One of the first questions your friends or family ask when you make a purchase is, "did you read any of their online reviews?"
Word-of-mouth has been the oldest mode of marketing. And in this day and age, word-of-mouth exists more via online reviews than one can comprehend. 90% of consumers read online reviews before they visit a business. It is that easy to see how important web recommendations have become.
Great reviews will generate substantial leads for your SaaS business, whereas too many critical reviews will tank the same.
Don't believe me?
Here is a Screenshot of Gumroad (payment processor and product distributor) in the recent past with negligible reviews. Would you believe in their credibility even though they are well-known?
Image source: TrustRadius
Software reviews play an essential role in your customer's decision-making process than traditional methods. How do you then generate more reviews for your SaaS business? Read on and find out!
1. Get Listed on Review Sites
The first and the easiest step is to get your SaaS business listed on the most popular online review sites. You need to be in places where your potential audience and customers are looking for information about your company or your product. To get started, I recommend you check out sites like Capterra, G2Crowd, Sourceforge, ProductHunt, SaaS Genius, TrustRadius, and Get App.
Setting up profiles on these sites with the correct information about your software, screenshots of your tool, and other insights will give you more access to potential customers.
2. Get the most of the NPS Survey
NPS Survey (Net Promoter Score) will help you determine your most satisfied and happy customers. The NPS index ranges from -100 to 100 and measures if your customers are willing to recommend your products or services to others.
Let me simplify it for you!
Take a look at this feedback requested from Slack.
Image Source: Slack
Based on the responses, you can classify your customers into detractors, passives, and promoters.
Detractors are those who are not pleased with their experience, are not likely to make a purchase again, and give you a score of 6 or below.
Passives are those who are pretty satisfied with their experience and give you a score of 7 or 8.
Last, promoters are those who love your product or services, are repeat customers, promote your brand to their friends and family and give you a score of 9 or 10.
You can easily calculate your NPS score with this formula:
Image Source: Hubspot
You can reach out to tailor your request for feedback based on the NPS score. That means asking for public review from promoters and resolving concerns of detractors before they write a bad review.
3. Ask for Reviews via Email
It might sound a little surprising, but many customers will leave you a review if you simply ask for it. Better yet, personalize your emails for each customer!
It works best when you show gratitude to the relations you have built along with your customer or user.
4. Provide Incentives to your Reviewers
Getting someone to write a review may indeed require strategic planning. Still, one great way to inspire your users or customers to leave a review is through incentives. Remember that happy customers are loyal and can be your greatest asset in generating great ratings. So, go all out and offer discounts, coupons, and gift cards!
Even review platforms (that I listed above) can help provide an incentive on your behalf. For example, Capterra frequently emails its users with Amazon gift cards for reviews.
Image source: Capterra
The Bottom Line: Lure in those Reviews!
It's a digital world, and your prospects are looking for answers before they ever reach out to you. They trust what other people say more than anything that we offer them, so be sure that the opinions of others drive their decision-making process in your favour.
All you have to do is make these small tweaks to your overall business marketing strategies.