6 Ways to Get More Customer Reviews for Your Online Store

Reviews give consumers the confidence they need to make a purchase. In fact, 95% of customers read a review before they decide to purchase – and the more reviews you have, the better.

More reviews mean more opportunities to engage and convert new customers. People who interact with reviews are 4-5x more likely to convert than those who don’t, making them one of the main driving forces behind improving your online store’s bottom line.

You can even extend the persuasive power of reviews to your broader marketing channels to:

• Increase conversion rates on Google
• Increase placed order rate in product recommendation emails
• Increase revenue per recipient in abandoned cart emails
• Increase average order value onsite

But how do you collect more reviews for your online store? Sending a review request email to customers post-purchase is the first step. But then it’s all about finetuning your approach to ensure that you’re engaging with customers and encouraging them to share their experiences effectively.

Read on to find out how you can increase the amount of customer reviews you collect using these six simple strategies.

1. Make it Easy for Customers to Leave Reviews

75% of customers are happy to answer survey questions, but they don’t want to have to jump through hoops. The easier you make it for them, the more likely they are to do it. This goes beyond just asking for a review and instead guiding customers through the process.

Best Practices:

• Include relevant customer and product attributes for customers to easily select from in your review request email.
• Add a “Write a Review” button to your online store’s product pages.
• Make sure your review request emails are optimized for mobile.

2. Share Reviews and UGC on Social Media

Sharing existing reviews on your social channel creates a FOMO effect. Seeing experiences from similar customers will inspire them to share their own positive experience.

You can also invite your followers to share their reviews on social media. One survey found that 60% of consumers share user-generated content (UGC) to have it liked or featured by a brand.

Best Practices:

• Offer an incentive in your review request emails to encourage customers to share reviews and UGC.
• Use integrations with Foursixty or Meta to automatically push new reviews and UGC to your social media channels.
• Link to your social media handles at the bottom of your review request emails to encourage customers to follow you, tag you, and share brand related content directly to social media.

3. Send a Referral Link

Consumers who are referred by a friend are four times more likely to buy your products.

After a customer finishes submitting a review, follow up with a referral link that they can share with their peers in exchange for a discount off their next purchase. This will increase your reach and encourage new purchases which leads to more reviews.

Best Practices:

• Sign up for a referral marketing program like Friendbuy.
• Incorporate your referral program into your post-purchase strategy using Friendbuy, Klaviyo, and Okendo to send a referral link after a customer leaves a review.
• Reward customers with a discount in exchange for referring friends and family.

4. Offer Free Product Samples

If your online store is new and thin on reviews, you can ramp up your review collection process by offering free product samples. Send free product samples to consumers who fit your customer profile and ask them to try it out in exchange for leaving an honest review.

Doing this helps spread the word about your new brand or product while encouraging product reviews at the same time.

Best Practices:

• Choose the product(s) you want to collect reviews for.
• Add them as a free bonus to an existing product customers can check out with.
• Send review request emails for customers to review their free and purchased items.
• Rinse and repeat until you have a higher number of reviews

5. Incentivize Customers Using Coupons or Points

68% of consumers believe that digital coupons generate loyalty to a brand. Invite shoppers to leave a review in exchange for a coupon, discount, or points. Not only does this instill brand loyalty, but it also means customers will come back and buy from you again.

Best Practices:

• Create an enticing discount or deal specifically for your reviewers.
• Make use of a loyalty program integration that sends discounts or deals to customers that leave a review.
• Create a tiered incentives program, where customers that leave more or higher-quality reviews get better rewards.

6. Send Product Recommendation Emails

91% of consumers are more likely to shop with a brand who provides relevant offers and recommendations. In fact, 83% of consumers are willing to share their personal data with brands in order to receive it.

Someone that feels valued and recognized by your brand in this way is more likely to leave a positive review. And, since personalized product recommendations and offers lead to additional purchases, this leaves more opportunities to collect reviews.

Best Practices:

• Include customer and product attributes for customers to review in your review request email.
• Segment customers based on key attributes and their past purchase behavior.
• Use the Okendo-Klaviyo customer data sync functionality to send automated product recommendation emails to your segmented lists.

More Reviews Means More Opportunities

Customer reviews are critical to the success of an online store. The more reviews you have, the more opportunities there are to convert new customers and increase loyalty in existing customers. A library of product reviews can dramatically improve your bottom line by increasing average order value, revenue per recipient, and placed order rate.

Use Okendo to automatically collect reviews and populate your site, email campaigns, and social media feeds with compelling customer experiences. Book a demo with Okendo to learn more.