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As e-commerce booms, the importance of online reviews follows. Not only do online reviews provide valuable insights from current customers, but they also significantly impact on potential customers' purchase decisions. The problem is, although most businesses understand how important online reviews are, many of them still struggle to obtain good reviews. Gathering reviews via emails is the standard, but is that enough to capture all the reviews you may get?
In this article, we’ll talk about an add-on to emails – SMS, which is often overlooked despite its great performance.
SMS, as we are all familiar with, is a text message sent via a mobile network to a user's phone. SMS messages have a 160-character limit, so they are commonly used to send information in short and simple text. Businesses use SMS messages in many different ways: sending promotions, reminders, updates, review requests, and more. Besides an impressive open rate of 98%, SMS has some great benefits that make it a good channel for getting more customer reviews:
One of the reasons why SMS works so well is people only need to skim over it within seconds to get the main idea – but only if you do it right.
When writing your SMS review requests, don’t go overboard. Be concise and tell your customers exactly what you need from them. In this case, you can simply thank your customers for purchasing from you and ask how they feel about your brand. That’s it.
All in all, you only have 160 characters to make it work, so don’t waste it on slang, jargon, or abbreviations that would confuse your customers. Focus on what matters the most and you can see a higher conversion rate.
Personalization plays an important role not only in review requests but also in SMS marketing in general. A few things you can do in an SMS review request are to use your customers' name instead of generic titles, mention the products they’ve purchased, or add some other relevant context. For instance, if a customer has just received the shoes she has been waiting to be back in stock, you can ask them if that specific pair was worth the wait.
Personalization adds more human touch to your communication and helps you build a closer connection with your customers, which increases your chance of getting feedback from them.
Your customers are busy, so let's make it quick and easy for them to submit a review by including a direct link to your review form. Depending on where you want to display your reviews, you can direct your customers to:
Although it might seem that including a link is enough to get your customers to click on it, that’s not necessarily the case. How you frame your request as a good call-to-action can make a big difference.
You can either ask directly (“Leave us a review!”) or indirectly by mentioning your reviews platform (e. g. "Find us on Yelp!"). Just keep in mind not to force your customers to leave a positive review and avoid being straightforward about 5-star ratings. You don’t know if you’ve met their expectations and such “manipulation” can only drive them away.
Instead, ask your customers about their experience with your brand, how they feel about a specific product or your store overall. This implies that you care about their opinions without making you sound cheeky, and give shoppers more room for their thoughts.
No matter how much effort you put into your SMS review requests, sometimes the right timing is what makes it convert. However, timing highly varies from business to business and also differs across products. For instance, sending a review request too early might be the reason why you fail to get it. Sometimes, customers need more time to experience your products and write a more informative review.
In some other cases, immediate review requests are the only option; for example, food delivery services. Asking if a food delivery was smooth after a week may sound irrelevant to a customer, decreasing your chances of getting their feedback.
You can easily send SMS review requests via Judge.me by integrating with two SMS apps: SMSBump or SMS Notifications. The integration process is easy, just copy the API Key in your SMS app, then paste it into your Judge.me integration settings.
After that, you can make further SMS Requests configurations in Review Requests > SMS Requests, such as SMS templates and request schedules (the number of SMS requests to send for each order, or the length of each SMS request, etc.). The schedule of your SMS review requests is the same as your email review requests and can be set up in your Review Requests settings.
You can customize your SMS message by including variables that will change depending on the customers who will receive it. These include:
The {{ short_url }} needs 35 characters, the “STOP to opt out” message (to be compliant with GDPR) needs 16 characters, and other variables may take up different numbers of characters depending on the real values. So make sure that your SMS message is concise enough to satisfy the whole limit of 160 characters, otherwise, important content may be missed.
*Note:
You can only use the {{ short_url }} to collect product reviews. If you want to collect shop-level reviews (such as shopping experience, delivery, or customer service) via SMS, you can use the link to your All Reviews Page. However, this is not recommended since the reviews collected via the All Reviews Page are considered web reviews and may not be verified. The best way to collect verified shop reviews is using the shop reviews block in our custom email templates.
Now that you know how to collect reviews via SMS, let’s try to implement it in practice. Here are 6 SMS templates that you can adapt to your business or simply use for inspiration in your next SMS review requests.
Template #1:
Hi {{ buyer_name }}, how do you like your new {{ product_title }}? Help others out by sharing your experience here: {{ short_url }}
Template #2:
Hi {{ buyer_name }}! You’ve recently purchased a {{ product_title }} from {{ shop_name }} and we’d love to hear your feedback: {{ short_url }}
Template #3:
Hi {{ buyer_name }}, are you enjoying your new {{ product_title }}? We would be grateful if you could leave a review here: {{ short_url }}
Template #4:
Congratulations on your brand new {{ product_title }}! Is everything as you’ve expected? Let us know here: {{ short_url }}
Template #5:
Thank you for shopping at {{ shop_name }}! If you have a minute to spare, please review your new {{ product_title }}: {{ short_url }}
Template #6:
Hi {{ buyer_name }}! It’s been two weeks since you’ve purchased {{ product_title }}. Please help others decide by rating it here: {{ short_url }}
By initiating a review, you’re not just asking to do your business a favor – you’re also showing that your customers’ opinions matter. You make them feel valued and take the first step to build stronger connections. Good online reviews are a win-win situation that boosts your business growth while helping shoppers to come up with the right decisions. It may never happen if you don’t ask though – so consider the tips mentioned above and get ready to craft your SMS review requests!
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