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So, you’ve launched a new product. The obvious next step is getting product reviews because 95% of consumers will check online reviews before purchasing, and 89% will actively seek them in the buying journey.
But product reviews come with a condition. Getting negative reviews is easier than getting positive ones because people who like your product are busy enjoying it, leaving those who didn’t as the primary candidates for reviewing. If not handled correctly, negative reviews can spiral out of control and have an irreversible impact on your business.
So, as you seek reviews for your product, you’ll face a trifecta of challenges:
- Be battle-ready to handle negative reviews gracefully and productively
- Get customers who benefited from your product to review
- Manage reviews and follow-up routinely to repeat the success
In this guide, I will discuss review readiness, share some new-age tips to optimize your review strategies, and explain how to respond to reviews to keep the success rolling. There’s also a bonus tip!
Table of contents
Before you begin: Are you ready for reviews?
What not to do to get product reviews
9 Ideas to get product reviews on any platform
- Make it easy to submit reviews
- Enroll in Amazon Vine program for early reviews
- Ask for a review after a purchase
- Incentivize reviewers
- Simplify the review flow
- Reply to all reviews and promptly address any issues
- Request reviews for social media channels
- Automate your review process
- 🎁Bonus: Plug-ins to get product reviews
How to handle negative reviews
Get product reviews from multiple touchpoints with Uniqode
Before you begin: Are you ready for reviews?
Here’s the truth about getting product reviews: Negativity bias—an inherent human tendency to focus more on negative things than positive ones.
Customers who use your product and enjoy it are less likely to leave a review than those who face problems who will make sure to let you know.
What does that mean? It’s human to complain, so the possibility of negative feedback creeping up in your reviews is often more than positive.
However, negativity bias is also a boon because you can act upon the shortcomings people have pointed out and dramatically improve your offering, which will be time-consuming if you solely rely on internal testing.
The call for you to take here is:
- Are you ready for constructive feedback?
- Do you have the means to act upon the feedback?
Remember that with reviews come responsibilities. There are no shortcuts to getting only good product reviews, and that brings us to:
Step 0: Don’t rush it!
If you’ve just been listed and yet to have any sales, it might not be the right time to get positive or negative product reviews. If you’re well into the business, skip this section and check out the ideas to get more product reviews.
Research by a professor at Colorado State University found that negative online reviews have a greater impact on well-informed customers than positive ones.
This is because negative information is often more specific and informative, making it more helpful in decision-making.
The way out? The researcher suggested that responding effectively to negative reviews can significantly impact your most important customers. So, only when you’re ready to do that should you look for product reviews.
This is probably why platforms like Amazon mandate five to 30 days of downtime between order origin and delivery before your product qualifies for a review. It gives buyers and sellers enough time to derive the product’s value, increasing the likelihood of constructive feedback.
If you try to hasten that process and bring in reviews in between, Amazon might censor it. The same is true with several other ecommerce platforms.
To avoid getting into a situation where negative reviews outweigh the positive ones, hold on from asking for reviews if you are still in the following stages:
- You’ve no to minimal sales
- Your product is still developing
- Your product has a steep learning curve
- Your platform is not conducive to product reviews (more on that later)
- You sell somewhere but want reviews for somewhere else
What not to do to get product reviews
Because of the damning and oft-irreversible impact premature reviews—both negative and positive—can have on your products, knowing what not to do might help (skip this to learn what to do):
❌ Never try manipulating the review cycle by reviewing your own product or getting friends and family to do it
❌ Don’t try to influence competitor product reviews
❌ Do not try to remove genuine negative customer reviews by offering incentives or coercion
❌ Never explicitly ask for positive reviews, as this is a clear violation of multiple online marketplace rules
❌ Don’t incentivize only positive reviews with freebies and cashback
❌ Ask for reviews, but don’t spam customers, as it leads to a negative experience
❌ Avoid listing your product on buyer’s clubs, as big retailers are cracking down on them
❌ Do not try to add fake reviews for your products with humans or bots under any circumstances
9 Ideas to get product reviews on any platform
I have shared the critical things to consider before you want to get reviews for your product. The ultimate goal is to be able to receive and benefit from reviews, which brings you here:
1. Make it easy to submit reviews (QR Code inserts?)
One of the best ways to get reviews is to make it easy for customers to leave reviews. However, emailing customers to click a URL for a review can put off many because the steps may be too taxing for them.
Let’s compare that to using QR Codes on packaging (yes, it’s okay to ask for a review using QR Codes gently). After receiving your product, all someone has to do is point their phone camera and scan the code to find the review page instantly.
That’s not the only advantage of using QR Codes for product reviews:
- You can add a call-to-action frame text that proactively asks customers to leave feedback
- You can customize the QR Code with your logo, brand color, patterns, backgrounds, etc., to match your brand
You can also track the number of scans, devices used, and locations to measure your review campaign’s effectiveness.
2. Enroll in Amazon Vine program for early reviews
Seller on Amazon? Enrolling in the Amazon Vine Program is an excellent way to get early product reviews.
The program invites Amazon customers to become Vine Voices based on their reviewer rank, determined by how helpful other consumers find their reviews.
To be eligible for the program, you must be:
- A brand-registered seller on Amazon
- Have less than 30 reviews on your Amazon listing
- Give away a free product to each Vine Voice
Businesses can enroll in this program for free. They will only need to cover the cost of free produce.
Once enrolled, Vine Voices will contact you to test and review your product. The reviews are very detailed and usually include images of your product, which most customers will find helpful.
| 💡Remember: Vine Voices provides unbiased and honest reviews, so not every review you get will be positive. How to handle negative reviews? Learn more here. |
You can get up to 30 reviews from Vine reviewers as a seller. However, the number may be lesser because some Vine Voices might choose not to leave a product review.
Nevertheless, the Amazon Vine Program results in high-quality reviews because Amazon selects the best and most helpful reviewers.
3. Ask for a review after a purchase
Once a consumer has completed a purchase from your brand, you can send an email or an SMS asking for a review about the product and their buying experience.
Remember, timing is everything here: You want to give consumers enough time to experience the product and derive its value before asking them for a review. This is especially true if your product has a steep learning curve.
If you send the post-purchase email too soon, you might not get the quality reviews you sought. But if you send it one or two days after purchase, the consumer will be better positioned to give accurate feedback on your products.
This helps you get more product reviews and gather valuable inputs on how your brand can improve your product to increase customer satisfaction.
4. Incentivize reviewers (by the book)
I know I have already suggested avoiding providing monetary review incentives. That’s not on the books.
However, ethically incentivized reviews are a sure-shot way to generate more reviews for your brands.
A Bazaarvoice case study found how Kraft Heinz earned 39 million impressions using incentivized reviews.
So, what incentives should you offer against reviews? Here are some tips for giving rewards to reviewers by the books:
- Stay transparent about the fact that you are offering incentives
- Incentivize all kinds of reviews, irrespective of positive or negative
- Keep the rewards to coupons, discounts, and samples, and never offer direct monetary incentives
A great way to incentivize customers without violating Amazon’s terms of service is to point users to a dedicated landing page and nudge them for a review in return for a coupon or discount.
You can also include a form for customers to give you their details while registering for a review. This way, you can gather valuable first-party data to retarget for future marketing purposes.
5. Simplify the review flow
Taking customers to random pages and expecting them to navigate to the review page is a bad strategy. This is especially true given that consumer attention spans have dwindled in the last 15 years.
Using specific landing pages to collect reviews can simplify the process compared to redirecting them to your general website.
You can take customers to a landing page for a review from any touchpoints, such as an email, an SMS, or QR Codes from physical objects. Once they’re on the landing page, you can nudge them to review different sites from which they have purchased the product. As suggested above, the review can follow an incentive from your end for an even better outcome.
6. Reply to all reviews and promptly address any issues
👍Thumb rule: Respond to every review—not only the positive ones.
This is one of the most important and influential ways to get more product reviews and demonstrate your brand’s transparency.
To ensure all the reviews get timely attention, use good review software to help ensure each review receives a timely and well-crafted response.
You would want to display and respond to only positive product reviews as a brand. However, responding to negative product reviews shows that you care about every consumer who uses your product—whether they love or hate it.
Source – Show how much your brand cares about its customers by responding to positive reviews
Conversely, do not miss a chance to respond to positive product reviews. Sending a personalized thank you message with what they like can go a long way in improving brand image and perception.
The extra effort for a personalized response adds a special touch to the whole experience, rather than a generic thank you message for all reviews.
| ⚡Important: Always remember to ask for fresh feedback after providing customer support to gauge their satisfaction. This helps you gain trust and shows your brand cares for customer satisfaction |
7. Request reviews for social media channels
According to GlobalWebIndex, 54% of consumers use social media to research products. This should be no surprise, as social media is one of the most powerful channels to market your products and receive user-generated reviews.
Whether it’s an Instagram or Facebook post or a shout-out on X (formerly Twitter), getting consumers to tag your brand and give a review can increase visibility.
You can share and repost any positive reviews, tag the consumer who posted them, and thank them for sharing their experience.
| 🫰Tip: You can use social media QR Codes and place them in-store or on packaging to prompt consumers to leave a review about your brand’s products. |
Potential customers (social media users) who come across these reviews from other buyers will be able to verify the quality of the products.
Moreover, once they notice how responsive and engaging your brand is on social media, they’ll be more interested in submitting reviews themselves.
The same study also indicates millennials and GenZ trust user-generated content 50% more than other media types.
Reaching out to consumers and influencers to post product reviews on social media is an easy win to gain more reviews and potentially convert from the same age group. Additionally, consider using a video testimonial service as an efficient alternative that could significantly enhance your brand’s strategy with visually rich, authentic customer endorsements.
8. Automate your review process
Obtaining online reviews can be tedious, and managing a follow-up and review cycle for every customer can be challenging.
This is why using review automation software to request and reply to reviews can help scale up your review-obtaining efforts.
Software for review automation can:
- Set up an automatic review request over channels such as email post-product purchase
- Automate follow-ups for a reasonable time to get a review
- Use AI to analyze reviews and make sense of them
- Give access to metrics on reviews from different platforms
- Help create personalized responses to feedback on multiple channels
If you’re selling on Amazon, one place to start is using the request review feature on Amazon Seller Central. If you prefer a more advanced solution, using a trusted Amazon review site like ASINsell is a great idea. It lets you automatically request a review of your products via email.
For Shopify, you can integrate the software with to automate the review process when a consumer purchases your product.
These are just 2 of the many review automation tools out there. I possibly cannot give you a complete list here, but I can recommend checking out this detailed comparison to understand what software to use.
🎁 9. Bonus: Plug-ins to get product reviews
Show, don’t tell. It’s always a good marketing strategy to display your reviews on your site or social media.
Review plug-ins can help you do that. This also helps add an element of social proof and gives customers a clear voice.
Another added benefit of review plug-ins is that they help you incorporate long-tail keywords into your site for SEO.
With plug-ins, you can also get and display reviews on your site, clearly showing your trust and brand credibility.
Here are some of the best review plugins I found for your reference:
| Plug-ins | Best feature |
| Hifivestar | Integrate and display reviews on 40 different review platforms |
| WordPress Review Pro | Can accommodate multiple widget styles such as snippet design, templates, and review styles and display reviews on Google search results |
| Smash Balloon Reviews Feed | You can automatically update your most recent positive reviews |
| Customer Reviews for WooCommerce | Doubles as a review automation site allows for easy WhatsApp integration for review followups |
| Site Reviews for WooCommerce | Has spam protection against fake reviews with APIs for bulk review integration |
How to handle negative reviews
Recollecting on the research that I cited at the beginning of this post, here are some professional ways to handle negative reviews:
Proactively respond to negative reviews
Start with an apology, offer an explanation, and end with a promise to improve.
An online reputation management expert, Linsey Abbott, suggests that “immediacy [of response] puts a reassuring face on your business, improves customer perceptions, and increases brand trust.”
Abbott says, “A timely response will indicate to your customers that you care about their complaints and can avert a small complaint from morphing into a disaster.”
Data suggests customers expect a response to their negative reviews within seven days, so you know what to do.
Respond with professionalism
No matter how unprofessional the negative review is, your response as a business must always be professional. Remember: your brand is at stake, not the reviewer’s reputation.
For example, if a customer has left a scathing review calling out your brand and using expletives, your response should be along the lines of:
“We’re so sorry you had a bad experience with [product]. Kindly share more details about [the buyer or product] so we can investigate and resolve your complaint immediately. [Brand] is committed to always helping you have the best experience.”
Be sure to strike the right balance between professionalism and being overtly apologetic.
Know when to take things private
Public acknowledgment of negative reviews is helpful, but Linsey Abbott also suggests that knowing when to keep public responses private is equally essential.
Abbott suggests: “It’s best to keep sensitive topics and in-depth problem-solving offline to keep the customer and your brand safe. Continue the conversation by email or phone to express respect for the people’s privacy and complete customer discretion.”
Make the effect felt
Imagine responding with an apology and a promise to mitigate an issue as soon as possible, only for the same negative feedback to creep up in numbers within a month.
People can see the highlighted issues and your response to them and check whether you’ve worked on them by reading the following reviews.
So, having a mechanism to proactively address feedback so no one else faces the same issue is critical to handling negative feedback.
Use the feedback and work on fixing the underlying issue with an order, see what went wrong, and optimize the sales funnel to prevent this issue from arising.
Get more product reviews from any touchpoints using Uniqode
You have just explored many ways your brand can encourage consumers to leave a review about your product. Hopefully, I have also included enough resources to explore how ready you are to get and process reviews.
Each approach has benefits, from sending post-purchase emails to utilizing Amazon’s Vine Program and review automation software. No one approach will work for you. The best way to go is to test each to find which suits your product and audience better.
If you want to use QR Codes for product reviews, making one on Uniqode is super easy. You can create a secured, custom, and beautiful QR Code that fits your brand image in minutes.
Moreover, you can pair these with mini-landing pages to host multiple review sites, website links, and even post-purchase survey forms to collect reviews.
All in all, always remember to use a consumer-centric approach to get more reviews for your product.
A happy writer with a fascination for technology, a passion for marketing, and a love for good literature. Feel free to reach out to her on LinkedIn to spark conversations about any of the above.
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