6 Brilliant Ways to Get Customer Reviews and Testimonials
Getting customer reviews and testimonials is one of the best ways to build brand awareness and increase sales. Yet, most businesses don’t work hard enough to get great customer reviews. As a result, they’re missing out on potential sales. If you want to get more customer reviews that build your brand, here are some simple steps you can take.
Ask politely
Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews and testimonials. The best way to get them is to be polite and persistent in your requests. Being polite will help you gain customers’ trust, while being persistent means you won’t give up after one or two attempts if they don’t respond.
If you have a hard time approaching people, ask coworkers for advice or enlist the help of a friend or family member with good communication skills. Once you get comfortable with the process, it becomes easier and will eventually come naturally to you.
Offer an incentive
Offering a discount on their next purchase, a free item or service, or paying for shipping costs (or return shipping costs) are effective ways to get customers to leave a review or give a testimonial. You can even offer an exclusive coupon they can redeem after they do.
Incentivizing customers will encourage them to provide feedback on your products or services. You can also use incentives as part of your customer service process, such as offering a discount if customers complete a survey or share their experience with their friends.
This gives customers the feeling of being appreciated and encourages them to spread the word about your business. Incentives are a great way to get customer testimonials and build up your customer base.
The take-home message: If you’re offering something of value to your customer in exchange for their feedback, people will be more likely to leave feedback than if there was no incentive involved.
Send a follow-up email
Follow up with customers after their purchase. One of the most effective ways to get customer testimonials is to send them a follow-up email. By sending a personalized, tailored email, customers will likely provide feedback on their experience with your business. Ask for their honest opinion and include open-ended questions about their experience.
Additionally, thank them for their feedback and let them know how their words will help other customers make an informed decision. Include an easy-to-use link that leads customers directly to your testimonial page.
Ask for social media reviews
More than ever, customers are turning to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to share their experiences about brands online. And it’s not just younger generations: Baby boomers are the fastest-growing segment of social media users today. In fact, 82% of consumers read online customer reviews before making a purchase decision — and 71% say positive reviews have positively influenced their buying decisions. Why not offer customers an incentive to write reviews about your products on social media?
Host a contest for your best customers
If you have a loyal following of customers, hosting a contest can be an excellent way to get testimonials.
First, you need to do is decide what prize you want to offer as a reward for winning the contest. The prize should appeal to your target audience and help them see how they will benefit from buying your product or service. It could be anything from free access to training courses on how to use your software or service, gift cards, gift baskets with samples of your products inside, or even cash prizes.
One thing that works well is giving away access codes for popular services like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video so winners can enjoy something extra without having to spend money themselves. If it costs nothing but time for people who enter the contest — and if everyone wins — then everyone will likely feel more inclined towards participating than if only one person won each round. Once you have a contest winner, encourage them to give your company a testimonial.
Do something worth talking about
To get more testimonials, ensure your products and services are worth talking about. This means you offer something unique, or at least something better than what your competitors are doing. It’s not enough to simply be “good enough” or even “better than the rest” — your customers won’t be willing to give their time or energy unless they feel like it will provide them with some sort of benefit.
You should also consider how easy it is for people to write reviews for you. If too many steps are involved in providing feedback on your business, it’s unlikely anyone will bother taking the time out of their day to give a testimonial.
Services are available to help you make this process easier for your clients. One such service, Review Genie, allows you to automatically send review requests to your customers either by email or text. When the customer scores you high, it gives them an easy way to place that review on the major sites such as Google and Yelp. It monitors the web for other reviews for your business and can pull them all together on your website to show potential customers the positive reviews you have received.
Another benefit of Review Genie is that when (not if) you receive a not so great review, it will recognize this immediately and not give the customer the option of posting the review onto other sites, but rather will notify you so that you can address the situation immediately. There are many different platforms out there that provide this type of services. The monthly investment on these platforms can vary greatly, so do your due dilligence and look at several of them before making a decision on whether it is right for your business or not.
Customer testimonials and reviews effectively increase sales, brand loyalty, customer retention, and referrals. According to a study from 2016, reviews can increase conversion rates by as much as 270%. By providing your customers with an opportunity to share their experiences with your company and products/services via social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp, you not only improve brand awareness but also build trust among potential new customers who search for positive reviews before purchasing anything online.
