Thank You Gifts To Encourage Reviews

[consultant]

I'm struggling to get some of my small business clients to be more proactive about getting more reviews. I'm currently building a web-based tool where they can go in and enter a name, email address and edit the pre-canned thank you for your business message and the email automatically includes the instructions and link on where to go to leave a review.

We were thinking to increase the likelihood a customer would spend the time to write a review, why not give them some sort of thank you gift. So we are trying to brainstorm some low-cost gifts with perceived high value. Like a restaurant.com certificate is one that comes to mind. You can always find a coupon to get those for like 75% off.

Anyone do this sort of thing. There would of course be no direct correlation between the gift and asking for the review - but the customer might feel more obliged to write one if you already showed them some type of generosity other than a thank you.

 

[Priya Chandra]

I understand the frustration with trying to get reviews, it's a tough gig!

But you should be aware that Google expressly forbids the offering of incentives for reviews: "Don?t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor. " (https://support.google.com/business/answer/2622994?hl=en)

That goes for whether the review of your client's business is positive or negative.

Similarly, Yelp used to specifically forbid businesses from asking for reviews (not a Yelper so not sure if that is still the case) - though you can encourage people to check into the business and then they'll be asked by Yelp if they wish to leave a review.

 

[consultant]

I understand the frustration with trying to get reviews, it's a tough gig!

But you should be aware that Google expressly forbids the offering of incentives for reviews: "Don?t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor. " (https://support.google.com/business/answer/2622994?hl=en)

That goes for whether the review of your client's business is positive or negative.

Similarly, Yelp used to specifically forbid businesses from asking for reviews (not a Yelper so not sure if that is still the case) - though you can encourage people to check into the business and then they'll be asked by Yelp if they wish to leave a review.

I assumed this in the first place. I wasn't talking about sending an offer "write a review and we'll send you a $50 Restaurant.com gift certificate" ... that is what Google is talking about.

I was talking about something like:

Thank you for your business. Attached is a restaurant.com gift certificate as a token of our appreciation for your patronage. .....

We are strive to provide the best service possible and appreciate it if you could leave feedback regarding our service by writing a review on Yelp (link) or Google (link)


They get the gift whether or not they write the review so there's no direct correlation.

 

[jvaquino]

The best and safest approach would be:

Make sure to have a call-to-action on your site which is linked to your target review sites. You can also promote your review sites and the published reviews on social media sites. Make sure to respond to every review, no matter if it is good or bad, to show that you care about what they think about your business.