I was talking with a good friend of mine in SEO during a podcast recently (shameless plug, click here to listen) and we started touching on a topic that has been considered but never fully researched: do people prefer to receive a request for a review via email or text? We can safely say that via text, most people are likely to see it pop up on their phones, but is it too intrusive? Email is commonly an appropriate form of communication, but will it get overlooked? Do most people even regularly check their emails?
Since reviews are becoming even more important in 2019, we want to get to the bottom of what it takes to get clients to leave them. We may not be able to speculate right now what form will get someone’s attention easier, but by conducting a study, we were able to answer a handful of other important questions in the meantime:
- Is it appropriate for businesses to follow up for a review after providing a product/service (if they did a good job)?
- How annoying is it receiving the request via text?
- How annoying is it receiving the request via email?
- Which method would you prefer?
- On average, how many review websites would you mind leaving the review on (if the business provided 3 options)?
One last bit of information, questions like “On average, how many emails does it take for someone to open the review email?” and “How many emails does it take for them to leave the review?” required us to analyze our own data and will be featured in a future blog.
- Is it appropriate for businesses to follow up for a review after providing a product/service (if they did a good job)?
This one shouldn’t come as a major surprise, mostly because I did specify if the product or service rendered was sufficient. Most respondents answered a 10 out of 10, with some outliers bringing the average just below 7. The purpose of this question is to gauge the sentiment the respondent had about review requests in general, oftentimes considered a solicitation. Yelp has a very strict no-solicitation policy when it comes to reviews and Google seems completely on the fence about the matter, sometimes claiming it has the same policies as Yelp but failing to enforce these policies at other times. It is interesting to see if the average consumer has a stance on review requests or solicitations that is in line with Yelp and other companies that could possibly not be as strict or extreme as we may think.
| Average | 6.91 |
| Mode | 10 |
| Median | 7 |
- How annoying is it receiving the request via text?
Again, not a shock that the average level of “annoyance” form text would be around 5, suggesting that people are fairly split between not minding and finding it intrusive. One important thing to consider is that the mode was 1, meaning that most respondents found text message follow-ups at absolutely no level of annoyance. This data here actually has my team considering adding SMS as a means of following up should email fail to get the recipients’ attention.
| Average | 5.11 |
| Mode | 1 |
| Median | 5 |
- How annoying is it receiving the request via email?
As expected, similar results to texting, yet less intrusive. Just some of the confirmation we were looking for.
| Average | 3.86 |
| Mode | 1 |
| Median | 3 |
- Which method would you prefer?
Even with numbers suggesting that the annoyance or intrusiveness of text vs email isn’t too far off, the overall preference has a big gap. This would lead me to this conclusion: Start a campaign off by doing emails with 3-5 follow-ups if necessary. If email isn’t getting through to a certain group of people (e.g. they don’t even open them) you can do another text or SMS follow up campaign for that group since you know from the survey that texting is a viable method of following up on reviews.
| 174 | |
| Text | 63 |
- On average, how many review websites would you mind leaving the review on (if the business provided 3 options)?
If you’re going to get someone to leave a review, we do suggest attempting on a few (up to 3) since once someone sets aside time for reviewing you, it probably won’t happen again. In our email templates, we feature 2-3 links to websites we’re hoping to get reviews from in order of importance. So, for lawyers (Google, Avvo, Facebook) this could look different from a photo booth company (Google, Wedding Wire, The Knot) or even a contractor (Google, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor). Always Google number one of course! Our respondents had this to say about our question:
| 1 Website | 146 |
| 2 Website | 33 |
| 3 Website | 60 |
| Average | 1.790322581 |
Looks like many people will take the time for one good review but a decent amount will take the time to leave that review on every link you provide, so that is important to consider when leveraging your review generation campaign. One of our most recent review generation campaigns looked like this, as far as how many emails it took before the client left a review (keep in mind this is strictly for the clients that did leave reviews – there are still plenty in the reviews cycle that will need to receive more emails):
3, 3, 1, 1 ,3, 2, 3, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1
That’s an exact average of 2 emails per campaign, but I can guarantee that number is closer to 3. Review campaigns and systems live and die by automation and follow-ups. If you normally send out one email to a formal client after working together, there is a high likelihood that it won’t be opened. Follow-ups are crucial to instigate action, such as actually leaving the review.
Automate Review Requests and Forgetaboutit
Reviews remain one of the best ways businesses can have an edge over competitors. If you need more positive reviews, you need to implement a plan that will get your clients excited to talk up their experiences on prominent review sites like Google and Yelp. Hardly anyone can find the time to make personalized calls to request reviews and then follow up, so what are busy people craving reviews to do?
Turn to a marketing service, of course! At Market My Market we’ve become experts on review generation and using reviews to leverage a company’s advantages. Trust us to help you grow your reviews online and get started with a free marketing consultation.
The ongoing digital revolution is transforming the way that all businesses interact with clients and customers. Consumers rely heavily on digital channels for researching products and services and expect to make buying choices with the swipe of a finger. For organizations that want to remain competitive, having a defined digital marketing strategy and execution plan is essential for successful outcomes. With a demonstrated history of creating and implementing strategic digital marketing initiatives that drive growth, I am committed to delivering real, measurable results for my clients.
