Today’s savvy consumers are used to review requests dropping into their inbox, so yours needs to stand out from the rest to capture their attention.Follow these quick tips when creating your review collection email to get the highest possible conversion.
In this article, we’re sharing some of the best review collection examples we could find from our clients - examples that have proven to drive conversion rates. By the time you finish this article, you should have several actionable ideas you can apply when asking your own customers for a review.
Page Contents
- Keep it Short
- Reinforce Your Brand
- Make it easy
- Reward Customers
- Make it Personal
How To Ask Your Customers For A Review, The Right Way
When asking customers for a review via email, it’s important to think from their perspective.
After all, they’ve already got what they want from you, be that a product or service, and may need a little encouragement to take the time to leave feedback. Think like a consumer yourself and consider what would make you more likely to submit a review.
Here are some simple guidelines to follow to make your review request emails as successful as possible:
- Keep it brief – your customers are short on time, so cut to the chase, fast!
- Be polite – don’t forget to say please. Remember, customers are doing you a favour by leaving you a review.
- Reinforce your brand – make your review request instantly recognisable by sticking to your brand guidelines. It’s easy to make emails on your own with REVIEWS.io’s customisable templates. You’ll see some great examples of this below.
5 Review Request Email Examples You Can Learn From
Now you know the basics, it’s time to learn from the best. We’ve gathered a selection of client review request emails that consistently perform well.
Through clever use of branding and persuasive, snappy language, they’ve perfected the art of asking customers for reviews using the REVIEWS.io email templates.
1. Keep it short & simple
There’s a clear link between the number of paragraphs included and the rate of conversion. The more text they have to read, the less likely your customers are to submit feedback. Basically, the longer the email, the lower the conversion, so imagine each word is costing you $100, and keep things short, sweet and to the point. A simple email with a clear call to action always works well, like the example below from Vuori. Remember, most people will view your email on a mobile phone, so our advice is to keep text to a minimum.
2. Reinforce Your Brand
Your review request email should be instantly recognisable to your customers. Our drag and drop email templates make it easy to customise to your heart’s content.
Take the example below from Biscuiteers. By using a visual style and tone of voice that mirrors their website, they’ve created a review request email that draws the customer in through consistent branding.
This email converts at over 18% which is well above the industry standard of 3%.
3. Make it easy and focused
Your email request should have a single purpose - to encourage the recipient to leave a review. The process should be as easy as possible, with a clear call to action (CTA) that tells the customer exactly what they need to do. And your content needs to be focused, so get rid of any additional sales info that might prove a distraction.
Take this example from Charlie Hustle. It opens with a direct question, adopts straightforward language, and uses our In-Email form for simplicity.
In-Email forms allow customers to leave feedback in the body of an email itself, removing the friction of being redirected to their browser. It's also clearly visible at first glance that this is a review request. Simple icons make it easy to leave a star rating before the customer has even thought about the process of writing a review.
4. Offering Rewards
Incentivised reviews have two big benefits:
- They help increase review collection rates
- They help drive customers back to the site once a review has been completed
The REVIEWS.io solution allows you to add voucher codes and discounts that are only shown once a review has been completed. We also offer integrations with the likes of smile.io and Loyalty Lion Integration, so you can set up a weighted reward system for different review types.
Our eCommerce client Sun Of A Beach uses a rewards based approach in their review collection campaigns. Remember though, if you’re giving a reward you have to give it to everyone, regardless of how positive or negative a review they leave.
It's important to remember that whilst offering rewards has benefits, it can also have drawbacks. Customers can become familiar with discounts associated to your brand, which can put them off shopping with you when items and services are full price.
5. Personalise & Be Personable with your review emails
Customers respond better to review collection emails that have a personal touch. Always mention the recipient by name – i.e. MR Daniels. You can do this using placeholders in the REVIEWS.io email templates. Also be sure to sign off with your own name (or whoever’s name is most appropriate). People are much more likely to leave a review if they think the request has come from a real human being.
A nice touch that we find increases conversion even further is to include a signature or personal message from someone within the company, like Chapelle Jewellery do here in their highly successful review request email.
You don’t necessarily have to go mad when it comes to branding your email. Sometimes, the sentiment of your message is far more important.
If, like TicketArena, your business is more about the tickets/brands you sell, then being really personable is a good way to go.
By expressing how much a review would mean to them, TicketArena’s approach makes customers more inclined to take time out to leave feedback. Plus, the clever addition of a time scale reassures them that this favour won’t take too much time out of their day.
How To Go The Extra Mile
Want to go one step further? REVIEWS.io offers API access, allowing the more adventurous to create a completely customized approach.
Yappy, a fun loving personalised dog shop, does exactly that, adding an element of entertainment to their request emails. Using the REVIEWS.io API, they import the name of the dog, rather than the owner, making their review requests super fun and super personal.
The dog icons are customisable to match your furry companions and can be used when submitting a review, so instead of leaving feedback on their own behalf, customers are able to leave reviews from their trusted K9's.
It’s an amazing touch that shows how invested Yappy are in their brand and the customer experience.
Our FREE Template & Build Your Own
Within REVIEWS.io our customisable drag and drop templates and In-Email forms are designed to be fast, efficient and user friendly. But if you want full control, and a truly unique request form, there’s always the option to build your own HTML template.
Download Free Template
This example is from our own creation and is simple, clean, effective and totally on brand. What we really like about this request form is that it captures the customer experience in the same breath as asking for a review.
It’s super easy to edit, and can be added as a custom template within our invitation builder.
Clever language, powerful imagery and the option to purchase their skydiving footage work to remind the recipient of the event in question, making them far more inclined to provide feedback on it.If you don’t have the resources to build your own, the REVIEWS.io team are happy to work with you to create a totally custom HTML template.
Video Review Collection
Video reviews are an incredibly powerful form of user generated content. They provide visual proof of the happiness your products can bring, or the problems they can solve. They’re relatable, authentic and engaging.But it takes a little more effort to get the customer on board with the process. Mostly because it takes a little more effort on their part too.
That’s why we designed our Video First feature. It’s built to put video content front and centre, and make review collection more of a perceptible conversation between you and the customer.
Rather than a written invitation, you can now request a review via your own video message, connecting with the recipient on a much more personal level. You can use this message to excite them about sharing their experience - and if they choose to do so in video form, they can click on a button that takes them straight to a tailored video collector.
Of course, they can still leave a text review if they’d prefer (and you can still use our original video review templates if you’d prefer), but if your main focus is on generating more UGC, Video First is the tool to help you do it.
We hope these review email examples and review collection solutions have helped inspire you. Branding and simplicity are key here. Remember, every company is different and their review emails should be too. Customers are tight for time, so it’s important to stand out whilst making the process as easy as possible for them.
