Review incentives

Despite what we’d like to believe, not many people will do something to help you for free. They usually need an incentive of some sort before they’ll go out of their way for you. This poses challenges for businesses that need more reviews: how do they get customers to take the time out of their busy days to write one for them? Many consumers need review incentives to motivate them to do so. 

People value reviews when they’re shopping: 95% of consumers read them. As important as they are, not many consumers leave positive feedback of their own volition. The old saying “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” is accurate in this case because customers are more likely to leave reviews of their negative experiences. If you want to fill your website with positive  customer testimonies, you might need to offer some incentives:

1. Give them a discount on their next order. Let’s say your business sells hair products, and you email a customer asking them to leave you a review. You write that you’ll offer them a discount on their next purchase if they follow through. This comes with the bonus of prompting them to order again if they otherwise would not have. When they run low on product, they’ll take to the Internet to write about their experience with it, and save money on their next purchase.

2. Offer a free product or gift card. A great way to encourage reviews is to supply a cash or product reward for it. Customers who enjoy your products will love getting more of them in exchange for their feedback. 

3. Add them to a draw to win a prize. Create a sweepstake where each reviewer has their name entered once. With this incentive, you can collect reviews from multiple customers, while only needing to supply one prize.  

4. Make it easy for them to leave reviews. This isn’t exactly an incentive, but it will help streamline this process for your customers. If you send them an email that asks for reviews, be sure to include links to relevant websites. 

One distinction that’s worth making is the difference between incentivized reviews and positive incentivized reviews. Many review sites have strict penalties against bribing customers with gifts for them to leave high-star ratings. You can ask customers to leave feedback, but offering them cash in exchange for good reviews can get you penalized. Be careful with incentives; you want to encourage reviews but without manipulating customers into misrepresenting their experience.

Is it always profitable to offer incentives? Businesses must weigh the pros and cons. While online reviews increase consumer trust, boost conversion rates, and improve your SEO, some companies are unwilling to give customers cash for reviews. Rather than use your resources for incentives, it may be a wiser investment to seek out a review management software.

The process of sending out review requests can be time-consuming and tedious. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if there was a way to automate it? Thanks to RepCo’s reputation management software, there is - your customers can be contacted on a drip schedule via SMS or email. This makes the process of generating reviews easy, so your business can grow and reap the rewards.