way. While it is necessary to keep the review form short, don’t hesitate in asking for any important information. For instance, for a fashion store, it might be important to ask if the product was true to size or not.
Asking the relevant questions will make the review authentic.
Contact Positive Reviewers
If you see a positive review on any of your social media channels, say thanks for using your service and liking them. Follow up and socialize with the positive reviewers. And as said above, you can also ask their permission to share the screenshot on your social media channel.
Contact Negative Reviewers
Ignoring negative reviews won’t make them disappear! Respond to negative reviewers, especially if you think their complaint is justified, or many customers have complained about the same issue. You can take this as an opportunity to learn what’s not working and improve your business accordingly.
Customer’s Name & Picture in the Testimonial
This is a great way of thanking your customers. Besides, adding a source of the review can make your reviews appear more credible. But to make your customers write a review, you need to give them a reason. It can be something as simple as just sending them a thank you note – this gesture will make your customers feel warm and welcomed.
Why you Need Product Reviews?
Let’s now take a look at how product reviews help your business:
Increase in Traffic
Google indexes product reviews and helps rank the product page. So, if you get more product reviews, the chances of your page ranking on Google increases. In addition, as discussed above, the users first check the reviews before making the purchase decision. Also, users see product pages with no review seem less credible as compared to product pages with even one review.
Increased Conversion
As customers look online to buy their favorite product, it is important that you reduce the barriers to conversions. A product review can help them make a decision faster. Suppose a user is looking for a chair. He can’t see or touch the chair in person. He doesn’t know whether the table chair is soft and comfortable to sit on. So, in situations like this, he turns towards the product reviews to get key insights and confirm from other users’ experiences.
Help Improve Products
Let’s continue with the chair example. People who are ordering the chair are complaining that it is a bit shaky when they sit on it. You have a significant number of reviews talking about the same issue. Thus, you can look into the matter and take the requisite steps to improve the product for your customers.
The Final Words
Product reviews can make or break the selling experience. It is crucial to get product reviews in order to remain in the game and get more orders. If you follow the above-discussed tips, you can get fast and great reviews about your product and customer service. All the best!
