Reading reviews is a no-brainer practice!

This is substantiated further by recent research that found 93% of customers as review-dependent for their buying decisions.

As such, asking for reviews is crucial for developing your brand’s credibility and online reputation. We’ll discuss more of that later, but first, let’s start with the ‘how to ask for a review in 2024’ question.

Key takeaways:

Setting a Goal for the Review Campaign
Select a Template (Free Template Attached)
Finding/Targeting Your Audience
Choose a platform

Why Ask for Reviews?

Why do you think reviews are so crucial to the success of a business? Just think about the latest app you installed or that purchase you made on an online shopping platform the other day. How did you decide to hit the buy button? It’s pretty obvious that the majority of you would have gone through the reviews to see the credibility of the product or service. It is as simple as that. Reviews build a sense of trust.

Moreover, when an online store sends out emails asking for reviews after a purchase, they engage the customers. This makes them feel that their opinions matter, leaving them feeling valued and important. Smart businesses use these reviews to identify pain points and improve their products or services. It’s all about creating a story around your brand and increasing visibility, where the customers become brand ambassadors.

How To Ask For A Review In 2024?

Chances are that you’ve already gone through every post available online to find effective ways to ask for a review from your customers. And, it seems you are not satisfied. So, we bet the ‘how to ask customers for reviews’ question still lingers in your mind. Well, after going through our 4-step process of collecting quality reviews, you’ll have an answer that will work just fine!

So, with no further ado, let’s begin with it;

1. Set your Goal

Before you start, ask yourself, “Why do you want to collect reviews?”

You and your team need to have clarity over this question. Why? Because the goal you set for your review campaigns will determine the end result.
So, if you wish to collect reviews for one of your products, the audience, platform, and review template will go out accordingly.
If it is for your brand as a whole, again, it becomes another story. You got the gist, right? Setting a specific goal for all reviews is an absolute necessity.

2. Select a Template

The next step is to select a proper review template. It looks something like this one:

Ask For a Review

Preview Template

To get the reviews, you can use SurveySparrow’s Reputation Management feature to manage Google reviews or other online surveys.

how to manage google reviews

The above template works for all sorts of review campaigns and that too on every platform. (It’s a steal. You’ll have a hard time finding such perfect ones elsewhere!)
That is why choosing the right review platform is so crucial. Now, once you’ve followed the first two steps, calmly select the review template that fits your requirements, and voila! The question of how to ask customers for reviews is now duly answered.

3. Find the Audience

The next step is to find the audience that relates to the goal of your review campaign.

Let’s be clear about one thing. Knowing your audience is key. It is very important to put yourself in their shoes before asking them to review your products.
For instance, not all target audiences would like smartwatches, right?
Some might be totally crazy about the gadget and may be willing to explore the ones from new brands. At the same time, there are some who might be content with the gadgets they have.
Whom should you focus on? Well, in this case, it is the former ones, those looking to explore new possibilities. Why? Getting them onboard as customers will be easy, and getting them to leave a review about your product or brand will be easier.

4. Choose The Platform

If you’re following this 4-step process, collecting online reviews and enhancing your brand’s online reputation will soon feel like a walk in the park!

How to Ask for a Review on Social Media

Before you go ahead with a review request spree on every social media platform, you need to have a clear idea of where your customer base stands. Choose the right platform and then:

1. Create compelling visuals: Content matters! Make sure you use your brand colors and logo to create a visually cohesive post to catch their attention

2. Be Straightforward: If you’re asking for a review, don’t beat around the bush. Ask directly and let them know how much their opinion matters to you.

3. Use hashtags: Make them unique and exclusive to your brand! You can then request your customers to use these hashtags when posting the reviews.

4. Engage: Promptness pays. Diligently reply to all reviews, whether positive or negative.

5. Appreciate: Lastly, the most important step. Value and appreciate the time your customers take out of their busy lives. Publically thank them.

Do’s and Don’ts While Asking for Reviews

Even if we know how to ask for a review, it is important to have a checklist of what you should and should not do. While asking for a review make sure you:

what-you-must-do-and-must-not-do-while-asking-for-a-review

Do:

1. Be polite and courteous: Make sure you respect their time and preferences.
2. Encourage honest reviews: Authentic feedback is more valuable than overly positive but insincere reviews.
3. Make it simple: Nobody likes a complex process. Provide direct links and instructions on how to give a review
4. Personalize your message: Use the customer’s name while referencing their specific experiences. This will make them feel seen.

Don’t:

1. Offer incentives for positive reviews: That’s a big NO! This is against the guidelines of most of the review platforms. It can tarnish your brand image.
2. Pressure customers: Avoid putting pressure on customers to give reviews. Allow them to do things voluntarily.
3. Write reviews for customers: Never write reviews on behalf of your customers. Authenticity is key!
4. Ignore negative reviews: Address every review equally. Do not focus just on positive reviews and turn a blind eye to negative ones.

The Importance Of Reviews And Online Reputation

You now know how to ask for a review from the target audience and customers, but why ask for it? What good will it do for your business?

These are valid questions. Just as the process is important, you must have a clear idea of the reasons behind it. Well, reviews are collected to maintain and grow online reputation. Today, if a business is ignoring its online standing and reputation, it’s clearly losing out on sustained growth. We have 6 reasons to substantiate this further, starting with:

1. Soaring Credibility

Have you heard about “The Broken Window” theory?

Well, it’s a theory explaining how people think negatively about a brand having negative reviews or feedback. So even before talking to someone from a company, you’d have painted a negative picture about them in your head. That is pretty prevalent in this post-pandemic world. And that is where positive media comes in.

To explain better, let’s say a prominent media house wishes to cover your company and offerings. Where will they go first? Google. Yes, they’ll google and read all the information present about your company, in the form of reviews, listing information, and site-wide consistent details.

Only when they’re satisfied with the credibility of your brand they’ll contact you for a story. And a great story can unlock unimaginable business opportunities and growth! Managing good reviews and online reputation is pivotal to doing that and avoiding a negative perception of your brand.

2. SEO Boost

If your brand moves up by only a single position in Google results, the Click Through Rate (CTR) can increase by nearly 31%! Unbelievable, but true. People search online to know more, from the smallest of things to the grand ones.

SEO plays a huge role in ranking your website higher for relevant categories. And that starts from having consistent information throughout the web on listing portals, social media, and your website. This improves your brand’s overall reputation and SEO, the upsides for which are many!

3. The Right Identity!

As a decision-maker, you always have a vision for your brand’s identity, right? You always talk about it with your teams and consistently work towards achieving the right brand identity.

Managing online reputation is the best way to do that. Sure, it takes longer to show results, but with a far better ROI than paid marketing efforts in most cases. Using customer-driver marketing, you’re slowly instilling the perfect narrative about your brand in the target audience’s minds, ultimately bringing sustained growth. How powerful is that!

4. Larger Market Share

Through reputation management, the brand generates trust when you’re smartly collecting positive reviews (using SurveySparrow) and promptly resolving all customer issues. This trust is the market authority that brings a larger market share, a.k.a; more sales and revenue for your brand.

You also get an edge over the competitors. Customers want to stick to your company and offerings just because they trust your vision, ethics, team, and way of doing business. In the post-pandemic world, getting such loyalty so quickly is only possible through continuous online reputation management.

5. Outside Interest

Do you wish to hire the best talents?

And do you want the most high-profile investors?

We’re sure the answers are yes because positive reviews, proper listings, and consistent information throughout the web are the ways to do that. See, all these activities paint a shining light about your business that makes candidates and investors curious. They both want to know more and if possible, associate with you and your team.

So when you’re focusing well on your online reputation, the best talents and investors will come to you, and not the other way around!

6. Lowered Costs

The best thing about managing an online reputation is how less you’d spend on promotional ads and campaigns, thereby lowering the overall costs.

Think about it; brands spend a fortune to make themselves visible and generate trust among the target audience. But that trust comes automatically when you’re garnering positive reviews, giving prompt replies to social media callouts, and staying consistent with all online information. Of course, it doesn’t happen overnight, but once done, you don’t spend even a dime more on it. And that is a huge cost saver for any organization, big or small.

Tips To Quickly Improve Your Brand’s Online Reputation!

The BIA Kelsey Group predicted that online reputation management (ORM) would be a $5 billion industry by the end of 2016. Since then, it has indeed come a long way. Organizations now understand its importance and are readily partnering with ORM software.

SurveySparrow has rolled out the reputation management solution. You can use it to take your omnichannel customer experience platform to the next level. Here are some tips for you:

The first tip is to find the platform where your target audience is for building an online reputation, especially on social media. Don’t just start targeting Facebook or Instagram.
Never let your teams post freely or randomly on social media. Every post should be a part of a strategy aimed at growing the brand’s reputation.
Until you and your teams have a defined strategy or process to build a reputation, don’t post anything for the sake of visibility.
Keep consistent information about your company on all listing and review sites, big or small.
Promote user-generated content as much as possible for greater credibility.
Let employees have a brand value for themselves. That way, customers respecting and admiring these employees will admire your brand.
In case of a negative review, contact and apologize to the relevant customer immediately. And offer them your services until they’re satisfied, or at least not disappointed anymore.
Never let your social media team get into online arguments with competitors or dissatisfied customers.
Update blogs regularly to support local SEO and improve web ranking and reputation.
Finally, invest in a quality online reputation management tool, like SurveySparrow, Vendasta, and more, to get on top of all reviews, listing info, mentions, and SEO rankings.

Need More Help?

So, you know how to quickly and effectively ask for a review. And we’re sure you’ll agree that managing online reputation is right up there with improving sales and marketing ROI, in terms of business functionalities. Now, many high-profile tools manage online reputation, like Podium. But again, if you want to consider other options, we have curated a list of Top 10 Podium alternatives. Here, you’ll also get a great idea about how spectacularly good SurveySparrow’s reputation management solution is. No, we aren’t tooting our own horn. It’s just that our features in the online reputation management (ORM) solution are so much better and more affordable than what others are offering.

Plus, if you need more help with the subject and want to discuss your ORM requirements, our team is here for you. Leave us a message, and let’s get started!

How To Ask For A Review In 2024? The Process, Template, & More!