Operating an online store on BigCommerce involves many operational tasks, but perhaps the most overlooked is review management.
It’s too easy to think of customer reviews as something that happens passively and will always happen. But what if reviews weren’t passive but an active tool you can mold and control to extend your store’s visibility and drive more conversions?
Instead of discussing outdated ways to do these things, this article will show you new ways to collect, manage, and utilize reviews. Plus, we’ll talk about how a review management tool can simplify the entire process, allowing you to invest more time into what matters: developing your ecommerce business.
Amplify Review Collection
Amplifying your review management approach involves taking a strategic approach that will more effectively engage customers at critical touch points along their path to purchase. Now, let’s explore some specific ways to enhance your review collection.
Use Post-Purchase Email Campaigns
Capturing a customer review begins long before the feedback arrives—it’s all about making the process hassle-free for your buyers. One of the most powerful ways is strategically following up after purchasing an investment through review request emails.
BigCommerce allows you to configure automated transactional emails using good built-in tools or third-party apps like RaveCapture over the App Marketplace. These tools automatically send out review prompts based on consumer behavior and provide additional insight into understanding frequency and timing.
- Timing: A timely email will help increase click-through rates and reviews. Schedule the review request email to go out after giving ample time for the customer to use the product, usually some days after delivery of physical products or even sooner for digital. Timing can be everything, and review requests that come in too early may seem premature, whereas those that come too late may go unnoticed.
- Personalization: Making the review request emails personal can largely increase the chances of getting a response. Use relevant keywords in your subject lines that will make them more noticeable, and customize the content of the email based on customer purchase history, the product category, or even the location of the buyer. A targeted message speaks directly to the customer, making them reply and speak of their experience.
- Incentivization: Consider offering an incentive for leaving a review. A small gesture, such as a discount on the customer’s next purchase, does much to motivate buyers to take some time to submit the feedback. Just be a little careful not to make the incentive an actual bribe; you’ve got to make it clear that you want honest, legitimate reviews—good or bad.
Add Product Inserts and QR Codes
Product or packing inserts are pieces of material put into your physical products’ packaging. They’re designed to interact with customers after they have taken possession of their purchase. These provide a direct, personal touch that bridges the divide between digital and physical.
When utilized correctly, they’re a powerful tool for collecting customer reviews, improving user experience, and encouraging more business from existing buyers.
A product insert can be as simple as a small card or a flier directing the customer to a review. Beyond the message, the design and tone of the insert should feel like your brand.
- Smooth Workflow: The QR code needs to direct customers directly to your mobile-optimized review page. The fewer steps the customers have to take, the more likely they are to review.
- Clear Call to Action: Your product insert needs to have an attractive and short call to action. Some of the phrases should be like “Share Your Experience!” or “We Value Your Feedback!” to guide customers toward leaving a review and sharing why their opinions matter.
- Add a Personal Note: Attached a thank-you note or a personalized note is a more effective way to make your request personal and retain even more powerful customer relationships. A short personal message with sincerity will be remembered longer and perhaps affect more reviews.
Run Contests and Giveaways
Hosting a contest or a giveaway based on product reviews is the surest way to encourage more reviews for your customers. But you really have to ensure that the process is fair and unbiased.
- Spell the Rules Clearly: Indicate that entering into the contest or giveaway does not call for a positive review. Allow customers to leave feedback that is honest; this will ensure the integrity of your reviews will be safe.
- Transparency: Ensure to put terms and conditions in clear lights in relation to the contest so as not to give any room for misunderstanding in the interest of gaining better customer trust. Be open with the selection of the winner and how their reviews will be used.
Efficient Review Management
Here are a couple of review management tools you need to give a try:
Native BigCommerce Review Management
BigCommerce, being one of the topmost ecommerce platforms, allows business owners to manage customer reviews directly from their dashboard. These tools make it easier to moderate, approve, and showcase customer feedback, hence allowing store owners to keep up a steady stream of quality reviews. Following are some of the important features of the native review management system in BigCommerce:
- Managing Individual Reviews: BigCommerce provides a store owner with the ability to manage reviews with ease from a minimalistic interface. You can edit review content, approve or reject them, and adjust the way they will show up on your product pages. The result is that you can handle all the reviews in one place with ease—with no other accessories.
- Automation Options: BigCommerce allows you to automate the review approval with the availability of certain rules. It may be setting keyword rules and rating thresholds or monitoring flagged content to auto-clear or reject reviews. This makes the process of moderation quite smooth, as it automatically filters out irrelevant or potentially harmful reviews.
- Customizable Display Settings: Control how and where reviews are displayed on your product pages. This may be showcasing the most recent reviews or prioritizing higher ratings—with the BigCommerce dashboard, it’s pretty easy to manage and officially place reviews for maximum impact on site conversion rates.
While these tools make up a strong native kit for review management, some store owners may need more advanced options when dealing with high volumes of reviews or multi-channel integrations.
RaveCapture: A Powerful Integration
For business owners who need more than the basics, RaveCapture offers advanced review management designed to make the process much easier and a lot more powerful.
Seamlessly integrating with BigCommerce, RaveCapture provides a range of features by providing you with even more flexibility and control in terms of how you manage customer feedback.
- Real-Time Updates and Synchronization: RaveCapture automatically synchronizes customer reviews in real time, keeping you updated in relation to every sale channel. Whether it’s review monitoring in the BigCommerce store or elsewhere, this tool keeps everything organized in one central dashboard, reducing manual data entry and multiple logins.
- Enhanced Request for Reviews: RaveCapture will collect more reviews and extend several other ways to request reviews. Send customized review request emails after certain customer behaviors, or even trigger targeted email marketing campaigns that drive more detailed reviews. Because of this flexibility, you get richer and much more high-value insights from customers.
- Multi-channel Integration: The integration of multi-channels helps manage the reviews coming from different platforms if your store works across various selling channels or e-commerce marketplaces using RaveCapture.
- AI Review Responder: This AI-powered technology crafts thought-provoking and relevant responses to customer reviews. Whether responding with a personalized appreciation for positive reviews or addressing any concerns professionally, this tool helps maintain consistent communication with customers. It personalizes each response according to the content of the review and saves one a lot of time, which ensures that customers feel heard and valued.
By placing reviews where customers can easily see them and leveraging them in your marketing efforts, you can turn customer feedback into a powerful tool for growth. Let’s dive into how to make the most of your reviews to drive conversions and engagement.
Sharing and Leveraging Reviews to Boost Sales
By placing reviews where customers can easily see them and leveraging them in your marketing efforts, you can turn customer feedback into a powerful tool for growth. Let’s dive into how to make the most of your reviews to drive conversions and engagement.
Prominent Display of Reviews for Better Conversion Rates:
Display customer reviews strategically on your website to greatly impact how customers use your online store. Reviews must be easy to find, viewable above the fold, and placed near your call-to-action buttons to improve conversion rates.
- Custom Widgets: Many review apps, such as RaveCapture in BigCommerce, display reviews on product pages in customized ways, including a rotating carousel of recent reviews or a simple grid of top-rated reviews.
- Visual Elements: Including customer photos or videos in your reviews further builds trust and provides a more authentic look at how your product is used.
Showcase Reviews within Marketing Campaigns
Customer reviews can be exposed through different marketing channels to increase your store’s credibility. Share the best reviews in email marketing campaigns and showcase customer testimonials in your social media ads—this type of social proof will contribute favorably to building up customer trust.
- Handpicking the Ideal Reviews: Showcase reviews that describe special advantages of your offerings, particularly those that respond to common customer inquiries or address customer concerns.
- Boost Interaction: Reviews can also be placed within Facebook advertisements, Instagram Stories, and Google Search Console to raise click-through rates and drive people back to product pages.
Dealing Positively with Negative Reviews
Negative reviews do not have to be bad news for your business. In fact, if managed properly, they can provide great customer service to turn a dissatisfied customer into a loyal one.
- Respond in Due Time: Identify the issue and offer a practical solution, whether a refund or a replacement.
- Learning Curve: Take negative reviews as a chance to rectify your product or service by customer feedback. With RaveCapture, you will never miss any negative reviews while capturing and responding to them in the quickest time possible.
Conclusion
By strategically collecting, managing, and leveraging reviews, you can improve your store’s visibility in search engines, build customer trust, and even drive higher conversions.
Tactics like post-purchase emails, personalized incentives, and product inserts help gather more reviews, while BigCommerce’s native review management and RaveCapture provide robust solutions for organizing and automating feedback.
RaveCapture, in particular, offers advanced features like real-time synchronization, multi-channel integration, and AI-powered responses, making it an ideal choice for store owners looking to streamline their review process.