To state the obvious, when selling on Amazon, you want to do everything you can to generate as many sales as possible.
There are many ways to accomplish this – writing helpful descriptions, including eye-grabbing photos, and making your product available on Amazon Prime are some examples.
One of the best ways to generate sales on Amazon, however, is to get reviews – lots of them.
There are lots of guides available online to help you get Amazon reviews, but real-world examples of these strategies in action are hard to come by.
To help you out, we’re going to go over a few ways that Amazon sellers have convinced me to leave reviews for their product.
Let’s dive in.
1. Amazing Customer Service
If you want someone to leave a review for your product, you want it to be a good review.
Sometimes, a good product is enough. If your product solves a major pain point for your customers, it’s likely they’ll leave reviews on their own. This is true for any product sold through an online marketplace.
However, even if your product is excellent, a poor customer service experience can turn these reviews into negative ones that will hurt, rather than help, your sales.
By providing excellent levels of customer service, you’re also able to develop a personal connection between your business and its customers that bring their experience to a level beyond what they expected.
If you can accomplish this, customers will want to review your product. If, within that review, they mention your excellent level of service, potential customers that read the reviews will know they can trust your brand.
The Example – Tangkula
When I needed a new table for my apartment, I decided on this 5-piece set from Tangkula. Before ordering this table, I’d been eating dinner off of books on my couch.
Unfortunately, as soon as I got it, one of the chair pads was torn.
When I contacted Tangkula to resolve this issue, they offered to refund $50 – a third the cost of the table – as their way of making this right.
I told them that I’d rather get the part replaced so it doesn’t become worse over time. They worked with me to make this happen and special ordered the part individually from their manufacturer.
This was great because I didn’t feel like they were thinking of me as a number. They took special care of my individual needs and sent me the part as requested.
How to Execute This for Your Business
It’s important to have standard procedures in place for your business when it comes to handling customer complaints. This helps manage your customer services expenses.
However, make sure you enable your customer service representatives to handle special instances in ways that may not be as standard. Give them decision making power so they can help your customers quickly and effectively.
Additionally, make sure you handle any customer service requests in your customers’ favour. This will increase the chances of referrals, reviews, and returning customers.
Finally, after you have resolved the issue at hand, follow up with the customer to make sure they’re still happy. If they are, ask them to leave a review. There’s plenty of software out there that can help you automate this process.
2. Card Inserts
Card inserts are a great, simple way to encourage reviews from your customers!
The concept is simple – leave a little card inside the packaging that shows customers exactly what they need to do to leave a review.
Unfortunately, Amazon has a ban on incentivised reviews, meaning you can’t give them anything in return for a review.
That said, if your card captures attention quickly with a great design, it can be a great way to give customers that little push towards leaving a review that may be necessary after getting their hands on the product.
The Example – ComfyMed
Due to the fact that I sit at a desk for most of the day, I have terrible posture. In an effort to correct this, I got this posture brace from ComfyMed.
When I opened the packaging, a card slipped out onto the floor. This thoughtful placement of the card, along with its compelling design, caught my attention.
The fact that the product was excellent and the instructions on the card were clearly outlined compelled me to write a review for them.
I’ve even heard of people getting personalized, hand-written ‘thank you’ notes in their packages. This can add a tremendous positive impact on your ability to win reviews from your customers. Seeing that you took the time to personalize their unpackaging experience can be enough to inspire them to write a review.
How to Execute This for Your Business
If you want to operate this strategy at scale, you can simply use a service like VistaPrint to get these cards printed in mass-quantities to include with your packages.
Alternatively, if you want to take a more personalized approach, inserting hand-written letters into your packages is also an option. One that, in my opinion, will produce better results.
3. Email Follow-ups
After your product is delivered to the customer, sending well-written follow-up emails can be a great way to earn reviews.
This works well because by timing your emails correctly, you can get in touch with your customers after they’ve already used your product and have a solid understanding of its value.
An email follow-up probably won’t make someone write a review, but it’s a good way to remind your customers that they have the option. Many customers, like myself, may already have the intention of writing a review after using your product, but it often slips their mind.
The Example – Stylus Picks
I play guitar pretty religiously, and I wanted to improve my speed. To do this, I got the Stylus Pick Kit – a specially designed guitar pick and exercise book to help build speed on the guitar.
This company timed their email to me perfectly. After I received the product, they waited about a week to email me asking how things were going and encouraging me to leave a review.
This timing is perfect because it gave me time to really experience and understand the value of the product. I imagine some of their customers experience noticeable changes in this period of time that they can bring up in their review.
How to Execute This for Your Business
When sending emails that are asking for reviews, it’s important that you really understand when your product delivers value.
For example, if I buy a guitar on Amazon, I experience the value pretty quickly after I get it. I unpackage it, plug it in, and play it – instantly knowing whether or not I like it.
With a product related to teaching, like the Stylus Pick Kit, it may take a few weeks for the customer to understand the value of the product, so waiting a while before sending out a follow-up email makes sense for a product like this.
Make sure you pay attention to shipping timelines as well. Track packages on your end so that you know when the customer has gotten them, and delay your follow-up according to the type of product you’re selling.
Conclusion
Ultimately, if you want someone to write a positive review for your product on Amazon, the key is to provide an amazing experience on all levels. The product and service have to be excellent.
Since you can’t incentivise reviews on Amazon, your best bet is to subtly nudge customers towards a review. The above methods are ones that worked on me, but had these efforts been implemented on products I didn’t love or from companies that didn’t have great customer service, I probably wouldn’t have left a review at all.
Lastly, when selling on any marketplace, it might make sense to block buyers or bidders who may be known for giving bad reviews in unreasonable situations.
