We're often asked about the importance of customer reviews. Are they necessary? If you sell one-off products, is there even any point in having customer reviews?
The Short Answer: Yes. Customer reviews are always a good idea.
The Long Answer: Absolutely yes! Even if you have an ever-changing product offering, you should be gathering feedback from your customers about the products you sell and ask customers about their shopping experience. Getting feedback directly from your customers is invaluable and is great material to share on your store, in newsletters, and across social media.
Beyond providing you with feedback and content, they're also incredibly effective for convincing new customers - 84% of consumers trust online reviews, and 77% read them before making a purchasing decision.
Now that we know how important they are, how do you encourage your current customers to leave reviews?
Get a good reviews app installed
You might already be using a reviews app, but is it working effectively? Look at your options and decide which app is going to work hardest for your store.
We recommend Judge.me's $15/mo option - it gives you some extra customization options and is cheap enough to make the pricing worthwhile. As reviews directly contribute to sales, the cost per month will be made up for by the reviews generated through the app.
Turn on review requests & create a workflow
If you don't have automated review requests turned on, start there. Personalize the email from what the base template contains - update the color scheme, and match the written content to suit your company's house style.
But let's say a customer hasn't written a review from the automated email. Your next step here is to create an email workflow that will send more personalized emails requesting a review specifically to that customer - something along the lines of:
Hi, [Customer]!
I wanted to send a quick note because you purchased [X product] about a month ago. I hope you like it, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. We're constantly working to make your shopping experience better, and we value your opinion. Would you mind taking a quick moment to leave us a review?
Let me know if there's anything at all I can help with, and thanks again for being a great customer!
[Your name]
You can create multiple versions of this email and segment to your customer list based on a variety of factors, such as customers who:
- Just purchased your bestseller or a new product you want to preview in ad campaigns
- Have purchased the same item more than once
- Have placed multiple orders
- Have a high average order value
- Have a high lifetime value
Run with it, customize it, and make your customers feel like you're personally writing this email to them. Try different styles and strategies until you find the right emails to send to different customers.
Incentivize Leaving a Review
People know that by leaving a review, you're gaining more than they are. Whilst so many rely on reviews before making a purchasing decision, 81% of consumers revealed that they themselves don't bother leaving reviews.
Why not offer your customers something in return for their review? Something as simple as a discount on a future order, or free shipping on their next order can be enough to push a customer to leave those 5 stars and encourages a repeat purchase.
Bonus Tip: If you sell a lot of one-off products that can be grouped into similar product pairings, you can use Judge.me to group your products under the same set of reviews. For example, if you sell custom made-to-order dolls, you can group the product reviews for all of your dolls so customers visiting different product pages will always see some reviews.
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