Email Design Examples

Everything You Need To Know About Customer Reviews ( + Email Templates & Email Message)

Yasmine Nahdi

Dec 18, 2019 • 7 min read

If you’ve ever bought something online, then it’s pretty safe to say that you already know the importance of user reviews, right?
User reviews provide valuable inputs from first-hand experiences with the product or service.

The postmodern consumer is more and more reluctant to trust companies and their marketing practices. Display ads across all formats get only a 0.05% click-through rate, which is far from advantageous and can even be considered as a waste of resources. This is why user reviews are becoming more and more important for businesses.

Customers trust other customers more than they trust business, despite all their efforts to be transparent. Here are some customer review statistics that might help you see the importance of this practice:

90% of customers read online reviews before they even check out a store or buy a product.
The average customer reads around 10 customer reviews before starting to feel like they can trust a business.
52% of 18 to 54-year-olds confirm that they always read online reviews.

So, not only customer reviews are a great booster for sales and branding, but, if you really think about it, they might be crucial if you even want to be considered as an option for your target customers.
Besides, online customer reviews can improve search engine results rank by 50% according to a study conducted by Reputation.com

When you finish reading this, you will be able to know:

When to ask for customer reviews?
What are the different types of customer reviews according to your industry?
How to ask customers for reviews? And Examples of customer review email templates.

When to ask for online reviews?

Here are the best times to ask for online customer feedback and reviews:

If you are a SaaS solution, you can ask for a user review when the user has upgraded their account. This tells you that the user has been using your application or software for a while and that they see the true value from it, and therefore might advocate for it. Another option would be to send a user review request after a certain number of user log-ins. After a month of using your solution, you can ask a user to leave a review, and tell you and other users what they think.
If you have an eCommerce business, there are multiple points in which you can ask for a customer review. You can send an email to ask for a review when your customer has just completed a second-time purchase, which means that they like your products so much that they chose to go ahead with a second purchase. You can also request a review a few days after your customer has received their product shipment. This way you give your customer enough time to try out your product and know if they like it or not.
For all types of businesses, asking customers and users for feedback after they contacted user support is also a clever way to gain more inputs.

To keep it simple, the best time to ask your client for a review is shortly after you have closed a deal: your product is still fresh in their minds and, they are still thinking about it.

When it comes to which customers you should and should not ask for reviews, don’t complicate things. Both positive and negative reviews can help your business grow and become more successful.

While positive reviews are great for obvious reasons, it is the negative ones that can help you learn from your mistakes and improve as a business.

With this in mind, whether or not your client is happy with the product or service you sold them, don’t be afraid to ask them for a review.

Different Ways to Get Customer Reviews (User Review Apps and more)

Ask for Reviews On Social Media Platforms

If you own a small local business but don’t know how to ask your customers for reviews, one of the best ways to do it is to use Facebook, Instagram or any other social media platform where you are typically active.

Asking for a Rating on a Review Site

There are multiple review sites and apps that customers use to find honest reviews on products and businesses. Your best bet would be to create an account on these platforms and invite your current customers to rate you. Check out this section for pointers on how you can ask your customers to leave you a review on a site.

We list the top product review platforms where your customers can share their opinions about your product and rate your brand. Browse through these alternatives and select the one(s) that suit you best.

Review sites for SaaS Products

Review Apps for Restaurants and Local Businesses

How to ask customers for reviews

So, you have just provided your customer with one of your services and are now wondering what to do next.

Here’s a little sample that shows how to ask your client for a review.

The very first thing that you want your customer to do is to either write a review about the service that they purchased or write a review about your company as a whole.

If your company sells many different products or if you are selling on an external site, then you should ask your customers to write a review about the product or service that they purchased.

But if you are a new company or if your company only sells a small number of products or services, then asking your customers to write a review about your company as a whole would be your best option.

But how to get your customers to write reviews for your products and services?

The best way to ask for customer reviews, no matter what your chosen review platform is, is to send them an email. And here’s why:

Emails are more personal
Emails are highly personalizable
You can collect more data by sending emails

Asking For a Product Review

Asking for a product review is very important when you have a new product that you want to show more social proof around.

However, asking for a review can be a daunting task sometimes, so here’s a little email message that you might want to use in your next product review request email.

[Name],

Thank you for your recent purchase with us. We appreciate having you as a customer and we would love to hear what you think of your [order]. Would you mind taking a moment to leave us a review?
Thank you,

[Company Employee]

Pretty simple right.

Now, you can either send the request in a plain text email. Or design a cool email template, like these ones.

Smiles Davis, how do you like your ‘Legendary Whitetails Men’s Maverick Slub Henley’?

Asking For a Company Review

Asking for a company review is not the same as asking for a product review. But if you think about it, there aren’t too many differences either.

Here is a quick example of what your request email can look like.

Hello [Name],

Thank you for choosing our products. Online reviews from awesome customers like you help us become better at what we do. Could you take a few moments to leave us a review on [website]?
Thank you for helping us grow!

[Company Employee]

Day 30. What’s happened so far?

Asking For a Capterra Review (or Other Customer Review Platforms)

Using a review writing tool is one of the most effective ways to write a good user review.

You shouldn’t be afraid to ask your clients for reviews on Capterra (or other apps).

Here’s an example of how you can ask your client of choice to leave you a Capterra review.

Hello [Name],

Thank you for choosing our services. Online reviews from awesome customers like you mean a lot to us. Would you mind taking a minute to write us a review [link to the survey here] ? All of us here at [company] would really appreciate it. Not to mention that you would be helping [profession title- example: designers] like you choose the right tool for their projects.
Best regards,

[Company Employee]

Incentivizing Someone To Leave a Review

It’s important that you incentivize your customers to leave a review. Here’s a simple email message that you can start with:

[Name],

Thank you for choosing us. Online reviews from awesome customers like you are what helps us grow and improve our services. Would you take a moment to write us a review?
We are happy to offer you a 15% discount on your next order if you use this review link. Thank you for helping us grow and expand!
Best regards,

[Company Employee]

How to Respond to Negative Customer Reviews

When you receive a negative review, here’s what you can do:

Answer the review as soon as you can
Correct inaccurate or faulty information
But, be honest, transparent, and admit your mistakes
Use professional language. Don’t insult the reviewer obviously. Keep a friendly tone.
Highlight your strengths and assure your customers that you are working on fixing the issue.
Give updates once you deal with the issue.
Try to increase your positive reviews.

Wrapping Up

Asking for reviews is never easy. You get anxious about what sort of reviews you’ll be getting and worse, you wonder if you’ll even get some responses from your customers.

The number one, most bullet-proof way to get positive reviews from happy customers is to strive to create the best product out there. And when in doubt, send a pretty template that’ll grab the attention of your customers, and include a great incentivize to close the deal.

If you’re looking for some ready-to-use customer review email templates, you can use our professionally designed HTML templates.