How to Approach Your Customers For a Review ?
Even with a good number of the population using the internet for shopping, still many customers get edgy while buying products online especially from an unknown brand. Since the customers aren't aware of your brand nor your services, they look out for social proof. They want to know more about your brand from your customers as they have experienced your services.
A brand is trusted only when the customers hear about the brand from a known source. In most of the TV ads, when a popular celebrity endorses an unknown brand we completely trust it and don't hesitate to buy the product from the unknown brand only because we trust the celebrity who endorses it. Obviously, everyone cannot afford it. In such cases, you can project your existing customers as celebrities to appraise your brand. This is one of the cheaper and more reliable ways of increasing the conversion rate.
With many questions about your services, customers often search online for the reviews from your customers who have purchased your products. They use different ways to know your credibility, such as your website, search engines, social media, product review etc.
This is the prime reason why having a testimonial from your happy customer on your website or any other platforms is a great idea.
Reviews act as a social proof. It gives the prospects a clear picture of how long have you been doing this business and the quality of the services you have been rendering to your customers. Only after reading the reviews, the prospects further consider your website for making a purchase.
How do reviews help your business?
1. It can convert a prospect into a customer
2. It can make the prospects to choose your company over your competitors
3. It helps to increase the trust factor in your brand which can in-turn ramp up your conversion rate
4. Gives your brand a higher visibility
5. Improves your websites SEO
Unhappy customers hunt for the different way to write reviews about your company as they have the urge to say negative about you to the world. But your happy customers keep it for themselves. Hence, you need to hoist them to write it for you. So how do you do it?
1. Jot down your loyal customers:
Before soliciting for a review you must make a list of the loyal customers who might write the review for you. Any customer who has made a repeat purchase is generally happy with your services, which has made them come back to you. Select those customers who have at least purchased twice from you, as the possibility of them writing a review is high.
Few of the customers are lazy to write a review. Even if they are satisfied with your service, they are lethargic to write it for you. In order to motivate such customers, you can reward them with discounts, cash back or coupons so that they do it at any chance.
2. Show them the path.
Once you have the list of the loyal customers who can write a review, your next move would be to analyze the platforms where you would be asking them to write. To do this, first, you need to have your business registered in the popular directories and search engines. Every company has its business page on all the social media platforms. If your company doesn't have, then create it today! As this is the easiest way to access prospect customers.
Approach your customers to write a review either on your website, product page, thank-you page, search engine business listing, Facebook & LinkedIn recommendations, YouTube video or any other external review website. Be clear while asking for the review on which are all the platforms you want them to post. Make sure you ask the customers to write a review only after a week or so since their last purchase or immediately after the product is delivered (with rate-us pop up) as their interaction with your brand would be fresh in their memory.
3. Educate on how to do it
If your business provides customer support, then call your regular customers and request them to write a review for you. However, writing an email is the best approach to ask for a review. The way you approach the customers to write a review is very essential, i.e. you need to fabricate the email in such a way that you don't offend the customers by writing a mail in a demanding tone. Start with a small survey by asking how was their buying experience and then come to the point. Do not forget to personalize the email by sending it through a real-time email id and addressing the customers with their name in the email.
Make it easy for them to write by providing all the required details on the procedure to complete the review process. Once you trigger the email to your loyal customer list, analyze the open rate of the emails. Depending on the percentage of the open rate, trigger another reminder email to the customers who did not open the first mail over a period of a week. These follow up emails will help you to get a good amount of reviews on your website.
4. Don't forget to thank them
Once you send the emails, keep a track on how many customers have written the reviews. Make some time to reply them back irrespective of the platform where they have written the review. You can also send a thank you email for the customers who have taken the extra effort of writing the review. Along with the thank you note, depending on the last purchase of the customers you can also upsell products or notify them about the latest offers. Lastly, don't hesitate to share these reviews on social media as this acts as a strong social proof for your prospects.
Positive reviews on the internet can be a business booster. This can make a difference for your business and helps your business to stand out from your competitors. So don't step back from asking a review.
