According to a BrightLocal survey from 2020, 79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Having worked with small SaaS startups to some of the biggest companies in the world like Yandex to grow subscriptions and signups, I’ve learned how positive reviews influence purchasing decisions and lead to higher conversion rates.
In a survey by G2 Crowd, they found that 92% of buyers are more likely to purchase a product after reading a trusted review.
Positive reviews significantly impact your conversion rates as people rely on the experiences and recommendations of their peers when making purchasing decisions.
That’s why you’re getting my step-by-step instructions to set up and automate the collection of authentic 5-star testimonials for your SaaS like these …
But first, ethics ...
I do not agree with incentivizing users to leave you a positive review. That is unethical.
However, you should request reviews from users who have indicated a positive experience with your service without the user previously being told that you will request a review in exchange for an incentive.
Getting started
You're going to email your customers asking them to rate their experience with your SaaS.
If a customer provides a positive 5/5 rating, then you'll ask them to leave a review for your SaaS on a review platform of your choice in exchange for a small incentive to cover their time.
In my experience, any customer who gives you a 5/5 rating on your internal survey always then leaves a 5/5 rating on whichever external review platform we send them to next.
However, if the customer rates their experience as a 4/5 or lower, then the review request is not presented and instead, the survey gets feedback from the customer about how you can improve your SaaS to better meet their expectations.
Here’s a couple of quick notes to keep in mind:
💰 Incentivizing users: You don’t have to offer any financial or other reward to users for leaving a review, but offering one will help you get more reviews, faster.
❤️ Honest reviews: I don’t like businesses pressuring users by asking for “good” or “positive” reviews. I always ask for an “honest” review.
Step 1: Set up your free Tally account ⚒️
I’ve used Tally to set up this survey. I’m a huge fan of it because it’s free and works just as well, if not better than super popular survey-building tools like Typeform, but you’re welcome to set up your survey with any tool you prefer.
👉 Create your own free Tally.so account
Step 2: Create your Review Survey 📋
I’ve already put together the entire survey as a 1-click template that you can import into your Tally account and modify as needed.
👉 Import 5-star testimonial survey template into Tally
Step 3: Set up your review request email 💌
With your survey completed, your next step is to set up an automated email in your email marketing software to request user reviews. Use the following email template:
Subject: Could you help us out? 🙏 |
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Hey there [first name], It's [Sender name] here from the [Your SaaS Name] team. My team and I are trying to make your experience with [Your SaaS Name] even better. Would you mind answering this one quick question? It takes just 30 seconds. If so, please click the button below: [Button text = Answer survey question] << Button links to Tally survey We do read every response so we appreciate your time to answer this. Thank you in advance - I'm excited to hear from you. [Sender name] |
☝️ I recommend sending this email 1-2 weeks after the user has bought a paid subscription to your SaaS. You may optionally choose to send this email as a one-time blast to current and past users to collect a wave of reviews at once.
You’re finished. Time to sit back and relax while you wait for those shiny new 5-star reviews to roll in. Voila, you’re finished! 🎉
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