You might have done a tremendous amount of research and market analysis before launching your products. Even so, it’s important that you assess how your audience responds to your products/services and what they feel about them once your products are out in the market. And the easiest way to do this is by simply asking them!  

Customer feedbacks are a great way to understand the impact your products/services have on your customers. Feedbacks help in improving your performance and staying connected with your customers.   

By collecting feedbacks, you can  

• Keep customers engaged and gain their loyalty  
• Encourage repeat purchase   
• Add them as social proof to attract new customers  
• Obtain a higher ranking in search results.  

Thanks to technological advancements, brands now have many different channels to connect with customers during different stages of the sales pipeline. You can contact customers over the phone or email and ask them for feedback. You can also reach out to your customers through messaging apps or social media.  

Even when there are many channels to collect customer reviews, emails still remain a popular choice. With an average person receiving more than 100 emails every day, it’s quite easy for your email requests to go unnoticed.   

Here are a few tips to grab your customer’s attention and prompt them to leave a review for you

1. Start off with an engaging subject line  

Subject line is the first thing that anybody will notice about your email. An attractive subject line makes your mail stand out from the rest and prompts the users to open the mail. Subject lines that create a sense of urgency tend to have a higher open rate. Adding your order ID is a simple tactic to differentiate your email from the other marketing emails. This would make the customers feel that this is not a normal marketing email and pay more attention to it. 

2. Keep the content short and simple  

Your content should be able to carry forward the interest built up by your subject line. Clear and focused content is highly appreciated by the users. Your intent might get lost if you add too many details to the content. Tell in very simple words what you require from the customers.   

3. Add a single call to action  

Make sure to add a single and prominent call to action to your email. Adding too many actions to an email will confuse the customers and they might end up doing nothing at all.   

4. Send follow-ups  

Some people might need an extra nudge to leave a review. Follow-ups are for such hesitant customers. Sometimes review requests might reach the customers when they are fully tied up. So, they might postpone it and later forget about it altogether. In such instances, follow-ups will prompt them to leave a review.   

5. Personalize your emails  

You can personalize your requests by adding customer name, the name of the product purchased etc. But a dynamic name tag alone wouldn’t be enough! By making use of subscriber’s browsing data you can send them product recommendations. Remembering special days like birthdays and anniversaries and sending offers on such occasions is another way to build a warm relationship with customers.  

6. Set clear expectations  

At the outset itself, tell your customers how much time it’ll take and also what they will get in return for spending their valuable time for sending reviews.  

7. Tell them how the reviews would help  

You can tell your customers how important their reviews are to you. You can inform your intention behind collecting reviews. Understand customer preferences, improve the product or display reviews as social proof on your product page- it could be any of these or even all of them together. You can tell them how by spending a few minutes of their valuable time, they will create a world of difference for their fellow customers and for your business.  

8. Show other reviews  

A great way to attract customer reviews is by showing the reviews that you have already collected. This will encourage the hesitant ones to send reviews as well.   

9. Reward your customers  

  Incentivizing reviews is a proven method to win more reviews. You can tell your customers upfront that they will be rewarded for reviews.  

10. Use a tone that matches your brand  

Tone of your email should be one that matches your brand. If you have been using a casual tone, use one throughout. But if you’ve been using a cordial but formal tone, make sure you use one in your emails as well. Using a consistent tone over all your interactions with the customers instils an added trust in the customers.  

11. Make the reviewing process effortless 

Make the entire process as simple and effortless as possible. Any delay or confusion in the process of leaving reviews will make the customers abandon it altogether. Always make the process as fun and intuitive as possible.  

12. Create attractive email templates

Design an attractive template for your review request emails. Include colorful images and text in your emails. Unique and customized review email templates create a distinct brand identity and set your email apart from the others.  

Messaging apps- the alternate channel for review requests  

Messaging apps are slowly replacing emails as the most trending means of connecting with your customers. It’s estimated that there are 2.2 billion messaging app users across the world. By sending review requests through messaging apps, you can connect with these people on their preferred platforms. Shopify review application Reviewbit is an amazing product that helps you collect customer reviews through WhatsApp and display it on your store front in beautiful widgets.   

Quantity & quality  

While collecting reviews, both the quality and the quantity of the reviews matter. A brand that displays only positive reviews is looked at suspiciously by customers. An ideal situation is where you have a mix of reviews. Whenever there is a bad review, brands can mitigate its negative impact by addressing the concerns raised and providing the reviewer with a good resolution. Having a large number of reviews improves the brand’s credibility tremendously. The impact of reviews is so much so that good reviews for one product have an effect on other newly introduced products that do not have any reviews at all.  

It’s high time brands made collecting large-quantity reviews a foremost priority. Lots of amazing tools are available to assist you in this process. Should you choose to send email review requests, make sure you follow the above-mentioned best practices for the best results.  

Pick a tool that best suits your business and watch reviews piling up!