How to ask customers for reviews

It goes without saying that customer reviews are an incredibly useful business tool, especially when looking for feedback on your most recent work and bottlenecks in your business practices, but also as a means to provide proof of your workmanship and skill to other potential customers interested in using your business.

And, as you may expect,. the most successful businesses out there are those that listen to their customers and meet – or even exceed – their expectations. But in order to know how you’re doing, you first need to collect this feedback.

So, if you’re looking for the best way to start asking customers for feedback, here are our essential do’s and don’t around how to ask for feedback from customers after you finish your next project.

Why ask customers for reviews?

Before examining the do’s and don’ts of asking customers for feedback, it’s worth first touching on why you should be asking customers for reviews to begin with. And the answer to this is a very simple one – it’s all about improving your business and reputation.

As we’ve already mentioned, a good business is one that listens to their customer base and implements changes based on their cumulative feedback. For example, if customers are satisfied with your work but find the way you invoice them difficult to understand, then you should look to improve their customer experience by changing your invoice setup.

On top of this, customer reviews, even bad ones, are a fantastic business marketing tool that you should be taking advantage of. Collecting a host of positive and five-star reviews is the goal for many businesses, and the better reviews you have, the more likely new customers are to go with you over your competitors.

And as we say, even negative reviews have their place. Not only can they teach you a lot about mistakes you’ve made in previous jobs, but they also give you a chance to address potential complaints in a professional manner, which can help them or other customers understand why certain actions were taken.

In short, the more customer reviews you can gather, the better.

How to ask customers for feedback: Do's and don'ts

While you’ll probably find that some customers will leave a review after you complete a job, in most cases, you’ll likely need to ask them directly to provide feedback and write up their thoughts.

Some businesses have built this into their daily working routines already and, as a result, they’ve built up a resource of great reviews on their website.

Important things to do when asking customers for feedback

Starting with what you should be doing when asking customers for feedback, we recommend trying to implement as many of the following tips as possible into your daily working routine:

• Make a positive impression: Customers are far more likely to leave a review if you’re polite, informative, and punctual in your work. This will help you create a connection with them, and it means they’re much more likely to want to thank you for the work you’ve done with a review.
• Work reviews into your sign-off: It can be quite jarring for customers to be faced with the prospect of leaving a review before any work has started. So, make sure you leave your request until after a job is complete and you know that a customer is satisfied with the work you’ve carried out. That way, you can address any problems first, and such accommodations can often result in a more favourable review than if you’d asked for one immediately.
• Explain the importance of reviews: Although most customers are well aware of what reviews are, it’s always worth mentioning to them why reviews are important to your business. Make it clear that feedback is always appreciated, and they’ll be helping you improve, letting them know that other customers may rely on their feedback when choosing a trader can help motivate customers to leave a review.
• Tell them how to leave feedback: In some cases, a customer may be looking to leave a review but be unable to find where to leave feedback. Thus, it can be incredibly helpful to explain to your customers exactly where they can leave feedback and how to do so if they’re unfamiliar with the technology used.
• Make the feedback process simple: Few things will turn a customer off more when leaving feedback than making the process overly complicated. You can get around this by providing customers with a direct link to your review page, showing them how it works on their device before you leave, or by providing a QR code with your invoice that takes them to the review section.
• Prompt them with a reminder: Even when customers say they’re going to leave a review, it can be all too easy for people to forget, especially when life gets in the way. That’s why it never hurts to send them a reminder email with a link to your review page a week or two after completing a job as part of a follow-up thanking them for using your business.

What not to do when asking customers for feedback

Having looked at the right ways to ask customers to leave reviews, let’s now turn to what not to do when collecting customer feedback from your work. When possible, look to avoid doing any and all of the following:

• Pushing for reviews: Although we might wish otherwise, your customers are not obliged to leave a review after you finish a job. You can certainly ask for one, and even send a reminder, but if a customer does not leave a review after such a follow-up prompt, it’s best to leave it, as customers should never feel forced into leaving a review and it will only reflect poorly on your business.
• Sending multiple reminders: We’ll reiterate again that no one likes to feel bombarded with requests to leave reviews. Keep it as one and done and then move on to your next customer.
• Watch them complete their review: If you’ve ever had to complete a review or give feedback on demand, then you’ll know just how uncomfortable it can be to leave an honest review with the reviewee next to you. Therefore, you should never ask a customer to fill out a review while you’re still present. Instead, simply ask them to do it when they get the chance and leave it at that. After all, your presence could prevent them from being completely honest.
• Complete a review for a customer: Needless to say, creating fake reviews from real customers is a recipe for disaster. Not only are you more than likely going to be found out at some point in the future (especially if said customer sees the fake review), but if you are, it will utterly tarnish the reputation and image of your business that you’ve worked so hard to build.
• Never offer a cash incentive: Finally, while it can be tempting to provide an incentive for customers to leave a review, you should never attempt to buy them in exchange for cash. This is essentially bribery, and it could potentially influence the type of review they leave.

Why do some customers not want to leave reviews

Having looked into how to get customers to leave reviews, you may be wondering why certain customers still might not want to leave a review (even after following all of our suggestions).

Well, the truth is that there may be many reasons for this. As we’ve already stated, it could be that, even after a reminder, the customer in question simply forgets until it feels far too late to write one.

Alternatively, a customer might feel that they just don’t have time to write an honest review of your work, while others might be of the opinion that, while the work carried out was up to standard, it wasn’t good enough to warrant a review being left.

And lastly, many customers may be of the opinion that they do not need to leave a review if there are others on your site, and that their contribution won’t make that much of a difference.

Getting reviews as a Which? Trusted Trader

At the end of the day, getting more customer reviews is only going to benefit your business. If you’ve done a good job, there’s no need to feel awkward about asking for feedback. It’s a standard part of business for consumer-facing companies, large or small, and customers will take it in their stride.

By becoming a Which? Trusted Trader, you’ll get access to your very own business page, which is the perfect place to get new customers to leave behind feedback and reviews on your work. All reviews left on your profile are verified by our team so your customers can be confident they are 100% genuine. Many traders who have signed up talk about how they use these reviews as a selling tool, inviting customers to read them as part of their sales pitch.

Get in touch today to find out more about our vetting process and don’t forget to visit our advice guide hub for more useful business guides like this one.

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