Customer reviews are one of the most important aspects of your online marketing these days. It doesn’t matter if you tell your customers that your products are amazing, they won’t necessarily trust your opinion because you’re just trying to make a sale. But other customers are impartial, which is why the majority of people will check online reviews before making a purchase. 

Studies show that 90% of people read online reviews before visiting a business and customers are likely to spend 31% more with a business that has a lot of positive reviews. This means that businesses that have a lot of negative reviews or don’t have many reviews at all are likely to fall behind. Reviews are also important because they give you insight into your products and your business and identify areas of weakness. For example, if a lot of customers are leaving negative reviews because they waited on hold for a long time before they could speak to a customer service representative, you know that you need to expand your call centre team. If there are common complaints about certain aspects of the product, you need to go back to the drawing board and consider a redesign. 

Unfortunately, a lot of businesses don’t know how to get more reviews and this means that their marketing suffers and issues within the business go unnoticed. The good news is, there are plenty of simple things that you can do to encourage customers to leave feedback. These are the best ways to get more customer reviews. 

Ask For Them 

This sounds simple but so many businesses fail to do it. There are some people out there that will review every product that they buy but most people don’t. That’s why it’s important that you ask people to leave a review after they have purchased a product and, if they like it, a lot of people will be willing to help you out. Craft a follow up email thanking the customer for their purchase and politely asking them to leave a review. If you are a new business, let them know that these reviews are incredibly valuable as they will help you to grow your business and create more great products in the future. When you are writing your follow up email, it’s best to keep it simple. People don’t really respond that well to over the top, flashy emails with lots of graphics and videos. Instead, write a simple email asking people to put aside 5 minutes of their time to leave you a review. 

Improve The Customer Experience

When people leave reviews, they don’t just write about the product. Even though a good quality product will inspire some people to leave a positive review, people are more likely to sing your praises if they have an excellent experience with your company, so improving the customer experience as much as possible is vital. 

When you consider the customer experience, you need to think about every single step of the journey from start to finish. The first thing you need to do is update your website and make sure that it’s quick and easy to navigate and the checkout process is simple and streamlined. If you think that you might have an issue with your website, get in touch with a user experience specialist like Userzoom and get them to take a look. They will be able to identify any issues with the website and make changes so the customer experience is as good as it can possibly be. 

The customer experience doesn’t end at the point of purchase, so make sure that you have a good aftercare process in place. This starts with a simple follow up email, where you can invite people to leave a review. If customers have any issues with their product, you need to make sure that you have an experienced customer care team to deal with it. In the future, use email campaigns to let customers know about any offers and deals that you have coming up. 

If you can improve your customer experience and offer a great product, you will see a big increase in positive reviews. 

Give People An Incentive 

If you have invested time and money in your customer experience and sent out emails asking people to review your products but you still don’t have that many reviews, what should you do? This happens sometimes and the best way around it is to give people an incentive to leave a review. You could offer them 10% off their next purchase or if you have a rewards program in place, offer people points if they leave a review. People have busy lives and they may not want to take time out of their day to review your business but if you offer them something in return, it seems more worthwhile to them. So many businesses use this tactic because it’s incredibly effective. Offering them a discount on their next purchase also makes them more likely to come back, so it’s a good way to get repeat customers as well. 

Make It Easy 

Finally, it is important that you make the process of leaving a review very easy. Take Amazon or eBay, for example; it’s quick and easy to leave a review right there on the site and it only takes five minutes. But if the customer has to go through a link in the email you sent them, set up an account with a third-party review site and then write their review, they probably won’t bother. If possible, add a dedicated review area to your own website to make life easier for customers. You could even consider developing your own mobile app so people can easily purchase products and leave reviews in one place. As long as you make it easy, customers will be more likely to leave reviews but if you make them jump through hoops, they won’t bother. 

Customer reviews are absolutely essential for any business these days, whether you are a local business or an international company selling products all over the world. By following these basic tips, you should be able to get plenty of 5 star reviews from your customers.