Need More Reviews? How to Convince Clients & Customers to Rate You

How to Convince Clients: Whether you’re looking at purchasing a new vacuum online or accepting a new job offer, there’s sure to be a website that hosts reviews on the subject.

Whether you’re looking at purchasing a new vacuum online or accepting a new job offer, there’s sure to be a website that hosts reviews on the subject. It’s estimated that 95% of online shoppers read reviews before making a purchase, and 73% of in-person shoppers trust local brick-and-mortar businesses more when they have accrued positive reviews online. The truth is people trust their peers’ opinions of businesses and items, making more reviews attractive to the greater public.

With numerous statistics about customer reviews, it’s clear that consumers take stock in the reviews left for items and businesses online; but reviews are also just as important, if not more so for businesses. Honest reviews from customers can give insight into the ebbs and flows of your business practices, how can you know what truly needs more attention or what products are no good without getting feedback directly from your customers and clients.

Learning how to convince your client and customers to rate you can be a difficult task. With that in mind, here are five tips on how to convince clients and customers to rate your business, so you can ensure your business reflects the needs and wants of the people you serve.

Automate Asking For Reviews

Automation has made it easy to make clients and consumers aware of your review systems. Have your backend team automate a pop-up suggestion after a customer completes an online purchase that encourages them to share their feedback about their experience on the site. You should also send follow-up emails with embedded hyperlinks so customers can remember to rate their products once they receive them in the mail.

For brick-and-mortar stores, you can have your check-out system automatically display a pop-up for your salespeople or customers reminding them to leave a review online. For receipts, you can email or print out links to your review page where customers can rate their purchases or give feedback about their experiences.

Provide a Template For Reviews

Consumers’ attention spans are constantly shrinking, so it’s important to make the review process short and simple while remaining thorough. With a template present, the customers will be more likely to review an item due to the ease of answering questions rather than coming up with their own. Get together with your team and decide what feedback would be the most beneficial to receive through your review system.

Some examples of things to consider when coming up with templates, can you rely on a 1 to 5-star ratings or would you want a text box underneath the rating system for customers to provide more insight into their exact thoughts. By creating a template with the help of your team, you can ensure that the customer reviews hold pertinent information when it comes to the future success of your business.

Ask Your Customers

Customers and clients understand the importance of reviews because they rely on reviews so heavily when making purchases and business decisions. Therefore, as long as you ask politely and sincerely, they shouldn’t be put off by you asking them for some feedback. However, studies do show that customers’ willingness to complete surveys and leave reviews dwindles the longer you wait to ask them so be sure to do so after their purchase or business interaction.

Offer Incentives

Many businesses offer incentives for customer reviews but remember this isn’t an attempt at buying good reviews, it’s to incentivize reviews as a whole. Even the most committed clients and customers sometimes need that extra push to get to the review section. From personalized gifts and free promotional products, there are so many ways to incentivize reviews.Think about offering a monthly raffle where leaving a review on your business website counts as an entry. You can promote these incentives during checkout in-store or online, as well as via your social media channels and websites.

Engage With Existing Reviews

One of the best ways to guarantee more reviews is to engage with existing reviews. Customers and clients want to know that their thoughts are being heard, and acknowledging their review with a comment in response shows that your team takes that feedback and runs with it. Also, engaging with people who don’t usually leave comments will encourage them to leave more. It’s also important to respond to both negative and positive comments. Responding to the negative comments gives your business the chance to fix any issues or complaints, and assure the clients and customers that you’re working on ensuring this won’t happen again.