How to Get Online Reviews: A Battle-Tested & Proven Process
We often get asked by business owners how to get online reviews for their business. The process is actually really simple, but if you don’t understand how to do it, it can seem complex. So, we wanted to breakdown the most effective processes that we not only teach our clients but also implement for them.
What’s the process? It’s simple. And you can implement it in your business today!
The most effective process we have found to get more real five-star reviews for your business is… asking for reviews via email.
Why? Well, if you stick around till the end of this article, we’ll not only tell you why, but we will show you how to get more real five-star online reviews for your business using email, starting now! Even better, we will show you how to automate this process for your business.
Table of Contents
Before we jump into the process and details, we want to share a case study. This case study is based on recent results from one of our clients. Yes, real results achieved during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
A Case Study on Getting Online Reviews for Your Business
In this case study, our client is a home service business. While businesses are all very different, we’ve seen similar results using our process across industries and markets.
Here’s a quick overview of their results:
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- Received their first review (five-star, by the way) in less than two hours of implementing our process
- Received three reviews (all five-star) on three different platforms in the first 24 hours, having only emailed eight recent customers (a 37.5% conversion rate!)
- Received eight reviews (all five-star) on three platforms (Google, Yelp and Better Business Bureau) within five days of implementing our process
Here’s some additional context on this client. Although they had been asking for reviews, they were not seeing great success in getting clients to leave reviews. In fact, before implementing our process, their most recent Yelp review was two months old; and Yelp is their most active review platform. They went from struggling to get any reviews, to getting eight real five-star reviews in less than a week. Knowing and implementing a proven process allowed this business to grow their overall reviews by 20% in less than one week. And, their overall star rating has improved across the review site platforms they’ve chosen to focus on!
In fact, before implementing our process, this client had zero reviews on their Better Business Bureau (BBB) profile. This meant that they had a zero-star rating. Not because they were a bad business, but simply because they didn’t have a process to get customers to leave reviews on the BBB site. Now their Better Business Bureau profile shows how great of a company they are. They now have three five-star reviews, and an overall five-star rating on their BBB profile with glowing reviews from really happy customers.
Why Online Reviews Matter for Your Business
You may have noticed that we focused on a few key points in the above case study: overall star rating, number of reviews, recency of reviews, and utilizing multiple top review sites. We focused on these because the data shows they are important to consumers. Here’s what you need to know:
- 91% of consumers read online reviews about local businesses
- Most consumers look at two or more review sites before making a decision
- 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
- 73% of consumers think that reviews older than three months are not relevant
How to Get Online Reviews via Email
Asking for reviews using email is a great approach for businesses for several reasons. Studies show that 91% of consumers open their email every day, and 58% of consumers say they check their email before they do anything else online. Additionally, another study found that 76% of people that are asked to leave a review end up doing so. Given this information, we personally favor email when asking for reviews for several reasons.
Here are a few reasons why:
- It’s easy for your business to implement (and you can automate it)
- Many people feel uncomfortable asking for a review in person
- Customers often forget to leave reviews unless they are reminded
- You can link directly to review pages in your email, making the process easier for your happy customers to leave online reviews
When it comes to asking for reviews via email, you have a few options such as email blasts, personal emails, or automated email sequences. An email blast is when you simply email your entire email list and ask for reviews. Personal emails are when you reach out to customers individually with a personalized email and ask for reviews. Automated email sequences are our favorite because you can reach out to your entire email list while making the emails feel personal, which increases the odds of getting more real reviews from happy customers.
Automated Email Sequence
When businesses hire us to help them get more real five-star online reviews, the first thing we do is setup an automated email sequence. It’s not just a recommendation. It’s the cornerstone of our proven process to see success.
Why?
First, they’re automated. This means you (or your team) don’t have to remember to send them. And you don’t have to take the time out of your day to do it. Second, it’s a sequence, meaning your customers will get multiple emails reminding them and asking for reviews, increasing the chances that they leave a review. Lastly, you don’t have to worry about it. Getting more reviews for your business is practically done for you.
Speaking of “done for you”, is it okay if we overdeliver in this blog post for you?
Keep scrolling to see the automated email sequence we use to help our clients get more real five-star reviews for their business. Yes, you can copy and paste them if you want!
Our Battle-Tested & Proven Automated Email Sequence for Online Reviews
That’s right.
This is it—our automated email sequence we implement for all of our review clients to help them get more real five-star reviews on the review sites of their choice.
As noted earlier, you are welcome to copy and paste these templates to use for your business. Consider it our gift to you!
Why?
Because KAHA was built with one focus: helping small and medium businesses succeed.
We believe that in any exchange with KAHA, business builders, operators or owners need to walk away feeling like they got more value out of their time with us, than the time they invested with us. Especially when you are giving your time to read or consume our content.
Here you go:
Email #1 (Sent as soon as possible)
Hi [first name],
Thanks for choosing [business name]. I’d like to personally invite you to share your experience.
Your feedback not only helps us, it helps other potential customers. It takes only a moment and would mean the world to us:
[“Review Us Now” button]
Or browse [review page link]. Thank you for your business and support!
Email #2 (Sent three days after Email 1)
Hi [first name],
I’m just writing to follow up and see if you had a chance to complete a review of [business name].
Your feedback means a lot to us—it helps us to better serve you and helps potential customers learn what we’re all about. We’ve made it easy so it will only take a moment of your time:
[“Review Us Now” button]
Or browse [review page link]. Thank you for your support!
Email #3 (Sent seven days after Email 1)
Hi [first name],
I hope you’ll still find a moment to share your experience of [business name]. Your feedback not only helps us improve our business, it helps potential customers.
We’ve made the process quick and easy to save you valuable time:
[“Review Us Now” button]
Or browse [review page link]. Thank you for your support!
Level Up: Automate Getting Online Reviews
You didn’t think we forgot, did you? Sure, we gave you the automated email sequence we use, but we didn’t tell you how to automate it in your business… yet! We keep our word, so keep reading to learn how to automate getting online reviews for your business.
It all comes down to having the right process in place.
Here’s a simple process you can implement today:
1. Setup an automated email drip campaign in your email tool to ask customers for reviews
2. Use our email templates above to setup your three-part email sequence
3. Have the “Review Us Now” button go to a landing page where your customers can select which review site platform they want to review your business on
4. When they click the review site, have it link directly to the page where they can leave the review (without having to click “write a review” on the site)
BONUS: To increase the odds of them leaving a review, provide instructions for each review site on how to leave a review
This process outlined above only requires one tool: an email automation software or tool (examples: mailchimp, drip, constant contact, etc.)
Want the Easy Route?
If this process sounds difficult, time consuming, or more work than you can handle right now, don’t worry! We have you covered at KAHA with our reviews service. We offer an easy to use software solution that does everything we described in this article, and more:
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- Automates email requests and follow up for reviews
- Directs customers to a landing page with all of your review site options
- Provides them instructions on how to leave a review on the review site of their choice
- Links them directly to the “write a review” page to reduce steps/clicks and improve the chances of them leaving a review.
- Plus, much more!
- To learn more about our service, check out our online reviews service page, or schedule a FREE call with us.
About the Author
Ryan Chaffin is the founder of KAHA, and has 15+ years of experience helping businesses with their digital marketing efforts. Recently he helped a company increase their website visitor traffic by 18,900% and increase the percentage of web visitors that convert to leads by 600%, meaning the total combined effect generated 1,134x more leads than the company was previously generating. That strategy is what Ryan and the the KAHA team bring to our clients everyday.
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