6 out of 10 customers would run through Google reviews before buying a product. It takes at least 10 product reviews for a customer to trust the brand. (Source)
Product reviews, whether you like it or not, is a powerful emotional driver. If you are running a WooCommerce store or are in the process of building one, here is a pro tip for you – online product reviews are the new word of mouth marketing. And they are here to stay for the long.
Unfortunately, getting customer reviews is not an easy task. You cannot buy them. You cannot write them on your own. Well, you can give these shady tricks a try, but they are surefire ways to tarnish your brand image, especially when Yelp and Google are rolling out guidelines to prevent review gating.
So what is the way out? How to get those nice looking star ratings and positive-sounding reviews?
Our team at TargetBay works with 640 online merchants to help them collect reviews. We collect over 75,000 product reviews every month. We do this for a living and we have discovered some interesting ways to collect verified product reviews for your WooCommerce store.
To put it in more precisely. These techniques can help you get up to 100 reviews for your WooCommerce store in one month. That is approximately 60 reviews per week. This is how we do it:
Ask for product reviews
This is a no-brainer. Still, only 66% of customers have been explicitly asked to leave customer reviews (BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2018).
Customers do not usually write reviews on their own. In fact, unless you made a great first impression, they may not even think of giving one. Hence, the need to explicitly ask for customer reviews.
Rewards for reviews
TargetBay reviews has a feature called “Review Request Emails”. When someone places an order, TargetBay can send an automated email asking the customer to write a review. When the customer receives the email, she can write the review right inside the email.
Automated email requests
The gold old email is still a savior for businesses. The inbox still remains the best place to meet, greet and request your customers for a product review. But, as your business grows and the number of customers also increase, writing a personalized email for each customer can be difficult. In TargetBay, we have the “Mail After Shipment” feature, where you can collect reviews from your customers after the order is shipped. If you are starting out to collect reviews, you can go back to your previous customers and ask them to write a reviews in email trigger.
In fact, it is not a scalable option also. What you need are strategic emails that can be sent to customers based on their past actions. Retarget customers who bought the product with automated email requests for reviews. Ensure that the email has a link that takes them directly to the page where the star rating or review can be given. Alternatively, you can also enable the option to reply to the mail with a review.
Rewards for Reviews (Coupons)
Customers who are satisfied with your products may not have the urge to write a review. It takes time and effort to write one which is always in short support. Secondly, writing a product review is not going to bring any gain to them. Perhaps, this is one reason why customers are indifferent to writing product reviews although they are serious about reading them before making a purchase.
But, you can break that indifferent attitude and sway customers into writing reviews. Just give them something, some kind of motivation to put in the extra effort to write online praise. And that’s where rewards for reviews come in.
like promo codes, special discounts, coupons, limited period upgrades, etc. can incentivize customers into the habit of writing descriptive product reviews. You can give your own WooCommerce store promo codes or coupons to retain those customers. But, ensure that you are not providing any monetary consideration as it can lead to trade malpractices.
Time it well
Don’t ask for the review too early or too late. For instance, don’t request a review on the next day of the purchase. Don’t delay it to a month either. Time it well with enough interval during which the customer has had enough time to use the product and has developed an opinion about it.
Display social proof
The mob mentality can work in your favor just by displaying the reviews and ratings of other customers alongside the product. If possible, you can also highlight the number of social media fan followers.
Participate in community forums
Product reviewing websites and forums are plenty in number. Don’t shy away from participating in the discussion threads that happen there. They could open to open conversations with customers which can help gather reviews. Also, customers tend to trust those businesses which communicate with customers on social media.
Go back to your previous customers
If you are just starting out to collect reviews, one way to speed up the process of collecting reviews is to go back to your previous customers. If you have been running your WooCommerce store for say 2 or 3 years, you can still go back to those customers and ask them to write reviews.
What’s next?
Your WooCommerce store needs product reviews. They have the power to convert interested prospects into paying customers. But, collecting product reviews is an uphill task. Especially, when customers lack the motivation to write them. But, should you stop? You can collect as many as 100 product reviews for your WooCommerce store if you ask for it the right way. Check out our TargetBay’s WooCommerce Reviews extension/plugin.
