Announcements
Q2 Product Updates: 10 Customer-Centric Features to Explore With REVIEWS.io
July 10, 2023
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4 min read
In this post we'll take each of the features of Reviews.io and dissect them in further detail, explaining how they'll help your business. You'll find hyperlinks dotted throughout this post which will take you to other posts explaining each feature in more depth, so feel free to take a look at those as well.
Before we get started, here's a short video explainer:-
You can jump to a topic of interest directly or just scroll down to read through them all.
1.3 Google (and Bing and Yahoo) Seller Ratings
1.6 Product Reviews
1.7 Company Profile Page
2.2 Automatic Review Collection
2.3 In-store Review Collection
3.1 Customised Review Invitation Email
3.2 Custom Review Collection Page
3.3 Additional Reviews Questions
3.6 A/B Email Conversion Testing
6.5 Retargeting Ads on Facebook
8.5 WooCommerce Reviews Plugin
Company Reviews increase your sales. Having company reviews is essential if you want to become a market leader. Our easy to set-up solution helps you turn more visitors into customers.
Further reading: Company Reviews
Collect and respond to reviews from Google Local, Facebook, Check-a-Trade, Yelp, Yell, Houzz and Amazon, all from your Reviews.io dashboard. Put simply, you can now control your online reputation across multiple sites all from one location.
What does this mean for your business? Well, your potential customers will seek out reviews for your company and they could stumble across reviews on any website. You therefore need to make sure that your reviews are consistent and positive across multiple platforms. It doesn't matter if you have a fantastic review score on Reviews.io if your Google Local or Facebook reviews are poor, because if those locations are your customers' first point of contact for your business, they'll likely not even click through to your site.
By putting your business in control of its online reputation you can maximise the visibility of your great reviews across the whole web.
This is a big feature and it is worth taking some time to read about it to gain a greater understanding of how it works.
NOTE: The Local Reviews tool directs your customers to third party websites in order for them to write a review on those websites. It does not allow you to move the reviews you have collected on Reviews.io onto those third party websites. Call us if you need further clarification on this point.
Further reading:
The Ultimate Guide to Google Business Reviews
How To Get More Google My Business reviews
How To Get More Reviews On Facebook
How To Get More Reviews On Amazon
8 Places You Need To Collect Reviews Online
How To Send Reviews To Google Maps
Probably the most important benefit of review collection is gaining stars in paid search results in the form of Seller Ratings, and in organic search results by implementing Rich Snippets.
Seller Ratings are displayed as stars underneath your search results. To get them, you need to collect 100 verified reviews in a rolling 12 month period.
It is only possible to show stars by collecting reviews, and only by collecting with a Google-licensed third party review platform such as Reviews.io
Further reading:
The Ultimate Guide to Google Business Reviews
Google Seller Ratings Stars & Seller Ratings
Collecting reviews and sending them to Google is just the beginning. By displaying badges and review widgets on your website your customers will be able to see your overall review score and read your reviews without leaving your website.
Showing company reviews on your home page is a great way for your customers to quickly be reminded of the Seller Rating they saw in Google before clicking through to your site, while showing individual product reviews on your product pages will improve conversion from any organic or paid traffic to those pages.
Expert answers gives you the opportunity to differentiate from your competitors selling the same products by providing your expert knowledge to your customers.
Further reading:
Your Reviews Timeline is your all-in-one solution for managing your reviews in one location. Get detailed reporting on incoming reviews from Reviews.io and across third-arty sites in one place, and use advanced filtering to segment reviews by type, date and rating.
Further reading:
Attract and retain customers with real product reviews to influence the buyer journey, and gain more website traffic and on-page conversion.
Each company with a Reviews account gets their own company page, hosted on our site. The company profile page is fully customisable by you. Your company logo is automatically imported from your website and you have the option to update your business details including contact details, map location, opening hours and your company bio. An outbound link is present which leads to your home page.
Further reading:
Our powerful yet user-friendly review collector gives your customers a simple, pain free way to quickly leave authentic reviews, without logging in. Your fully customised and A/B tested email invitation templates let you stay on-brand while enjoying phenomenal review conversion rates.
Get started quickly by sending a Review Booster to your clients. When you first get started with Reviews.io you can upload a .csv spreadsheet containing your customer details (just name, email address and order ID are required).
We'll send your customised review invitation email to these customers and you'll very quickly have verified reviews in your account within 24-48 hours or so. It's a great way to get your initial review total up at the beginning.
As all reviews are updated in real time, the badges and widgets on your site will quickly populate with recent review content.
Further reading:
Contact Past Customers with Review Booster
Using one of our E-Commerce modules or by BCC (blind carbon copy) your order confirmation emails to us triggers the review invitation process automatically. This starts the countdown to when your review email (or SMS if you are using them) is sent to your customer.
In-store reviews are reviews written by customers who have purchased in a physical store. Our fully customisable in-store review technology makes review collection quicker and easier than ever before. Whether you're on an iPhone or Android, download the in-store app and start measuring satisfaction and gathering feedback at the most relevant time, while the buyer is still in your store.
Further reading:
Dynamic Links allow you to use your current email provider (and your own email address) to send out review collection invitations, rather than using Reviews.io's own email servers. Basically, if you'd prefer to use Mailchimp or similar, this is the feature for you.
You need a developer to help you out but in short, a link is created in your email (which you'll generally put on a call-to-action in the email saying "Review Us" or similar). Your developer with auto-populate this link with your customer name, email address and order ID, and by the time they arrive on our site to write you a review, we can identify them and verify their review automatically.
Further reading:
How To Set Up The Dynamic Link
SMS Review Collection means you can now collect reviews from customers who you have a mobile number for. Collection via SMS is 3x times more effective than email review collection and 80x more effective than a paper based review request.
Further reading:
With the Reviews.io Developer API, you can customise how you collect and publish reviews on on your own site. We have developed our API to be easy to use - most competent developers should be able to get to grips with it very quickly. Using the API lets you leverage the power of Reviews on your site.
Further reading:
Review photos not only increase trust and traffic but they also help maximise conversion potential. We make it easy for happy customers to add their great photos directly to their online reviews.
Further reading:
Our Enterprise plan allows Amazon retailers to improve feedback collection from their customers by greatly shortening the standard Amazon review request time. More reviews on Amazon can influence whether a business wins the Buy Box - an important way to greatly increase your chances of making a sale.
Further reading:
How To Get More Amazon Reviews
Our official partnership with AutoTrader means dealers can collect reviews from their customers which are fed directly into the AutoTrader platform.
Further reading:
Reviews Stars on Google Maps are possible when your customers with a Gmail Account writes a review on your local Google My Business page. Google Local reviews are separate from the reviews collected on Reviews.io which are fed into Google for Seller Ratings. Instead, Google Local reviews appear only in Google Local (maps) results, rather than in organic text listings and paid Adwords listings. Google Local reviews are really important for any business who have a physical branch which accepts visitors.
Further reading:
Ultimate Guide to Google Business Reviews
Facebook reviews show up in Google's search results with stars underneath, but only when the business has collected at least one review. It's important to know that these reviews are not just showing in Facebook but in these Google search results. Actively collecting reviews on Facebook will increase this review score.
Further reading:
Your can direct your customers to write a review on Yelp using our Local Reviews module. Just add your Yelp business profile page URL into your Reviews.io dashboard and choose which percentage of your review invitations will be sent there.
Further reading:Yelp Reviews
Your can direct your customers to write a review on Yell.com using our Local Reviews module. Just add your Yell.com business profile page URL into your Reviews.io dashboard and choose which percentage of your review invitations will be sent there.
Further reading:
Houzz is a shopping platform for interior design products. Businesses can list themselves in the Houzz directory and collect reviews for products and work they have carried out for their clients. Our Local Reviews module allows you to direct your clients to your Houzz profile to write a review.
Further reading:
Alongside Google Local Reviews, Check-a-Trade reviews are really important for local plumbers, carpenters, electricians, tree surgeons and any other small business relying on word-of-mouth to get new clients. The majority of busineses in these industries do not have an established online profile, so using Reviews.io to automatically manage your reputation online will get you greater visibility in your local area, and ultimately more bookings.
Further reading:
Your review invitation email is how you ask your customers for a review. It's important you make the most of the features available to you when creating and sending it because these will directly impact your conversion rate (the number of emails sent divided by the number of reviews collected).
You have a few options with the customised email. You may use our WYSIWYG editor to quickly put together a good-looking, branded email containing your logo and a message of your choce, of if you prefer you can fully customised it with HTML coding.
You have unlimited A/B testing available so you can practice with multiple messages and subject lines to maximise your conversion.
Finally, you may also choose how long after the order is placed that you send your review invitations.
You can (and should) create at least one email template for Company, Product and Third Party review invitations.
Further reading:
Create Your Custom Email Template
5 Awesome Review Collection Email Examples
The Review Collector page is the nuts and bolts of your company's review strategy. Once your customers clicks on the link in your Review Invitation (either by email or SMS), they're directed to this page to write the actual review.
The collector page allows your customers to choose a star rating, add their comment and submit their review, all without logging in.
You have the opportunity to add additional fields to the review collector page to collect additional and more specific feedback from your customers as part of the review process.
You have two review collectors available to you, one for product reviews and one for company reviews.
Further reading:
Company Review Collector Page
You can add additional questions to your review collector, and you can have different questions for each of your collectors. In your product review collector, for example, you could ask additional and more specific questions about the product itself. Let's say you're selling clothing - you could ask a question about whether the product size description is accurate.
In your company review collection, you can ask questions about delivery, customer service etc.
However, we'd recommend you not go overboard with additional questions, because while it's good to get more information, making the review process too complex may harm your overall conversion rate.
Further reading:
Additional Company Review Questions
Additional Product Review Questions
Increase review collection conversion rates by offering your customers a Voucher Code for completing a review. Voucher codes are also a great way to increase sales with repeat customers.
Further reading:
If you require customised badges and widgets for your website then we can assist. Our Enterprise customers have access to our developers for custom work. Contact us for a quotation.
You have unlimited email templates with which to test variables such as subject, wording, even CTA colours, to see which give you the best review conversion rates. We'd recommend keeping your emails short and to the point, well designed and using your own branding for consistency.
Further reading:
5 Awesome Review Invitation Email Examples
Build trust and confidence by providing relevant information at the right time. Providing product reviews on your website means shoppers are more likely to convert when viewing your item, resulting in an average 18% uplift in sales.
Further reading:
The Benefits Of Collecting Product Reviews
How To Collect Product Reviews On Your Shopify Store
How Product Reviews Increase Google Shopping Conversions
Reviews are matched to products in your ecommerce platform inventory using unique identifiers (GTIN Number). Once collected, these reviews are uploaded as part of our Reviews Feed to Google. Google then uses product review to give the product stars in Google Shopping listings.
Further reading:
10 Ways To Fail At Google Shopping
Manage and respond to your customers in real-time all from on handy location, your Reviews Timeline. Solve any issues and thank customers for their praise. Engage with customers and you’ll be rewarded with their trust.
Further reading:
Reply to your negative and positive reviews straight from the dashboard or iPhone App. It's important to engage with your customers so we would recommend responding to as many reviews as you can. If time or manpower is a consideration, then you should at least respond to any negative reviews which come in.
Further reading:
How To Handle Negative Reviews Online
How To Reply To Negative Reviews
Manually add order ID’s, invoice numbers and customer references.
Forward specific reviews to the relevant person or department so any issues can be dealt with quickly and hard work can be rewarded.
If you think a review has been fraudulently written you can flag it quickly as ‘Under Moderation’. This removes it from our customer facing database while it is investigated by our team.
Manually change the SKU or GTIN numbers on products so they match better within Google Shopping & Product Listing Adverts. This gives you full control to ensure that reviews are correctly attributed to your product catalogue.
If you've received a negative review and have successfully resolved your clients issue, you can ask them to revise their review.
Automatic review tagging allows you to automatically apply tags to your reviews which help you filter and categorise your reviews. You can filter your reviews by tag in your dashboard's Timeline, our API and our Reviews Widgets.
Our comprehensive suite of review widgets gets you better on-page conversion, while our Social Sharing feature gets your customers talking by automatically sharing your best reviews to Facebook and Twitter. Use your own profile page on Reviews.io as your reviews hub, and see the SEO benefits of publish reviews to Google, and across the web, as Seller Ratings.
Expert Answers is a Q&A software that directly increases your conversion by enabling you to provide useful answers to questions from your potential customers. Answer questions directly on your product pages and potentially get more conversions.
Further reading:
4 Ways Reviews Positively Impact Your Customer Journey
Turn your company review score into a dynamic email signature and display your Reviews widget directly in all your outgoing emails.
It's possible to automatically post your positive 4 and 5 star reviews as they come in, by connecting your Reviews.io account and your Facebook account together. You may also manually share your reviews directly from your Timeline. Sharing reviews to your social channels is a great way to get user generated content out and boost your visibility.
Like Facebook sharing, it's also possible to automatically post 4 and 5 star reviews to Twitter. Just connect your Twitter and Reviews.io profiles together and set up sharing in your account
Reviews Facebook Retargeting Ads are easy to create and a great way to re-engage your potential customers throughout the Facebook platform. You can create ads with both company and product reviews using our handy editor in your Reviews dashboard.
Further reading:
Google display ads are perfect for companies looking to build customer trust, increase brand awareness and sell more products or services. Our solution allows you to create company and product specific ads
Further reading:
Master your reputation and act on customer feedback using our innovative reporting toolset. By understanding your customers you can gain valuable insight into sentiment. Take action with useful, measurable review statistics and improve your products and service based on genuine customer feedback.
By creating modules that install straight into your eCommerce platform, integrating a review collection solution has never been easier. We support all the major eCommerce platforms (Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Prestashop, Volusion & Wordpress) and our solution will also integrate into any other platform your are using (even custom platforms).
Further reading:
Integrate Reviews into your Shopify store with our simple to install Shopify Reviews Plugin. It's easy to install and you can do it straight from the Shopify App Store. Follow the links below for some instructions over on our support site.
Further reading:
Reviews supports Magento 1 and Magento 2. Plugins can be installed through the Magento Connect directly. See the following articles for full information.
Further reading:
If you're using a custom eCommerce package or one which does not have a specific Reviews plugin, you can integrate Blind-carbon-copy emails to allow automatic review collection. It's simple to set up and lets you tell us when you have confirmed a customer order. We then send yor customised review invitations using this data.
Reviews supports Opencart versions below 1.5 and above 2.0.
WooCommerce and Wordpress are supported using the official Reviews plugin available from the Wordpress plugin repository.
Further reading:
Follow our integration guide to install Reviews into your Prestashop eCommerce site.
Follow our integration guide to install Reviews into your BigCommerce eCommerce site.
Follow our integration guide to install Reviews into your Volusion eCommerce site.
The Reviews API allows your developers to customise a wide range of aspects of the Reviews platform, from individually-created on-page widgets to the way your emails are sent, to how Reviews integrates with your in-house systems. For more details and an API reference, visit our support pages.
Integrate Reviews into your Zendesk helpdesk software and you'll be able to track incoming reviews as tickets in Zendesk. You'll be able to respond to reviews just as you would any normal ticket in Zendesk using our built-in Reviews panel within Zendesk.
Further reading:
With Intercom Engage, you can contact your website visitors and single out specific web visitors for review requests, or alternatively manually request reviews from within your Intercom live chat while speaking to your customers. The Reviews integration for Intercom requires the Intercom Engage module.
Further reading:
Intercom Feature Announcement
Review notifications directly in your chosen Slack channel.
Further reading:
