This is How You can Ask Customers for Reviews

"Have you ever looked at the reviews?" For us in the private sector, looking at customer reviews has long been a part of almost every purchase process. So neglecting this point as a business is definitely not a good strategy. But don't worry!

Our guest author Simon Bühl will not only explain the basics to you, but also provide solutions on how to deal with customer reviews from now on.

Why are Customer Reviews Important for Businesses?

Customer reviews are of enormous importance to a company, because even though the developments in the field of virtual and augmented reality are fascinating and rapid, our everyday life online still consists of screen views that neither make products tangible nor qualitatively noticeable. So how is a potential customer supposed to know if the quality is right?

The assessment becomes even worse when it comes to services, where we have certainly all been caught by advertising language, only to realise afterwards that the service provided was not as top as promised.

How do we still find stability in this abundance on the World Wide Web?

We trust in the experience of others!This can be done through test seals (Stiftung Warentest etc.), but what is even more interesting is the feedback from other real customers who ideally have exactly the same needs as I do and are very satisfied with the offered solution. Similarly, customer reviews are essential trust elements for companies to make their own products and services more exciting for prospects and ultimately to generate conversions.

In addition, every customer review also means content that is not only interesting for the relevant search engines, but can also be integrated into your own customer communication

Which review platforms are important for businesses?

The question of the right platform is often preceded by the consideration of one's own goals: If I want to boost the trust in my products, I should focus on product platforms like Amazon and collect customer reviews here.

Or systems like REVIEWS.io integrate into my shop, if my used shop system allows it. Systems like REVIEWS.io are review and feedback management systems that make it easier for you to collect feedback and improve interaction with customers.

If I want to not only build trust in individual products, but also make my own webshop more efficient (especially if it's brand new), then platforms like Trusted Shops or eKomi are a good start.

However, if it's about services or, for example, general brand awareness, then reviews on Google or platforms like ProvenExpert are important. ProvenExpert also aggregates ratings from other systems and combines them for even greater meaningfulness about your services and/or products.

So we realize: There is a rather wide range of review platforms. Therefore, aggregation platforms that bundle various review channels may be of interest. However, this usually only makes sense if a relevant number of reviews already exist on different platforms.

By the way, rating platforms have long since arrived in everyday recruiting. Interested applicants can find out on platforms like Kununu whether former and active employees are satisfied with the company they are aiming for. So here too, it's ultimately about trust.

What should be considered when asking customers for reviews?

The question of the right person to address for the review of the purchased product is not so easily answered depending on the industry and case. Here, data can bring the decisive advantage, provided your own system stores and reasonably assigns this.

An example: Was a product bought from you "as a gift"? Then you can assume that the buyer is not the person who can write a corresponding review. However, you can counteract this by changing the wording in the approach and not asking what your own experience with the product is, but whether the gift was well received. The magic word is therefore personalisation based on aggregated data.

Some industries are particularly "vulnerable" to gifts, for example the entertainment or ticket industry: With high sales figures in gift-heavy times like just before Christmas, you can hardly assume that the purchase information matches the actual visitors to the event. You have to look at the context of the survey here: If your goal is to strengthen trust in your ticket shop or your event software, then a customer survey along the data provided at the time of purchase makes sense. If it's about the event itself, the survey should rather take place with the visitors or be done "manually" on site and through subsequent triggers.

The choice of the right medium should also be part of your thought process: If we take the example of event visitors, a direct survey on site by appropriate staff can make sense. Or you can lay out survey forms on site, which you make more interesting with a trigger (a raffle among all participants). Creativity is ultimately required here, or the question is again what exactly you want to achieve. Because if you want to collect a lot of data and want them to be directly available aggregated and clustered, then the digital way is much more interesting: Mailings or messages via messenger are some of the options, either as a one-time survey or automated broadcasts as a result of triggers such as a purchase or visiting a certain page.

Another advantage of a digital process is the possibility of personalisation: You can tailor the customer survey individually to each individual customer, depending on the data available to you. The possibilities are limitless: You can address existing customers differently and ask different questions than new customers. Perhaps you usually only get a customer rating from customers who have bought something from you at least 3 times? No problem at all with the appropriate data base!

You can also control the approach: Do you stay generic or do you address customers directly by name? You don't even have to give the answers to the questions yourself, as A/B tests are perfect for such things. Believe me: It's usually always better to let the customers decide than to cling to your own idea.

Finally, there is the question of the right timing. Generalizing this would be unscrupulous, but it usually helps to imagine one's own behaviour as a customer: Could you rate a product 3 days after purchase? Probably not, but definitely after 2 weeks. Once again, it very much depends on your industry.

Another example: When can you rate whether you are happy with an insurance company? When you sign the contract? Certainly not, because then you can only rate how much you liked the advice. You can basically only rate an insurance when a claim occurs, i.e. when damage has occurred or when a pension contract pays out. That's exactly the time to ask for a review or to shine to the customer! But you should never be pushy.

In the example of the insurance company, you should therefore not ask for a review while the demolition company is still clearing the house destroyed by fire, but when everything has been perfectly regulated and the customers have "newly" moved into their dream home. Again, it helps to put yourself in the shoes of the customer: When would you leave a review?

How can businesses ask their customers for reviews?

As outlined in the previous section, a digital review has many advantages, as does the use of a well-known review platform. This gives an interested party the possibility of comparison with competitors, which strengthens trust.

To ask your customers for reviews, you fundamentally first need the information, who your customers are and when a trigger for a survey has occurred (e.g. a purchase).

1. Create a Data Basis

So you need a corresponding data situation, best stored in a CRM or CDP tool. Both abbreviations, CRM for "Customer Relationship Management" and CDP for "Customer Data Platform", are often used synonymously, many people use the term CRM in the B2B and CDP in the B2C context, but in the end, they are both systems for capturing, organizing and aligning data to achieve their strategic goals. CDP goes one step further and also collects behavioural information from customers. A well-known software for this is from the American manufacturer Salesforce ". If you want to find out more about individual abbreviations or technical terms, feel free to take a look at the "OMR Glossary".2. Choice of ChannelsAs soon as the mentioned information is available to you in a structured way, it's about choosing the right channels. Again, the selection is very large, but it is recommended to first look where you are already "on the move". An obvious channel for asking for customer reviews is email. So if you have a "tool for newsletters and/or mail automations" in use, you should also implement a corresponding process for customer reviews. The same applies, of course, to messengers like WhatsApp, if you communicate with your customers via these channels anyway.If your brand only works on social media, then you should also collect the corresponding customer reviews. Again, you have the choice: Do you create a general post asking for reviews? Or do you play targeted ads with the request for feedback and a link to the form to all persons via retargeting, who bought something from you, for example, 10 days ago?You don't have to do everything all at once: Decide for a channel on which you feel comfortable anyway and start here in familiar terrain. Whether you then use other channels or optimize the previous one using A/B tests, is up to you again.

3 Templates and Examples to Ask Customers for Reviews

Theoretical example in general:Hello/Hey/Good Day,we sincerely thank you for your purchase from us and hope you are satisfied.

If you could take a short moment, we would very much appreciate a review on [platform with link]. Your feedback not only helps us, but also other interested parties to make the right choice.

Thank you and kind regards

Your [Company Name] Team

Practical example for products from the lifestyle sector:

Hello [First Name],

Thank you for your purchase!

We're already curious how you like your new [Company Name] product. Have you had time to try it out? What really excited you?

If you are satisfied with us, we would be very happy about a review on [Platform with Link] or a message from you.

Enjoy your new product and best regards

Your [Company Name] Team

Practical example for products from the textile sector:

Well… tried out the new favourite piece yet?

For a pleasant and long-lasting wearing experience, we already show you HERE [link to care page] some tips & tricks for the right care.

We are also insanely interested in your opinion about our product. We would therefore be thrilled if you would leave a review in our shop [Link to Shop] and/or on [Platform with Link]!

Thank you again for your purchase and all the best

Your [Company Name] Team

You notice just from these three examples that it depends a lot on how you communicate with your customers on other channels. Instead of copying an example from the internet, you should look at which communication suits you, your brand and especially your target group.

The practical examples brought along are actively in use and flush daily customer feedback onto the linked platforms.

The content of the request can also touch on other topics, as long as they are appropriate. You can see this in the second practical example (care tips). These excursions may only be brief: Stay focused in your message and don't try to cram in 20 other points.

In the practical examples shown here, personalizations are in use thanks to CRM systems in the background. This means that customers are addressed by their correct first name and the correct products or product names are also displayed, which also ensures that the link to the review in the shop leads directly to the correct product page. If you don't have such technologies (yet), you can of course stay more general.

How can businesses respond to negative reviews and cast them in a positive light?

As strange as it may sound:

A negative review is not inherently bad!

If you only receive negative feedback, that would be something else and possibly the right time to rethink your business model. However, if your customer reviews are predominantly positive, then a negative review in between can even create more trust in you and your brand.

Why?

When you look at reviews and only see effusive praise and 5/5-star ratings for a product or company, don't you get suspicious? It's long known everywhere that tricks are played even on established review platforms by dubious providers.

So if you get a negative review, but you deal with it confidently and ideally even derive improvements or action recommendations for the customers directly, then your entire portfolio of reviews looks much more authentic and at the same time you signal to all interested parties: I take the concerns of my customers seriously, even when it gets critical.

A confident approach means that you deal with the review, but in a professional way. Yes, even when the inner child screams "No, you are stupid!" ;) But don't slide into the other extreme and submit to every opinion. Eye level is the keyword, as almost always in life, and stay factual. An emotional argument has, to my knowledge, never ended well on the internet.

If it's suitable, you can directly offer a solution for the point of criticism. So with your reaction, look more towards the future than the past. If the criticism is more complex, you can also name a contact person that the customer can contact directly to find a solution together. Whether the author takes up this offer or not is ultimately irrelevant, as long as you have offered your support in a confident and courteous manner to the public.

But definitely avoid offering discounts or replacement services publicly, because you may attract people who also want a compensation just for negative reviews. Or in the next sales talk you will be confronted with the demand for a discount, because "someone in your customer reviews" apparently got one just like that. Always stay confident.

And finally, my personal opinion: Don't let everything slide! Your focus should be on a respectful, confident interaction at eye level. However, you can't completely control whether your counterpart sets the same focus. The internet is unfortunately also a breeding ground for irrelevant discussions and worst of all, unjustified hatred. So be sure to stay true to your own values and simply endure it if you encounter a "troll". I'm very sure that other internet users can't take unsound reviews as seriously as you should.By the way, most review portals offer the possibility to request a deletion for such unsound feedback. But for the sake of your authenticity, only rarely resort to this, as not every negative review is equally bad, but can also make you look better than before.How can companies automate and simplify the process of collecting reviews?

There are plenty of ready-made solutions to choose from to automate your review process. A manual approach only makes sense if you are specifically looking for testimonial statements for your website. Otherwise, the administrative effort would be much too high!And you have to remember that some review processes start even without your intervention, in the worst case even completely without your knowledge. A classic in e-commerce is Amazon, for example: If not everything runs through your own warehouse, but other traders also sell your goods, then for almost all brands there comes a point when they appear on Amazon. Often the brand owners know nothing about it, because the item setup can be done by any dealer with access to Seller Central.

These item records in the worst case then do not even meet a certain minimum standard and basically damage the brand image, but that's another story. What's important for customer reviews is the fact that from the moment of listing, your products can be rated. And either unmoderated or even worse, not confidently and professionally. Even if you don't actively use such platforms, as a brand owner you should regularly check there and see if there is a need for action. Sounds strange, but believe me, we've experienced this more often than we liked.

If you use a shop system, there are sometimes already integrated solutions for customer reviews. The simplest variant would then be that you also give a reference to reviews in transaction mails (order confirmations) triggered by the system. However, you usually do not have the possibility to choose intelligent timings or to keep track of how well this approach performs, except for counting the ratings of course.

Better are therefore usually add-ons from third party providers. Depending on the shop system, different possibilities are offered, so solutions like Reviews.io work excellently with Shopify, but not with Shopware. Like with any integration, the interaction should therefore be checked or asked for in advance. Most data-driven and at the same time creative leeway is, however, with a "CRM system" (and/or "CDP"), which not only collects information, but also uses it at the right time in an automated way and thus paves an easy and efficient way for customer ratings.

A CRM system supports you directly in answering open questions with regard to timing, address, correct person and medium, as the information required for this is usually available directly and can be used. Even the topic of address or how you appear in terms of content towards your contacts can be controlled via this, as almost all tools have solutions for "A/B tests" in their luggage that you can fall back on to find the best way. You are also completely free in your choice of platform that your customers should use for reviews. So whether you ask for Google reviews or other feedback is completely up to you.

How can businesses ensure that reviews are authentic and not fake?

Even when you have the hardest suspicion, it doesn't make sense in terms of cost/benefit to take off your sunglasses in CSI style and send a profiler. However, there are hints that can indicate fake reviews. With a view to your competitors, there are relatively simple indications that someone has tampered with their own reviews. A lot of excellent reviews in a short amount of time often indicate that someone has been tricked here and a competitor is drawing a pretty picture.

If it's about your own reviews, it's already a bit more difficult, unless an ungrounded shitstorm indicates that someone has set some dark figures on you. And yes, there are also service providers for that unfortunately.

To ensure authentic reviews, you can, for example, only allow reviews from people who are or were customers of you with the help of a suitable system. This is often visualized with corresponding badges, with something like "Verified Purchase" or similar.

Tools that support companies in collecting customer reviews

As platforms for customer evaluations, you can start your research with tools like ",", or ". Use search in OMR reviews to see the feedback from other users and find the right solution for you!

The same applies, of course, for the mentioned CRM or CDP systems. An overview is given in the "CRM category of OMR Reviews". There it can be a good start to look at solutions from ",", ",", or "," among others.

ConclusionYou see: Asking customers for reviews is a wide-ranging field, where there is a lot to consider and you are more likely to embark on a journey that should be continually adjusted.If you want to remember just one statement from all this complexity for the moment, then this one is probably the best: Ask yourself with every step how YOU would feel or behave in the situation as a customer.Whether you start off in a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of way or first build an advanced CRM solution is entirely up to you, so here's a personal recommendation: First see what your goals are and how you can achieve them most effectively. Set milestones with measurable results and a time horizon so that you can work towards them in a focused manner. And then just get started without thinking everything through completely. With customer reviews, it's about authenticity, so you can also make mistakes on the way to the perfect strategy.), welches nicht nur Informationen sammelt, sondern diese auch zum richtigen Zeitpunkt automatisiert nutzt und so einen einfachen und effizienten Weg für Kundenbewertungen darstellt.

Ein CRM-System unterstützt dich direkt dabei, offene Fragen mit Bezug auf Zeitpunkt, Ansprache, richtige Person und Medium zu beantworten, da die hierfür benötigten Informationen zumeist direkt vorliegen und verwendet werden können. Selbst das Thema Ansprache bzw. wie du inhaltlich gegenüber deinen Kontakten auftrittst, ist hierüber steuerbar, da so gut wie alle Tools Lösungen für A/B-Tests im Gepäck haben, auf die du zurückgreifen kannst, um den besten Weg zu finden. Du bist hierbei auch völlig frei in deiner Wahl der Plattform, die deine Kund*innen für die Bewertungen nutzen sollen. Ob du also um Google Bewertungen oder anderes Feedback bittest, bleibt ganz dir überlassen.

Wie können Unternehmen sicherstellen, dass die Bewertungen authentisch und nicht gefälscht sind?

Selbst beim härtesten Verdacht macht es mit Blick auf Kosten/Nutzen keinen Sinn, in cineastischer CSI-Manier die Sonnenbrille abzunehmen und einen Profiler loszuschicken. Es gibt allerdings Hinweise, die auf gefälschte Bewertungen deuten können. Mit Blick auf deinen Wettbewerb gibt es relativ einfache Hinweise, ob jemand bei den eigenen Bewertungen nachgeholfen hat. So sind massenhaft exzellente Bewertungen in einem kurzen Zeitraum oftmals ein Indiz, dass hier getrickst wurde und sich ein Wettbewerber etwas schön zeichnet.

Geht es hingegen um deine eigenen Bewertungen, dann wird es schon etwas schwieriger, sofern kein unbegründeter Shitstorm darauf hindeutet, dass da jemand irgendwelche düsteren Gestalten auf dich gehetzt hat. Und ja, auch dafür gibt es leider Dienstleister.

Um authentische Bewertungen zu gewährleisten, kannst du mithilfe eines entsprechenden Systems zum Beispiel nur Bewertungen von Personen zulassen, die auch wirklich Kund*innen von dir sind/waren. Oftmals wird dies mit entsprechenden Badges, mit so etwas wie „Verifizierter Kauf“ oder Ähnlichem visualisiert.

Tools, die Unternehmen dabei unterstützen, Kundenbewertungen zu sammeln

Als Plattformen für Kundenbewertungen kannst du deine Recherche bei Tools wie REVIEWS.io, oder ProvenExpert beginnen. Nutze hierzu auch die Suche in den OMR Reviews, um das Feedback anderer Nutzer einzusehen und so die passende Lösung für dich zu finden!

Für die erwähnten CRM- bzw. CDP-Systeme gilt natürlich dasselbe. Einen Überblick erhältst du in der CRM-Kategorie von OMR Reviews. Dort kann es ein guter Start sein, wenn du dir u.a. die Lösungen von Salesforce CRM

Fazit

Du siehst: Kund*innen um Bewertungen zu bitten ist ein breit gefächertes Feld, bei dem es vieles zu beachten gilt und man sich eher auf eine Reise begibt, die man fortwährend anpassen sollte.

Wenn du dir bei aller Komplexität für den Moment nur eine Aussage merken willst, dann am besten diese hier: Überlege dir bei jedem Schritt doch einfach, wie DU dich in der Situation als Kund*in fühlen bzw. wie du dich verhalten würdest.

Ob du eher hemdsärmelig loslegst oder erst eine fortschrittliche CRM-Lösung baust, das bleibt dabei ganz dir überlassen, daher nur eine ganz persönliche Empfehlung: Schau dir zunächst an, was deine Ziele sind und wie du diese am effektivsten erreichen kannst. Setze dir Meilensteine mit messbaren Ergebnissen und einem zeitlichen Horizont, damit du fokussiert auf diese hinarbeiten kannst. Und dann leg einfach los, ohne alles komplett zu zerdenken. Bei Kundenbewertungen geht es um Authentizität, auch dir dürfen also auf dem Weg zur perfekten Strategie Fehler passieren.