If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.

~Jeff Bezoz

Jeff Bezos couldn’t have said it better. Customer feedback is the cornerstone of growth and business perpetuation today.

Engaging with your customers at the level of their needs, problems, and expectations enables your business to respond with relevant solutions that immediately make an impact in your customers’ lives.

Collecting online reviews doesn’t just help your business polish its offerings and make them better. It is also responsible for encouraging the customers to complete a purchase with you.

The G2 and Heinz Marketing Report highlight that 61% of your buyers would read anywhere between 11 and 50 reviews before making a purchase with you.

Extending that statement would mean that the lack of customer reviews on your products may be driving your buyers away.

So, what can your business do to encourage your customers to leave you reviews?

You can hire a search engine marketing agency to help you along. Let’s discuss a few ways you can get more online reviews from your customers.

10 Ways to Get More Reviews

A survey highlights that 93% of consumers base their purchase decisions on online reviews.

Requesting your customers to leave you online reviews helps your business secure sales later. Let’s look at 10 effective ways you can garner online reviews for your business.

1. Give Them a Reason

Offering your customers incentives in exchange for reviews may be a topic of debate.

However, if your business remains impartial to both positive and negative reviews, it is completely fair. If this doesn’t work for your ethos, you could always subtly request them to review your business in exchange for better experiences in the future.

2. Make the Process Easy

Customers neither have the time nor the energy to follow a detailed reviewing process. Make it as easy as possible for them to give you feedback.

A simple star rating goes a long way. You can also insert action buttons along their journey to make the process simpler. You could also design your interfaces to highlight the areas where customers can leave reviews.

3. Respect Customer Privacy

For certain products or services, garnering reviews can touch the sensitive zone.

For example, for acne or medical products, your customers may want to remain anonymous. Giving them that option will work as an encouragement for leaving reviews.

4. Adopt Multichannel Strategy

Not all your customers can download your app or navigate to your website to leave you a review.

Ensure that your brand is present on the channels that your target audience frequently visits. Let them know their options – social media, Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, etc., and let them make a choice.

5. Be Proactive

The best way to get something is to ask for it.

However, consumers can be a little finicky. Make sure that your brand has a customer feedback policy that outlines how and when to make the ask. Requesting your consumers subtly is the best way to get them to review their experience with you.

6. Time it Right

Timing your review request can be a little tricky.

Asking for a review at a bad time may earn you some feedback, but it may not be the best one even though the customer was satisfied. Wrong timing spoils everything. Consider the following timings as “right”:

7. Be Unbiased

Part of making a positive impact on your consumers is to let them see that your brand isn’t perfect.

Publish all the negative reviews you get, in addition to the positive ones. Let the average star ratings reflect the sample size of your verified buyers and how satisfied they were with your products.

8. Respond to Every Review

89% of the customers read a business’s response to customer reviews.

Every single review on every channel must earn the reviewer a response from your brand representatives. Customers like being heard – if they leave you a positive review, thank them; if they were dissatisfied, apologize and actively work to make things better.

9. Encourage Unstructured Responses

Surveys and formal feedback are good. However, if a customer is leaving you feedback on live chat or email, or any other channel for that matter, your brand needs to encourage them.

Remember – feedback isn’t merely for show or display. You are doing this to improve your service and products. Encourage all unstructured feedback.

10. Act on it

What is the purpose of gathering feedback if not to act on it?

If a customer was dissatisfied with the way your sales rep interacted with them, you need to train your reps better.

If a product was poorly rated on average, you need to improve your R&D. In the long run, this is what matters most.

Additionals:

• Can Your Social Media Presence Impact Your Online Business
• Online Business Owners:  How To Start an eCommerce Business Plan
• Generating Quality Results for Your Online Business with Animated Explainer Videos