CE Phoenix Cart Forum

Why should you be collecting Product Reviews?

1. Build Trust and Credibility

Social proof: Customer reviews act as social proof, helping potential buyers feel more confident about the product or service. Seeing positive feedback from real users can encourage people to trust the site and its offerings.
Transparency: Allowing both positive and negative reviews shows transparency, which builds trust with customers, making the site appear more reliable.

2. Influence Purchasing Decisions

Information for decision-making: Reviews provide real-world insights about products, helping shoppers make informed decisions. Detailed reviews often discuss things like product quality, usability, and customer service, which can affect a customer's decision to purchase.
Highlight features and issues: Customers may point out features that aren’t highlighted in the product description or potential flaws, offering a fuller picture for prospective buyers.

3. Improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Fresh content: Regular customer reviews provide fresh, user-generated content for e-commerce pages, which search engines like Google value. This can improve a site’s ranking in search results, making it more visible to potential customers.
Keyword variety: Customers often use natural language that includes different keywords than the product descriptions. This increases the likelihood of ranking for various search queries.

4. Enhance Customer Engagement

Feedback loop: Reviews allow customers to engage with the brand or product by sharing their experiences, which fosters a sense of community.
Response opportunities: Businesses can respond to reviews, whether to thank customers for positive feedback or to resolve negative experiences. This shows attentiveness and can enhance customer loyalty.

5. Increase Sales and Conversion Rates

Psychological triggers: Positive reviews can trigger emotional responses and influence a buyer’s confidence. More reviews (especially positive ones) often correlate with higher conversion rates, as shoppers are more likely to trust well-reviewed products.
Reducing uncertainty: Reviews help eliminate doubts by offering reassurance that others have bought and liked the product.

6. Product Improvement

Feedback for optimization: Reviews provide valuable feedback for businesses to understand what customers like and dislike about their products or services. This information can be used to improve product quality, functionality, or customer service.

By incorporating reviews, e-commerce sites can drive more informed, confident, and satisfied purchases while continuously improving their offerings based on customer feedback.

How to get more reviews

Getting more product reviews for your e-commerce site requires a combination of strategies that encourage customers to share their feedback. Here are some effective ways to boost the number of product reviews:

1. Ask for Reviews
Follow-up emails: After a purchase, send a follow-up email asking customers to leave a review. Timing is crucial; send the email after they’ve had enough time to use the product (e.g., 7-14 days after delivery).
In-app or website prompts: If you have an app or an account system, use notifications or pop-ups to encourage customers to leave reviews after they’ve interacted with your products.

2. Make It Easy to Leave a Review
Simplified review process: Ensure the process is quick and easy, with clear instructions. Remove barriers such as creating accounts or filling out lengthy forms.
Mobile-friendly options: Many customers shop via mobile, so make sure leaving a review is mobile-friendly.

3. Offer Incentives
Discounts or coupons: Provide small incentives like discounts or coupons for leaving a review. Make sure the incentives don’t seem like a bribe but rather a thank-you for taking the time to share their experience.
Giveaways: Enter customers into a monthly giveaway or contest for a chance to win a gift card or a free product in exchange for a review.

4. Automate the Review Request Process
Review request software: Use automated email marketing tools to send review requests after purchases.
Post-purchase review requests: Add automated prompts on thank-you pages or order confirmation emails encouraging customers to share their experience.

5. Use Product Inserts
Package inserts: Include a note in your packaging thanking the customer and inviting them to leave a review. Be polite and genuine, and provide instructions on where and how to leave a review.
QR codes: Add a QR code that leads directly to the review page, making it easy for customers to leave feedback.

6. Engage With Existing Reviews
Respond to reviews:
Engage with current reviewers by responding to both positive and negative reviews. This shows customers that their feedback matters and encourages others to contribute.
Highlight helpful reviews: Feature positive reviews on your product pages or social media. This can motivate others to share their experiences.

7. Leverage Social Media
Ask via social channels: Use your social media platforms to request reviews, particularly from satisfied customers who’ve shared photos or experiences online.
User-generated content campaigns: Run campaigns asking customers to share their experiences on social media with specific hashtags, and link it to your review process.

8. Run Surveys or Review Challenges
Surveys that lead to reviews: Send out surveys asking for customer feedback. Include a final question asking if they’d be willing to leave a review on the product page.
Review challenges: Run time-limited challenges asking for product reviews, offering a small prize to randomly selected participants.

9. Engage Influencers and Ambassadors
Influencer collaborations: Partner with influencers who can encourage their followers to leave reviews. This creates social proof and expands your review base.
Brand ambassadors: Encourage loyal customers to become brand ambassadors, rewarding them for leaving detailed reviews and sharing their experiences with others.

10. Feature Reviews in Marketing Campaigns
Share reviews in emails: Highlight top reviews in your email campaigns to encourage others to add theirs.
Showcase reviews on product pages: Display reviews prominently on product pages, encouraging customers to join the conversation.

11. Ensure High Product Quality and Service
Deliver exceptional customer experiences: If your products and service are great, customers are more likely to leave positive feedback. Ensure smooth delivery, good packaging, and customer support to foster goodwill that leads to reviews.

By making it easy, offering incentives, and automating the process, you can steadily increase the number of product reviews on your e-commerce site.

A range of addons to extend the reviews system;

Navbar Drop Down Menu to show a selection of Reviews
app.php/addons/free_addon/reviews_navbar_header_modules

Shopowner can reply to Reviews
app.php/addons/supporters_code/s03e02_reply_to_reviews

Customer can upload a picture as part of Review
app.php/addons/supporters_code/s09e01_reviews_image

Customer can see all his Reviews
app.php/addons/paid_addon/account_reviews

Show number of Reviews in Store Stats
app.php/addons/paid_addon/store_statistics

Request a Review
app.php/addons/paid_addon/scheduler_rev ... iew_thanks

Reviews & Testimonial Manager
app.php/addons/paid_addon/reviews_and_t ... ls_manager

For those shopowners who do have Reviews on site, what could be done to make the job of getting reviews easier for the shopowner, and what could be done to make writing reviews easier for the customer.

We use the queued emails system to send out product review emails. We also mention leaving a product review in the order confirmation email plus the order follow up email we sent after a sale, and get a poor response.

Its not the emails. Our problem is also not the reviews system, but the customers. They all say they like reading reviews to see what others think of the products, but there are not many that will take the time to write a review. We even get two word product reviews. I think 'Great Product' was the shortest so far.

We have even tried bribing customers to write reviews with a discount off their next order and that had little effect.

In the last 10 years or so we have a grand total of 72 product reviews with over 4000 products on our website, most have come in the last 3 or 4 months after using the queued email system so things are getting better. We now have almost as many product reviews as we do Trustpilot reviews and we only stated that in the last 3-4 months.

We find it far easier to get Testimonials and have loads of them.

We used to offer a $5 off coupon to people leaving a review and got over 3,000 reviews.

Note only about 20% of customers redeemed their coupon

The secret was to ensure the review was of a significant length (default osc review length was only 50 characters - at least 200 is better) and offer the $5 off only to approved reviews (to prevent naff reviews).

Google merchants can get them added to their listings if they are good enough too!