This is the science behind why we encourage you to ask your customers to leave a review when you are still face-to-face. Once you have vocalized that you are sending them a review request, the customers’ mind will be primed and they will be more likely to notice and respond to a review request from your business over all of the other emails or text messages flooding their inbox.
The Statistics
70% of consumers will leave a review for a business if they are asked to
Asking for a review in person can garner 7-8x more reviews than through email only
Customers who have had a great experience are 2-3x less likely to post a happy review, as opposed to customers who have had a bad experience
We all have felt that sense of hesitancy with asking customers for their feedback and that’s normal! At the same time, however, asking really is the most effective way to get a review response.
Most Effective Ways To Prime Customers
1) Ask in response to praise (most effective/easiest method)
When a customer compliments your service/business
Respond with:“I would love if you could take the time to leave us a review, we really do try our best to [whatever the customer praised you for]”
2) Create meaningful engagements
At the end of service/ at checkout
Start with:“Did you find everything you were looking for today? / How was your experience with us today?”
If they respond in a positive manner proceed by asking them to leave you a review:“That’s great to hear! By the way, we’ll be sending you a text message shortly asking if you could leave us an online review.”
Tips On Improving Your Response Rate
Let the customer know that their opinion is valuable.
Always respond to feedback, whether negative or positive. Responding to online feedback is vital in building your online presence. It also encourages other consumers to leave their feedback and engage with your business.
Share response rates/feedback with the team.
Business growth is backed by the employees. Use positive feedback to motivate and engage your employees — this naturally pushes them to want to ask for feedback.
Send out surveys in a timely manner.
Keep the review requests within a week of a closed transaction, so that the transaction is still fresh and primed in the customer’s mind. The best times to be sending out are review requests are Wednesday and Saturday for the highest conversion rates.
Engage with the customer more.
As the level of contact between you and the customer grows, the response rate improves by 4-29%. If you ensure that all customer interactions show that your business genuinely cares about their satisfaction and experience, those customers would be more likely to respond to a review request.
Once you have perfected priming customers to leave reviews, LocalReviews takes care of the rest. We have incorporated the best practices in the surveys to increase the response rate, such as:
Making the cover page pleasingly simple
Personalizing review invitations
Sending automated review reminders (increases chances of a response by 58%)
What Next: