How do you get more reviews?

Our 14 year old company only has 8!

[Bewenched]

How the heck do some of these companies get so many good reviews?
We've been around for 14 years and have a total of eight.

One of our competitors has like 1000 and 99% are positive.
When we tried to run a campaign to get more reviews one horrible man left a scathing review although in our system, he'd never contacted us about a problem... that's got to be the worst!

Nothing seems to work.

[tangor]

Reviews are a mixed blessing... folks who are satisfied have moved on, unlikely to review. Others, like the one you mentioned, are not what you want. Most times silence is golden.

[ken_b]

I stayed in a hotel last week that had a sign posted by the front desk, right next to a "guest computer", offering an immediate discount if the guest posted a positive review on one of 3 sites and a discount on your next stay if the review was posted on one of two other sites.

[tangor]

Then again, bribery generally works. :)

[CPC_Andrew]

Rotating survey pixels are a great way to get more reviews and reviews from multiple sources. You can rotate the display of a pixel from Shopping.com, Shopzilla, and Nextag with relative ease via Javascript, and display one at the end of each shopper's purchase.

Those three sources all sync up with Google Shopping seller reviews as well.

There's also e-mail marketing campaigns where, instead of using tagor's word bribery, you can 'persuade' individuals to complete satisfaction surveys by presenting a coupon or a special promotion, etc. :)

I can put you in touch with someone from Bizrate who specializes in that sort of thing if you're interested.

[xshadow]

A few days after delivery I email customers automatically requesting a review, and in return offering them a small discount on their next order. By offering a discount, they're less likely to be scathing.

Alternatively you could just ask for reviews with no incentive, but submit them to your own system using a php form or similar. Then you could ask those who have made a positivevreview to submit directly to an independent review website, with an incentive for doing this! That way the negative comments won't make their way onto the web.

[jecasc]

You have to ask your customer for reviews. We started asking for reviews last November and have now close to 1000 reviews, all positive. Without bribing our customers or offering coupons or vouchers.

The tricky part ist to choose the right review system and to pick the right moment to ask for a review. We choose a review website, where the customer does not have to sign up for an account and has to confirm his review by email and leave the order number, so we can confirm if it is genuine.

The right moment to ask for a review in my opinion is the day of delivery. We use the API of our parcel service and a script automatically checks if the parcel has been delivered and then we send out the email and ask for a review.

We want to ask for a review when the customer is still happy that he has received his parcel. If you wait to long he might already have forgotten his order or he might regret having ordered the product in the meantime and then take his disatisfaction out on you. After all you want the customer to review your website and services and not the product.

You should also not forget to ask the customer if everything was ok and direct him to your customer service if something is wrong with the order. Before you point to the review website in your email.

Or else many will use the review system instead of your customer service when they have complaints. This is something I have seen many times.

I order something, get an email asking for an review - with a noreply email address and not a single link to customer service. Now - when something is wrong where does the unhappy customer click? On the only link available - the one to the review website. You don't want that to happen.

We phrase it something like this:
If something was wrong with your order or you have any further questions about your order please click here: "Link to contact form"

If everything was fine and you are satisfied with our services we would be happy if you recommended our website on "review website: "Link to review website".

By carefully phrasing the email you can direct the unhappy customers to your customer service and only the happy customers to the review website.