Review management for past customers

[Timur]

Hi
I have around 1,5k customers under my belt and only 87 reviews. We manually text or email customers with the review link after the service and get a low response rate. Maybe 1 review out of 20-30 requests.
Just recently became interested in the subjects and discovered that there is a review management software out there. Are they effective? Can I use this software to get customers from the long past customers, say who we serviced a year ago? What software would you recommend?

 

[keyserholiday]

You need your customers to opt in to receive text messages. If they don't opt in, you can be sued, which can cost you dearly. I recommend using GatherUp for review solicitation as they are the best. Remember that reviews are meant as feedback to tell you what you do well and where you need to improve. You want a steady influx of reviews and the goal should never be to have the most reviews.

 

[Jon Hall]

FWIW I founded one of the earliest review management solutions years ago (Grade.us, no longer affiliated). Obviously, the older your customer list, the more challenging it will be to convert those customers into reviewers. Still, software can make your review acquisition efforts more effective in a few ways:

- Optimize and systematize your messaging
- Scale your campaign to the size of your list
- Streamline the review process to increase conversions
- Monitor your results and help you adjust course

Software facilitates tactics that would be hard to implement manually. For example, if you plan to re-engage your whole customer list, you'll want to do so over time, not all at once. You'll want to send your campaign at an optimal time of day, maybe only on certain days of the week. You'll want to use optimized but still personalized messaging to educate and activate the customer to complete their review. And you'll probably want to run a multi-message campaign that includes follow-ups and reminders if you don't get an initial response.

As you can imagine, today we can (and do) apply these same tactics to a wide range of business messaging scenarios beyond review-gen--helping businesses mine their own first-party audiences to develop brand advocates, repeat customers, referrals, etc. And I can confidently say this: Software helps a lot!

 

[keyserholiday]

Grade Us is owned by the same company that bought Gather Up. Gather Up is better platform and has better tools and analysis.

 

[Jon Hall]

Grade Us is owned by the same company that bought Gather Up. Gather Up is better platform and has better tools and analysis.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ *Lots* of solutions out there could help the OP achieve their objective. And anyone in the market should probably read the reviews(!) for substantiated opinions!

 

[keyserholiday]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ *Lots* of solutions out there could help the OP achieve their objective. And anyone in the market should probably read the reviews(!) for substantiated opinions!

I am not trying to be argumentative. I have reviewed countless review solicitation services. I don't recommend GradeUs because they review gated in the past. I get asked to review and vet these platforms a lot. In my opinion, Gather Up is the best platform, hands down.

 

[Jon Hall]

I am not trying to be argumentative. I have reviewed countless review solicitation services. I don't recommend GradeUs because they review gated in the past. I get asked to review and vet these platforms a lot. In my opinion, Gather Up is the best platform, hands down.

Fair enough! And I don't recommend any particular solution. Just giving my +1 that software can facilitate the kind of campaign I described and make it both easier and more effective than doing it without software. I mentioned Grade.us only as a way to point to my bona fides in giving that +1 lol

 

[GoLocal]

My current belief (could be wrong) is that you get a bump at about 10 reviews and then at about 100, I think I heard it in a Darren Shaw podcast but I could be mistaken. So if you are at 87 definitely hand out some cards and get those next 15 but after that I wouldn't stress too much.

 

[Timur]

@GoLocal yeah, exactly, I am eager to make it to the club and see what happens

@Jon Hall Thank you! What is your opinion on personal messaging, such as "hey we fixed your Samsung refrigerator back in days and we would like to remind you 5 tips to keep your fridge in good shape"?
Or it`s too tedious and realistically not doable?

@keyserholiday Thank you for the recommendation!

 

[Jon Hall]

@Timur Right! As a rule, more personal = more effective, no matter what kind of campaign we're running or what channel we're talking about: email, SMS, direct mail, whatever. I like your example for a couple reasons:

- First, I think you're smart to do initial outreach that is *giving* something, not *asking for* something. Customer relationships seem to have a half-life: The more time passes since their last purchase or interaction, the more tenuous the relationship becomes. In your example, assuming your campaign evolves towards requesting a review, you're first creating a fresh experience for the customer to consider: "This company came out to fix my fridge last year and they still check in on how I'm doing!" It conveys caring.

- In SMS especially, that higher level of personalization establishes trust. One powerful thing about SMS is that almost all of your customers will see/read at least your first message. But if you're not regularly in touch with these customers, messaging them out of the blue risks a "Who dis?" response, haha. However, you have enough specifics in there to hopefully jog the customer's memory and demonstrate right away that the message is legit.

This kind of campaign will be more tedious to implement than a less personalized campaign, but still doable at 1.5k contacts even if there is a manual component. And, if you ask me, the work is worth it. Your customer list is finite and you want to get max value out of it because you can't go out and buy another. Every customer counts.

You'll probably want to think in terms of templatizing your messages and what data you'd need to fill those templates: "hey {{firstName}}, we serviced your {{applianceMake}} {{applianceType}} back on {{lastServiceDate}} and we would like to remind you 5 tips to keep your {{applianceType}} in good shape..." If you can assemble a spreadsheet of customers with this info, you can execute this campaign.

Obviously, you'll also need to plan for a sequence of messages or an additional campaign to make the review ask.

Honestly, I don't know that a dedicated review management software is necessarily what you need for this. My impression is that many businesses have shifted towards broader business comms and CRM tools that allow them to do review-gen and also a whole lot more.

 

[keyserholiday]

My current belief (could be wrong) is that you get a bump at about 10 reviews and then at about 100, I think I heard it in a Darren Shaw podcast but I could be mistaken. So if you are at 87 definitely hand out some cards and get those next 15 but after that I wouldn't stress too much.

There is a ranking boost when you get ten reviews. Darren was speculating what would happen when you get to 100 reviews. I have not seen a ranking boost once a client has gotten to 100 reviews. The goal shouldn't be about hitting a certain number of reviews. The goal should be to ask for reviews constantly. Review recency is another ranking factor.