Reviews work for B2B technology buyers. Up to 41% of buyers are using reviews as a first step in research when purchasing new business technology. But, because the buyer’s journey is nonlinear, reviews are also used throughout all stages of the research process.

So how do you get more reviews? Of course, you can work with TrustRadius to scale up reviews quickly, or you can start with the ideas we’ll run through in sec. 

Ultimately, the best way to gather more reviews of your product is simple: you ask! Here are 12 creative ways to ask your customers for reviews, alongside real-world examples and tips to keep in mind as you execute.

12 Tactics You Can Use to Get More Reviews

1. Review acquisition email campaigns

Want a lot of reviews? Run a review acquisition campaign through email! This can be done as a standalone campaign – a series of emails to drive your customers to share their thoughts in a review. These can be executed whenever you’d like to collect feedback. Fit this into your regular email cadence.

Or, you can set up automated campaigns based on customer success triggers. Consider encouraging reviews after a completed onboarding, business review meeting, or even after a certain time period since becoming a new customer. 60-90 days after becoming a customer is a great time to ask for the review!

2. Customer newsletters

Include a request for reviews in your existing customer newsletters. You can create a permanent place to merchandise a review CTA in your messaging, or make it a featured callout on a regular basis. We recommend using your newsletters to solicit reviews at least once every three months.

Here’s a great example from ZoomInfo of how to encourage customers to write reviews in a newsletter.

3. Customer support follow-up

Many businesses choose to follow up on closed tickets by asking for a review of the support experience. But why not use this email to ask for a review of your whole product as well?

A successful resolution can offer a great chance to make this ask. Marketo has used this strategy to collect reviews, including an offer for a $20 Starbucks gift card in exchange for additional feedback.

4. Your email signature

This one’s easy. Put a link in your email signature to ask for a review! This strategy is effective for incentivized and non-incentivized campaigns. Any time you send an email out to a customer, they get a great reminder to share their feedback.

5. Billing statements

If your product or services is billed by a monthly invoice, consider asking for a review on your billing statements or receipts. Especially if that review is incentivized, it can be a chance to give your users something back. 

This works best on a monthly (or more frequent) billing schedule, and if your customer is the one actually paying the bill. Though this strategy doesn’t fit every product, it can be timely and effective.

6. In-person customer events

Live events are a great place to ask for reviews. Your most engaged customers are all in one place and have your products top of mind. Take advantage of this! Dedicate a booth or space to collecting reviews. Writing a review, especially if incentivized, can be a great moment for your attendees to sit down and catch their breath. Depending on the scale of your event, you can collect hundreds of reviews, all at once!

You can set this up yourself, but you can also have TrustRadius come out to your event and do all the heavy lifting for you, like we did at the following events:

• Oracle Oracle Open World
• SAP at SAPTechEd and SAP SuccessConnect
• Apptio at Apptio TBM Conference 22
• Quickbase at Quickbase City Tour: Dallas
• HID DigitalPersona at Authenticate Conference 2022
• Sage Intacct at Sage Transform 22

7. User groups or training sessions

Intimate events, like user groups, focus groups, or a live training are also a fantastic way to collect reviews. You’re likely spending some time collecting feedback at these events anyway, so why not set aside time for attendees to publish their feedback?

8. Webinars and virtual events

Hosting a webinar or digital event? Ask for a review! You can do so in the event lobby or as part of your digital event follow-up. Don’t forget to make the ask in your event’s talk track as well.

9. User communities or forums

If you have a forum where users can share insights, ask for help, or start discussions about your product, these can be a great place to solicit reviews. Within your community, you can  link out to your TrustRadius product profile page with an ask to write a review.

10. Print collateral

Any physical collateral you give to your customers can also be a fine place to ask for feedback on 3rd-party sites. Instructional materials, training guides, and more are all great options. QR codes are also a quick and easy way to send recipients directly to your product review custom questions.

11. Customer support and sales contests

Your customer support or success team talks to clients every day. If you have an Account Management or other sales support function, they do too. These teams build great relationships with your clients every day. Why not bring them into the review generation fold with a contest?

See which team member can gather the most honest reviews from customers over a two week period. If there’s a certain segment or persona you’d like to collect more reviews from, make those a focal point. The team members that get the most, get prizes!

12. In your product

In-product messaging can be used extremely effectively to gather reviews. In-product messaging is not the same as push notifications, instead it allows you to communicate a variety of things to customers while they’re actively in your software. The communication can be user onboarding, product tours, tooltips, or even a request for writing a review with the button leading to your TrustRadius custom review questions. 

What better time to ask for a review than when someone has actively been using your product?  

Best practices for your next review generation program

Are you ready to put one (or more) of these tactics into motion? Great! You’ll come away with invaluable content for marketing, sales, and even your product team. Here are a few best practices you should consider across the board:

Do not ask for 5-star reviews. #truthsells!

The best review is an honest review. Yes, really. While it would be great to get 100% positive reviews, that’s not actually what your buyers want. Business technology buyers seek out unbiased information like reviews in order to bridge the gap in trust between themselves and vendors.

Define your audience and purpose of communication

When you run a review acquisition campaign, you need to start with who. Define your audience of customers that can provide effective reviews. Here are some things to consider:

• Anyone not fully ramped on the product may not be able to provide effective feedback
• If you’re acquiring reviews for a site that operates in a specific language, suppress users of your product that operate in languages not typical to that site
• Don’t negatively impact existing relationships by asking for a review

Commit to a launch date and cadence

Treat your review acquisition campaign as a high-priority initiative. Just as you would with any campaign, plan a launch date and a close date. In addition, if using outbound messaging like an email nurture, establish and stick to a cadence. One message won’t deliver the results you seek, so be thoughtful about your execution. That’s how you see results!

Make review acquisition a habit

How do you ensure you always have the most effective, up-to-date, high-value reviews? You seek them out regularly. Just like riding a bike or going to the gym, make asking for reviews a regular part of your marketing and customer success initiatives. 

Elevate your campaigns by asking the experts

Want to take your review acquisition campaigns to the next level? Ask the experts. The TrustRadius Customer Success team are experts at creating and executing review campaigns. From choosing the right audience, to messaging, and all the way through to measurement, their expertise shines. (And don’t just trust me on this – check out reviews of TrustRadius for a peek into the experience!) If you need help getting reviews, reach out! We’re happy to help. 

Your best ally: Your team

There’s one real trick to driving consistent reviews: your team. Your best ally is to drive internal awareness of the value of reviews. Does your sales team know they can share reviews with in-cycle prospects? Does your marketing team know that reviews can significantly boost conversion rates? What about your product team – are they aware of the product feedback your customers are sharing in reviews?

Expand the excitement of reviews you have already to get more. From there, your team can and will leverage their relationships with clients to make the ask for reviews for you! 

Ready to get more reviews?

Getting more B2B software reviews is easier than you think. From tapping into your existing customer touchpoints to creating unique campaigns, driving reviews comes down to one thing: asking! Use these vehicles and best practices to launch your review acquisition programs.

Ready to get started? 

1. Claim your TrustRadius profile to be able to generate review request links and track the success of your review acquisition, free! 
2. Schedule a strategy call with our team of review experts. TrustRadius is standing by, ready to help you run your first review generation campaign. We can help with all the heavy lifting from the sourcing of reviews to fulfillment of incentives. In 2022 43% of our published reviews were from TrustRadius sourcing—that’s over 17,000 reviews we sourced for vendors like you.