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Now is a great time to ask past customers for reviews
Erin Gunnuscio • Apr 22, 2020
It’s proven — products with more reviews get more bookings.
Your biggest fans, your advocates, your customers want to help you during this time of travel slowdown. So why not ask them for a favor that won’t cost them any money and only a few minutes of their time?
Ask them to write a review of your business on Tripadvisor, Google, Facebook, and anywhere your business appears.
What’s the best way to ask customers for reviews?
1. Email past customers directly.
Consider combing through your customer list and finding those who you know are your biggest fans. Then, reach out to them one-to-one via email.
Don’t know where to start? Here’s a template email:
Subject Line: Favor to askAs you know, the travel industry is experiencing an unprecedented slowdown. But we are ready and eager to serve you when travel returns.If you’ve enjoyed our tours in the past, the biggest thing you could do to support us right now is to write a review to tell others about your experience. This will help get the word out about us and will also help us learn more about how to improve our business.It really means a lot to us. Thank you and stay safe.(Insert Links to your business listings on Tripadvisor, Google, Facebook, or elsewhere)
2. Have Tripadvisor email your customers on your behalf
Upload your customer list
into your Tripadvisor management center account, and Tripadvisor will email those customers asking for a review on your behalf.
3. Post on social media
Post a sincere message on your social media account(s) asking your past travelers to review your tours and activities on Tripadvisor, Google, or wherever you have a business listing. Your social media followers are your biggest fans! They will be happy to help.
And if you haven’t already, consider enabling reviews on your Facebook page. Many businesses disable reviews on their Facebook page, but doing this can negatively impact traveler perception.
To make the Reviews tab visible on your Facebook page, follow these simple steps.
4. Turn on auto-review capabilities now to prepare for when travelers return
Did you know Bókun offers an auto-review integration with Tripadvisor? Turn it on, and Tripadvisor will email your customers a review request the day after their activity, whether they booked on your website, offline, through a travel agent, or on Tripadvisor Experiences or Viator. Now is a great time to set this up so that you are ready to hit the ground running, collecting reviews from travelers the moment business picks back up.
Now what?
Don't stop there. Once you have reviews, it is incredibly important to reply to your customers’ reviews.
Worried about negative reviews hurting your business? Travelers are actually 78% more likely to book an experience
with 1 or 2 bad reviews (with a thoughtful management response!) than an experience with no reviews.
Tripadvisor offers tons of tools to help with reputation management, including advice on how to deal with negative reviews.
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