When it comes to making decisions, we humans aren't always independent thinkers. From buying our morn coffee to big-ticket items like a new car, nosotros depend on our network's opinions, advice, or perspectives for making the right determination.

With the cyberspace, those networks get way, way bigger. We're no longer bars to just friends, family, and coworkers—we can see what people all around the earth think with just a quick Google search.

And these client reviews hold serious weight with shoppers. Online reviews—either positive or negative—tin impact over 93% of consumers' decisions .i

While reviews can accumulate on their own, they shouldn't be in a vacuum. Knowing how to ask for reviews, leverage them to go more than business organization, and respond to less-than-favorable client testimonials can improve your business organization image and land you more long-lasting customers.

Keep reading to acquire about:

  • Why customer reviews are and then important
  • 9 types of reviews and how to get more than of them
  • How to respond to positive and negative customer reviews

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 Want to go more than customer reviews for your business? Use these outreach templates (and DIY customer review builder!) to assist your customers requite you the all-time review possible.


Why are customer reviews so important?

Customer reviews build something known as social proof, a phenomenon that states people are influenced by those around them. This might include friends and family unit, industry experts and influencers, or fifty-fifty internet strangers.

Social proof can push customers who are on the fence about buying a product to make a buy (or consider other alternatives). While there are many different forms of social proof (like influencer campaigns and visitor partnerships), customer reviews have a special identify in shoppers' hearts.

Think well-nigh the last fourth dimension you tried a new restaurant. Or bought a vacuum. You probably looked for reviews online first, right? When considering a purchase, people desire starting time-hand perspectives from other people just like them. While a famous influencer might catch their attention, experiences from peers are as well important if you want to convince them to buy .

Depending on the industry your business concern is in, customer reviews might be especially important considering they help offset a generally negative view of certain industries. For example, if you piece of work in advert, y'all've got a scrap of an uphill battle—just 23% of respondents surveyed in the Customer Communications Review said that ad agencies provided "very practiced" or "pretty expert" service, and ad agencies rank expressionless last in comparison to other major industries:

industry rankings customer service

ix customer review examples (and how to get more than reviews)

Customer reviews come in many different forms. Including a few practiced ones on your website can improve your chances of winning more customers—who doesn't want that?

And anything you can practice to go far every bit like shooting fish in a barrel for your happy customers to write those reviews for you will aid. For example, here'due south a handy Mad-Libs-fashion customer review builder that you tin attach to your message or e-mail to the customer when you're asking if they tin write a review or testimonial for you:

DIY customer review builder

You tin can download this client review template, along with examples of outreach communications, to help you relieve a ton of fourth dimension equally you're gathering customer reviews 👇

Let'south walk through the different kinds of customer reviews, starting with the easiest ones to collect.

1. Quotes

Testimonials or quotes from your customers are one of the most mutual forms of customer reviews. You're most likely to find them on a company website, typically on the homepage, or in their marketing materials.

Here'southward an example of a quote testimonial from WordPress :

Quote testimonial from WordPress

These brusk (typically only 1 to two sentence) overviews of how your product or service impacted a visitor helps requite your brand credibility. With quote testimonials, those impressive claims you're making actually sound conceivable because they're backed upwards by someone who's, well, non you.

We list customer quotes every bit the easiest type of review to get because they involve very niggling try for you and your client. Considering you're in control of calculation them to your website, all you need to do is ask your customers to share their feel in an email, in person, or over the phone.

Quotes also allow you to choose the great customer service stories, perspectives, or opinions that you think are most valuable. Y'all can highlight your high-profile clients—and who says you have to use the less-than-favorable reviews?

How to get a quote review:

Enquire for it. Think your long-term customers and ask if they'd be willing to share a testimonial or a scrap almost their experience working with you to display on your website.

Or look for positive words of encouragement in email and social media responses or everyday conversations. If a customer gives y'all a slap-up quote, enquire if y'all can showcase information technology on your website.

You might exist on multiple social media platforms, so how can you go along track of all these letters? If you're providing omnichannel customer service, you might already be using a tool that tin can consolidate all your customer conversations and communication channels into ane handy dashboard. Like this:

💡 Pro-tip:

To go awesome customer reviews, you lot need to provide awesome customer service, whether that's by focusing on proactive or agile customer service.

ii. Peer review sites

Peer review sites are probably what you recall of when you lot think of client reviews. These include Google reviews, Facebook reviews, Yelp, Amazon, or G2 Crowd (if you lot're a software company).

You've probably encountered these kinds of reviews while you were deciding whether or non to attempt a local business organization for the first time:

Review about Kalaya Thai Kitchen

Reviews on peer-to-peer sites can happen organically, often removing the company from the review procedure entirely. (This can exist a nightmare if you're managing a modest business organization, since 1 bad review can have a huge impact, merely this also makes the reviews seem more authentic.) Customers don't need to worry about if companies have edited them to be more favorable (or deleted reviews they didn't agree with).

Nevertheless, this also means you're not as in control of these kinds of reviews.

Simply that doesn't mean you lot tin can't practise annihilation at all. These peer-to-peer review sites are often i of the beginning places a potential customer looks when because a buy, and then ensuring y'all take some positive reviews on each is of import.

How to go a review on a peer review site:

Again, the all-time way to exercise this is to ask. Send an email, inquire in person, or add links to your website that make it easy for customers to leave their opinion.

iii. Social media

Social media is becoming merely equally much a resource for businesses that want to build brand sensation as it is for people who are interested in connecting with brands. But don't just your social media campaigns to get prospects. Not but are customers turning to social media to ask brands questions or learn about their services, they're also using their accounts to share opinions and reviews.

Here'southward an example from American Hawkeye's spin-off wear line Aerie:

Customer asking a question through social media

Like peer-to-peer review sites, the company ordinarily isn't involved in the review process—making them feel more transparent and honest. But one of the biggest benefits of having reviews on social networks is that prospective customers can become a feel for who the customer is in ways they can't with testimonials or peer-to-peer review sites.

How to get social media reviews:

Encourage client reviews on social media by creating communities where customers are empowered to share their experiences or purchases. For example, Aerie uses the hashtag #AerieReal to make information technology like shooting fish in a barrel to see how customers are styling their items in real life:

Customer reviews of Aerie using the hashtag #AerieReal

Create a unique hashtag to compile your client reviews in i identify.

4. Instance studies

Case studies dive deep into customer results and are particularly useful for businesses selling to businesses (aka the B2B space).

Here's an case of a case study from RingCentral and our client Box :

RingCentral case study about Box

Instance studies—unlike traditional customer reviews—are written from the perspective of the company doing the piece of work or providing the product. Rather than the customer explaining how they helped, the visitor walks through what they did to assist their customer reach their goals.

This perspective gives potential customers an thought of how your squad works. Information technology gives you a risk to show off your problem-solving skills and attending to detail, and it allows your potential customer to envision how you might help them.

How to become case report reviews:

Write your ain! Be sure to mix in quotes, results, and info from your customer to back up your claims. Each case study should read like a partnership—not just a one-sided perspective.

five. Customer stories and interviews

Nosotros all honey a good story—and that's probably articulate in the review types that we've listed so far. Customers want to see themselves in the people your company has already helped; they desire to know what your customer experience is like. 1 way to practice this is through customer stories and interviews.

Squarespace is one company that does this well:

Squarespace Stories and Interviews

Through stories and interviews, Squarespace shares who their customers are, what the vision or mission of their website is, and how Squarespace provides them with the platform to reach those goals.

For Squarespace, they get an opportunity to showcase how various their client pool is. But it gives customers an opportunity to connect with each other likewise. Like to instance studies, stories and interviews paint a larger motion-picture show of what the client is hoping to reach—simply yous have to exist less self-centered here and make certain your customer is the star of the story.

How to get client story-style reviews:

Stories and interviews give a more personal perspective. Instead of hearing from your company, they're hearing stories directly from the customer. So, to get those stories, send customers a questionnaire or one-time in-person interviews.

Give your customers an opportunity to share their stories, then focus on filling in the rest of the narrative with images, videos, and other content.

half dozen. Blog posts

Blog post reviews requite your potential customer an opportunity to really dig in deep into your product or service, and fifty-fifty your brand and civilization as a visitor. Rather than just a sentence or two like a client might notice on your website or a few hundred words displayed on a peer-to-peer review page, weblog posts can be thousands of words, consummate with step-by-stride instructions with images that thoroughly explain a procedure or perspective.

This is a great example of a web log mail review on Warby Parker :

Blog post review on Warby Parker

These kinds of reviews can typically answer more complicated questions that require more space and time—something that isn't really possible with traditional reviews.

But one of the biggest benefits of web log post reviews is the SEO value, meaning yous can get these pages to show up on Google when people are searching for reviews of your business. If yous've e'er searched for "[product] review," you've probably encountered a postal service like this before. Because these posts tend to be descriptive, long-form, and useful, they tin can rank pretty highly.

How to become blog post reviews:

Getting reviews like this 1 can be a little hard. After all, not everyone has a web log to write on. Y'all can increase your chances by offer a free sample or trial of your products or other goodies to industry influencers and experts who run popular blogs.

7. Videos

Consumers like videos. This isn't anything new. In fact, 85% of net users in the United States say they watch video content—making it a strong contender as an outlet for your client reviews2.

Shopify is i example of a company using video testimonials:

Shopify video testimonials

Video reviews tin can requite potential buyers something well-nigh written reviews can't: emotion.

Viewers can come across the difference your products or services have made. They can build a stronger connection with your customers, making information technology easier to put themselves in their shoes. These deeper connections can spark more than sales.

Creating videos doesn't need to be complicated. Customers sharing selfie-style videos talking almost what your production has done, or just stationed in front of a camera, can go the same message beyond.

While you want the paradigm and audio to be clear in the videos you share, the quality of the message is more of import. If yous have a customer willing to discuss on camera how you've helped them, this tin can go a long mode.

Here's another video review of Shopify, this time from YouTube :

This one doesn't involve a lot of coin or product—simply a user sitting in front end of his computer photographic camera giving his opinion of the tool. And it still has over 15,000 views.

How to become more video reviews:

If you have the budget for larger production projects you lot want to feature on your website (similar our first example), accomplish out to the customers you lot think have the best story or video presence. If yous're spending the money, you're in control of the story.

Even so, to get more reviews like the second, treat information technology the same as blog postal service reviews. Achieve out to industry experts who have big YouTube followings and offer complimentary trials or discounted products in exchange for an honest review.

8. User-generated content

User-generated content includes social media posts, videos, images, audio, or other kinds of content created by—y'all guessed it—a user of your products or services. Some of the review types we've already covered would fall into this category (like social media posts or customer videos).

But user-generated content isn't just an online review or a customer sharing an image with your hashtag. That's just the showtime. You then need to take that content and use information technology in a bigger, coordinated way.

Here's an instance of how direct-to-consumer mattress brand Casper does it:

Casper User-generated Content

Like the Aerie example, Casper encourages users to share pictures using their products (in this case, sleeping on their mattresses) on social media. When someone tags Casper in their post, the image is added to a reel on their website.

They likewise share customer posts on their own Instagram feed:

Casper's Instagram Feed

Dogs and babies do well on Instagram, oasis't you heard?

User-generated content puts your customers' experiences front end and center. Although they're not exactly traditional reviews, prospective customers can run into how happy others are with your products. Information technology helps build authenticity— something millennials dearest .

How to become more user-generated content:

This 1 follows the same tips as social media reviews. Encourage your audience to share their experiences by creating a unique hashtag or tell them to tag y'all in their posts.

So start commenting, sharing, and engaging with your own audience. When your audience sees you showcasing other users' experiences or getting into conversations, they'll jump to get involved.

nine. Make ambassadors

Think of brand ambassadors equally an external sales squad. They're loyal customers who beloved your brand or product so much they're willing to recommend your products or services to their own networks. The bonus with having make ambassadors is that they're ordinarily seriously obsessed fans—and are probably more familiar with your product than even your own team.

Make ambassadors don't need to have large followings. In fact, anyone can be a brand ambassador. You probably have brand ambassadors without even knowing it.

1 of the best examples of make ambassadors online is for the budgeting software, You Need a Budget (YNAB). Users are active on platforms like Reddit , sharing advice on how the platform has inverse their life for the better:

You Need a Budget (YNAB) online brand ambassadors

How to become more brand ambassadors:

While y'all could pay for brand ambassadors, you're amend off creating them organically. In YNAB's instance, they did and so past providing a unique spin to traditional budgeting software. Past helping customers who otherwise would have slipped through the cracks, they've created a loyal fan base.

It takes more than time to build brand ambassadors naturally, just this is a high-reward review since their advocacy will exist much, much stronger, directed, and in-depth than your average Yelp review.

How to answer to customer reviews

We've said it before and we'll say information technology once again—your customer reviews shouldn't exist in a vacuum.

If y'all're just allowing customers to leave reviews on peer-to-peer pages, social media, or their ain blogs without acknowledging them or responding to them, you're not making use of powerful content that has been known to convert leads.

But your response procedure should await different depending on if the review is positive or non.

How to respond to a positive review

Congrats! A customer left you lot a positive review. Time to pop the champagne—and write a response.

Responding to a positive review is a lot less stressful than responding to something negative just simply as important. Letting your happy customers know you've seen their kind words and you capeesh their feedback can encourage them to go on singing your praises.

Here's how to reply to positive reviews:

  1. Make your message personalized. Customers will quickly realize if you're just copying and pasting messages to all your reviews. Instead of giving a generic "Cheers!" take the fourth dimension to write a thought-out, personalized bulletin.
  2. Respond in a day or ii. Fast responses show you're paying attending. While you lot're not expected to drop everything to respond to reviews, a quick response—especially on social media—can go along customers engaged with your brand. Reduce your response time by integrating your social media apps with your cloud-based communications arrangement. RingCentral connects with top social platforms, similar Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, so you can easily respond without needing to switch platforms.
  3. Prove your personality. This is your gamble to engage direct with a happy customer, and so brand the most of information technology. Respond with some personality—sense of humor, kindness, wit, yous go the idea—to actually connect with your customer. Regardless of your make's personality, be authentic. Your audience volition exist able to tell if you're not.
  4. Give a recommendation. At present is a great time to betoken your customer in the direction of another production, a piece of content, or something related to their review. (This is a great style to personalize your response!) For instance, if they say they enjoyed a product, recommend they look into a supplementary project, or suggest they check out a blog post that tells them how to make the nearly of their purchase. Your main goal is to continue them engaged!
  5. Ask if you lot can showcase their review. If someone leaves yous a particularly stellar or unique testimonial, ask for permission to share it! Display it on your website, evidence it off on social media, or create user-generated content out of it. Showing off the kind words of your happy customers is more than powerful than merely telling people how awesome you are.

How to respond to a negative review

Negative reviews are much less exciting than positive reviews. They tin can be stressful, and responding can feel like a lost cause. Simply even the nigh unhappy customer can alter their opinion with the right encouragement.

Responding to a negative review is a trivial less "just exist yourself" and a little more strategic:

  • Reply promptly. Again, y'all may not need to driblet everything you're doing to respond, but it'due south more than important to get to negative reviews speedily than positive reviews. If a negative review is posted for too long without a response, non only is it frustrating for the unhappy customer, but it can also leave a bad taste in prospective customers' mouths. Exercise your best to get to negative responses in just a few hours.
  • Put the customer showtime. You may not concord with what the customer is maxim, but that doesn't hateful y'all should be on the defensive. Instead, listen and see where the customer is coming from—yous take to identify where their frustration lies. Think most the response you would want in their shoes and try and find a solution.
  • Answer publicly, but button the conversation to a private channel. You lot don't want to go into a debate with an unhappy customer on Yelp, but you besides don't want it to seem like yous're not acknowledging negative reviews. Reply to unhappy customers on the platform they've left the review on, just encourage them to continue the conversation through a individual message on social media, e-mail, or telephone phone call.

If you have a phone or communications tool, it tin make this role easier. For instance, RingCentral integrates with other pop social media apps to let you switch between platforms while keeping the integrity of your conversations:

answering customer questions through RingCentral Engage Digital

(When frustrated customers don't take to repeat their issues over and over, it might help soothe them a bit and give you lot a improve shot at turning the interaction around.)

  • Follow through. Don't simply apologize and call it settled. In order to change your customer's opinion, you need to notice a solution to their trouble and follow through on information technology. Work with the customer to observe what will modify their opinion—and follow up afterward to come across if you lot've been successful.
  • Don't get information technology taken down. It can be tempting to go a negative review removed, merely it can hurt the trust y'all've built with other customers—especially if that unhappy client realizes they've been silenced. If you respond the correct style, leaving the review up also proves to prospective customers that y'all care about your customers' opinions. Sometimes, an unhappy client will even write a positive follow-upwardly review to show people that yous actually turned things effectually for them:

Positive follow-up review from a customer

Replying to reviews (both positive and negative) appropriately ways having open up communication with your customers. Bringing reviews in as part of your customer feedback cycle can help you place communication gaps or other areas where you're not meeting expectations.

What can you lot acquire from these customer review examples?

Asking your audience to buy from you without any reinforcement from other customers is an uphill battle. Without any reviews or social proof, you're expecting them to invest solely on blind trust—and information technology doesn't work well.

Rather than making your task more difficult, brand the almost of the happy experiences your customers cull to share. From peer-to-peer pages to your own website and social media accounts, showcasing positive reviews—and responding to negative reviews the correct way—can help yous land more customers.


anethedrum.com/news/2017/03/27/online-reviews-bear on-purchasing-decisions-over-93-consumers-report-suggests

2statista.com/statistics/272835/share-of-internet-users-who-watch-online-videos

Originally published Feb 19, 2020, updated February 07, 2022