How and when do you ask for reviews?
The event went great, the customer/couple is thrilled… but they didn’t post a review!! It’s frustrating, but it’s not their fault. Just like asking for the sale, asking for reviews is your responsibility. And if you’re not getting your happy customers to post reviews, it’s probably the way and timing of your asking.
Listen to this new, 10-minute episode for ideas that are working for real wedding and event pros, like you, so you can get more reviews.
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– How do you ask for reviews? Listen to this episode for some ideas. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the “Wedding Business Solutions Podcast.” This wedding season is kind of ending now. I know it’s probably a little bit longer than it is in normal years. And it got me thinking, you know, how and when do you ask for reviews? I know you’ve been busy and if you’ve been busy, have you been slacking off on not asking for the reviews? We know that for certain sites like The Knot and WeddingWire, getting your award, your Best-of or Couple’s Choice, is dependent upon new, good reviews. So you need to be asking, you need to have a system for that. The question is, how do you do it? When do you do it? How often do you do it? Now, some sites again, go into WeddingWire and The Knot, and I mentioned those only because I know them better because I was Vice President of sales at The Knot a while back, and I’ve consulted to WeddingWire for a long time. So I know their systems a little better. They do have tools in their backend where you can put in the email address and put a message in and they’ll send it out to the couple, right? Even the WeddingWire one will send it out three times. It’ll ask them and it’ll ask them again. It’ll ask them again.
According to their stats, one in five people will post the review if you ask them once. One in three if you ask them more than once. So 20%, if you ask once, 33% if you ask more than once. I have clients that are getting way more than that, some by asking just multiple times, some by using gifting, right? Because gifting is a great thing. First of all, saying thank you to your clients is never a bad thing. But there’s also a feeling of reciprocity that when you give someone a gift that they want to do something back to you, and if all they need to do is tell people how much they love you already, it’s not a bad thing. The other thing with gifting is that sense of reciprocity is also a code word for guilt. Because if they feel a little guilty you gave them a gift, I want to do something back for you.
So, let’s go into a few different things here. When should you ask? One of my clients, we track, they have a lot of different venues, we track to see who is getting the most reviews, which of their people are getting the most reviews. And when I’ve done this with many different clients, the people getting the most reviews are first, asking the most times. Just because somebody didn’t do it when you asked doesn’t mean that they won’t do it. Just think about yourself. When you go out to a restaurant, you stay at a hotel, you go to an attraction, do you always post a review? No. If they send you an email, like I use OpenTable for dinner reservations sometimes and they’ll send me an email asking for me, you know, what are my thoughts? Do I always post a review? No. Do I do it a lot? Yeah. I mean, I’ve personally posted over 600 reviews on Tripadvisor.
I’m a Yelp elite, which is, I think I have 130, 140 reviews there or whatever. So yeah, I post a lot of reviews, but I also don’t post a lot of reviews. I probably don’t post more than I do. Because for me, with a restaurant, it has to move the needle. It can’t just be what I expect. It has to be either way better or way worse, right? That’s what I’m going to take my time to do that. But I’ve also had people where, “Yeah, I wanted to post for that, but I just can’t do it right now. Doesn’t mean I won’t do it, but if you don’t ask me again it’s going to get buried in my emails. I’m going to forget about it.” So asking via text, that’s a great way to do it. Now, some people are waiting two weeks after a wedding to ask, and this, by the way, this goes for corporate events, this goes for social events, this goes for quince’s and mitzvahs and everything, you want to ask for a review, I would ask immediately after.
So, like, a couple of days after, ask. They’re still on a high from how great it is. They’re guests are telling them how much they enjoyed it. That’s a great time to be asking. Sending a text message with a link is wonderful. Now, stepping back to when you first signed that client up, ask them where they’ve been posting reviews. If you know where they’ve been posting, I’m sorry. Ask them where they’ve been reading and obviously posting. So if they’ve been posting on Facebook, Google, Yelp, Tripadvisor, whatever, that’s the place you’d want them to try to post. If they’ve been reading reviews on WeddingWire, reading on The Knot or reading on some specific site, that’s the most likely place for them to post for you because that’s where they’re already a member, logged in, and so forth. So there’s no friction because they have to create an account.
So, when you’re signing people up, ask them, where have you been posting, I’m sorry, where have you been reading reviews? Where have you been reading reviews? And now make that note, and that’s where you should ask them to post. Then once they do, send them an email with that review, tell them that you responded just in case they didn’t see it. You could even put your response. And ask them, “Could you do me a favor? I need more reviews on this other site, Google maybe, or something like that. You know, could you either copy and paste this or post a new review there?” Now I know that Google would prefer not to have the review in the same thing in both places, as would WeddingWire and The Knot and the other sites. They want unique content.
For me, asking somebody to write a whole nother review after they did is a lot of friction. So copying and pasting, I think would be easier. It’s what I do on Tripadvisor and Yelp now. If I’m going to take the time to post, I’m going to open up two windows with the two sites, write the review on one, copy it, paste it into the other one, have it posted on both places, right? That’s what I’m going to do. I think they appreciate that it’s there. I don’t think they mind that it’s duplicated, because of all the content that’s there, it’s a fraction that’s going to be duplicated like that. So ask them to post where they’ve been reading because that’s where the least friction is. Find out what that is. If they don’t respond, right, after a couple of days when you did it, then maybe wait the two weeks because maybe they’re on their honeymoon if it’s a wedding. Ask again. If they don’t, then ask again. Or you could do it like the WeddingWire one, I think it asks and then a week later and then a week later after that. The key is the repetition. Now, if you want to go with the gifting idea or just a handwritten thank you note, one idea that I gave to a lot of my clients was if you take that handwritten note and you have a note card, have printed on the back of that card, QR codes to the different places where they could review.
So, if it’s for a wedding, it would be WeddingWire. The Knot, Google and you know, maybe Facebook or you know, some other place where you might want them, right? And if you don’t have four, only put three. This way they can choose. It’s the one most convenient for them. They take their phone, do the QR code, they’re right there and the posting the review makes it nice and easy for them. Again, reduce the friction, make it easy for them. I like that idea combined with a gift because if you send someone a gift again, the feeling of reciprocity, they want to do something back for you. I like the phrasing, “Could you do me a favor “and help us show other couples, companies…”, whatever, you know, “just how good we can do for them by posting your review on one or more of the sites on the back of this card.” I like that phrasing. It could be a P.S., but do that phrasing.
As far as a gift goes, it shouldn’t be something with your logo on it because that’s not a gift. That’s a promotional piece. If you go to Etsy or if you have a local crafts person who can make something up, if you’re a photographer, it’s easy. A beautiful picture frame with a photo, you have the photos, nice and easy, right? If you’re any of the other vendors, make sure that you’re friendly with the photographers, get a photo, put it in the frame, send it out. So if you’re the DJ or the band, have a photo of people dancing, right? Have that couple right there on a dance floor. Try to give them something. Or if in your conversations you found out something about them, something that you could do personally. So if you know that they love pets, then do a pet gift, right? If you know that they have a dog and you know their dog’s name, maybe send them a, you know, a custom name tag that go on the collar of that dog. Or a leash with the dog’s name on it, or a Petco or a PetSmart gift card, right? Something like that.
The idea is the more personal that it is, the more they know that you took the time and the more they’re going to feel like they want to do something back for you. And that’s again, the key, the reciprocity of that. So asking for reviews, you have to ask more than once. Now, would I go back to people from four years ago? No, because recency matters. I did another podcast on this. The four things that matter, the number of reviews, the score, the recency, and then responding. Make sure you’re responding to the reviews. Now, some sites notify people that you’ve responded. So when I respond to a Google review, I believe people get notified. Yelp, you definitely get notified, because I know that I get that notification as someone who posts reviews, that someone has responded. I don’t think on WeddingWire and The Knot they get notified. So you might want to let them know, “Thank you so much for the review. In case you didn’t see our response, here it is. By the way, could you do me a favor, help us show other couples, other companies, other people, what we could do for them and their…” fill in the blank, wedding, mitzvah, fundraiser, whatever, “and post review for us on one or more of these sites?”
So, the key is asking, it’s just like the sale, right? You’re asking for the sale. In this case, you’re asking for the review. If they don’t do it, you have to ask again. And if they don’t do it, you have to ask again. They maybe let it sit. And then, you know, maybe a month later, ask again. People who love you want to do it. And if they’re not doing it, it doesn’t mean they don’t want to do it. It just means they can’t do it right now at that moment or you haven’t created that sense of urgency for them or that sense of feeling of reciprocity for them so that they’re going to do it for you now. I hope this gives you something to think about because your brand is in those reviews. That was another podcast I did. Your brand is in them. You need recent reviews. And you know what the best thing someone has ever said about you? I don’t either because it hasn’t been said yet. It’s going to be the next one. So go ask for those reviews. Now’s the time.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
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- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
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