Review requests are a vital element to a reputation management strategy. Asking customers for a review is an essential part of business growth, and your SEO strategy.
However, if you get the timing wrong on your review request, there’s a real risk that you could hurt your relationship with customers. Wait too long, and customers forget the details of your interaction with them.
It’s a difficult task.
But it’s also a necessary one. Is there a good way to request reviews from each of your customers?
The secret to successful review requests
It’s not automation though that is an essential component.
It’s personalization.
Research shows the majority of customers expect a large amount of personalization when interacting with brands.
Customers want to know that you’re speaking to them directly. They want you to reference their:
- Desires
- Goals
- Fears
- Frustrations
- Problems
Here’s the problem.
Customers expect your messaging to cover these topic areas. The frustrating part about all of this is the fact that they don’t believe your claims about these issues.
Not at first.
They read through your content; they evaluate your claims, then they search for, you guessed it, reviews. They look for the same desires, goals, fears, and frustrations embedded in your customer’s reviews! (Another reason to showcase your reviews on your website.)
If you’ve answered these questions on the front end for your prospects, they’ll buy with the expectation that you’ll address the very same issues, which they’ll share in the reviews they write for your business.
This is easy to do in a one-on-one setting, but it’s tough to do at scale, or is it?
Why you need review request automation
Review request automation helps your business in a few key areas:
- Save time by no longer manually adding recipient lists or sending individual requests
- Increases review counts by making sure that every customer receives a review request
- Personalize review requests to specific segments of customers
Why is this important?
Time is a limited resource, especially for small teams and SMBs. Every minute you spend doing a manual process of pulling a customer list and uploading it to send review requests could be spent with a customer or driving revenue. Automations are built to remove repetitive tasks and make business more efficient.
Review management software helps businesses drive reviews, improve ratings and better understand the customer experience. The more reviews a business receives the more accurate, more authoritative and more reputable that business becomes with potential customers. That’s why it’s important to ask every customer for a review. Automation makes sure a customer review request doesn’t fall through the cracks.
Segmentation and personalization increase response rates which are, on average, already high. Research shows 70 percent of customers will leave a review when asked. Segmentation and personalization improve these response rates over time.
What does automation have to do with this?
Automation enables you to manage this segmentation and personalization at scale.
Here’s why this is crucial.
Here’s Google’s policy on review requests.
“Don’t discourage or prohibit negative reviews or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.”
Segmentation and personalization allow you to target all of your customers, focusing on customer segments at the right time (e.g., post-purchase, post-service, visitor follow-up, etc.).
Automation enables you to scale and manage reputation management.
What you need to automate reputation management
Here’s a shortlist of ingredients you need for successful reputation management.
1. A reputation management audit
2. Project the potential ROI of reviews
3. Claim and complete your review profiles and listings
4. Reputation management tools to manage the process
5. Create an inventory of customer reviews
6. A set of tools and strategies to manage reputation management
7. A list of procedures that dictates who is responsible for reviews, how they should respond, and when to respond
These details are simple to implement; they just take a bit of work.
The Essential Role Integration Plays in Successful Reputation Management
There’s another key tool you’ll need to create successful reputation management campaigns. It’s choosing the right tool that integrates with tools you’re already using.
Let’s say your team relies on QuickBooks for accounting. You decide to create reputation management segments using reports from your QuickBooks data:
- Revenue per customer
- Repeat sales (per customer)
- Purchase frequency
- Purchase immediacy
- Profit margins
- Monthly, quarterly, or annual spending
This data gives you incredible power. Remember the impact segmentation and personalization have on customers? Not only will you have a clear A to Z view of customers in these segments, but you’ll also find it’s easy to create a personalized review request that pushes all the right buttons.
It’s the same thing with your email list.
Imagine that you’ve taken a large group of customers from lurker to subscriber, to customer. You can use reputation management tools like Grade.us to create a review request campaign that appeals to your customer’s full experience. They can describe their skepticism as a prospect, show how you earned their trust, then update customers on their experience after the sale.
This beats the generic review request every time.
Integration gives you the ability to take data you already have in your software tools, pair that with reputation management, then use that to boost traffic, leads, and revenue. Integration makes review requests an essential must-have for marketers looking to increase the performance of their reputation management campaigns.
Review Requests Shouldn't Be Dangerous
It’s all about segmentation and personalization.
Use these in conjunction with automation, and you’ll find it’s easier to get the timing right. You can minimize or even eliminate the risk of injury to the customer relationship. With automation, you’ll be able to discuss the details of your interaction with customers while the memory is still fresh. With integration, you’ll have the full story.
Combine these ingredients and you’ll find review requests are simple, easy, and profitable.
Check out these Automations when you use Grade.us:
Google Sheets
Salesforce
Hubspot
Mailchimp
Constant Contact
Quickbooks
