Without Even Asking for A Review.

How do you get good reviews? Is it as simple as just asking? Or is there some other magical thing that needs to happen before customers will write those golden 5-Star nuggets? Do you need to be a huge brand? Or is being a small business a good badge? There are many things that you can do to get a good review, and today I’m going to share what I think is the biggest and easiest way to get the best reviews on Amazon.

Asking For A Review Doesn’t Guarantee Good Reviews.

The prevailing attitude amongst many Amazon Sellers is to get good reviews one must have good customer service + send an email pleading for a review because you are a “small family business”. And while these things are true and noble, they don’t guarantee good reviews. And they don’t even really guarantee someone will leave a review at all! Why? Because people write reviews about… products and their experience of it.

Let’s take the Vine Reviewer Program as a great example. You may have noticed that these reviewers don’t talk about how great it is that xyz is a small family business. And you may have noticed that they don’t discuss customer service. The Vine Review Program is set up for Sellers to offer their products to reviewers for intense reviews. Have you read them? These reviewers go into great detail about how the products are packaged, how they arrived (shipping damage?), and how the unboxing was. They discuss every little nuance of the product.

They’re doing what they’re supposed to do - review the product so other shoppers can see if the product is right for them. And, to see if the seller is representing the product accurately. Customer service or being a small family business doesn’t discriminate. And simply asking for a review (from a Vine reviewer) doesn’t guarantee a good review either! The purpose of reviews is to REVIEW A PRODUCT and the customer EXPERIENCE of it.

Knowing that, let’s look at how our Product Description can influence reviews.

Case Study #1 - The Case of The Faulty Fitness Watch

Many years ago I worked with a Seller on a Fitness Watch. Like with any Seller, he described it to me well. It sounded like a very cool watch, he was detailed and exact in telling me all about it. As a result, I took all that information and turned it into very strong copy.

Strong vs weak copy is a real thing that will directly influence your sales and reviews! One writer’s “QUALITY VINYL” is another writer’s “AFTER 10 YEARS OF USE THE VINYL IS LIKE NEW” - Strong copy will win more sales than weak copy, everytime. Stacey Hancock.

So on the strength of the copy that I wrote, the sales came flooding in. And I mean FLOODING! But very soon the returns came rolling in just as fast. And the bad reviews quickly followed. Negative after negative until finally the Seller dropped below 3-Stars and his listing was taken down.

So what happened? We oversold the product! This 2-star product was given the 5-star copy treatment. Because it was faulty, it was returned, but because the copy created such a mismatch for customers they were dying to leave us a bad review. EAGER! Customers didn’t just decide to write a review in their spare time. Not at all. They were determined to write the review immediately and give us a piece of their mind. They were fired-up, passionate and pissed off. They had such strong emotions because we had seemingly lied to them in the Product Description.

Now, if I had written weak copy we still would have received returns and negative reviews (because the product was faulty), but we wouldn’t have received as many in the way we had. Instead of customers feeling like we’d lied to them, they would have just felt a bit annoyed.

And If the seller had a product that worked, our strong copy wouldn’t have been a problem! We would have sold thousands of units, but at the same time NOT received thousands of returns and complaints.

The moral of this story here is two-fold

1. If your product has issues, reviewers will write about it.

2. If you oversell your product, reviewers will call you out on it.

Case Study #2 - The Case of the Leakproof / Not Leakproof Cup

This client was selling a toddler cup. And while it had some leakproof features, it wasn’t a fully leakproof or spill proof cup. In the product description, we didn’t oversell the product per se, but the inclusion of SEO terms such as “leakproof toddler cup” and “spillproof cup” gave the impression that this was a fully leakproof cup! So, the bad reviews started coming in. Not as many as the Fitness Watch guy, but still enough to be a concern. Not only that, there were some other design features on the cup that needed very careful handling in the copy to ensure the customer knew EXACTLY how it would function. And that’s what we did! I re-wrote all the copy and then painstakingly added copy to highlight accurately the nature of the product.

In our new copy we devoted an entire bullet point to explaining that the cup was not leakproof but explaining it in a positive way. It was a tricky one. No one wants to say their product leaks! But it was a fine line between customers being mislead vs being completely informed about the product. The bullet also told customers to check the instructions in their order about how to open and close the lid without spills.

The result was an 18% improvement in review score!

But reviewers are still complaining about how it is not spill proof or leak proof despite the fact that we don’t make those claims in our copy, not even in SEO form. The reason for this is that the product category as a whole has an expectation of leak-proofness. When customers write a review they’re not just drawing on their experience, but they’re also comparing you to all the different expectations they have of the product - regardless of whether you even made the claim in your product description or not!

The moral of this story is again:

1. If your product has issues, reviewers will write about it

2. If you misrepresent your product, reviewers will call you out on it

3. If your Product and Description don’t meet a minimum “global” expectation, reviewers will complain

Taking Action on Writing A Review

What makes a customer more or less likely to grab the keyboard/pad and write a review? Psychology suggests that the more emotionally charged a person is, and the more they like to share, the more likely they are to take action - be it positive or negative. Of course, they need to be in a place able to write the review at that time. The more time that lapses, the less chance they will write the review. And that’s where review emails come in. Just a little nudge reminding that customer they had something to say. Be it good, or bad.

2 Easy & Creative Way To Change Your Review Trajectory

It’s all about expectations. If you exceed expectations, you can guarantee a great review is coming your way, unasked. If you fail miserably and disappoint, reviewers will go out of their way to write about it. Because it is the expectation that sets the reviewer up for the rollercoaster of emotions that happens once they buy something. If there is a lot riding on something (in their mind) and you fail to deliver, it will be an instant and swift bad review. The same is true for those ravingly epic reviews talking about how you exceeded my expectations! and other similar statements.

So we need to manage expectations by this rule: Sell good stuff and be honest about it.

1. Product. Does it meet certain customer expectations? If not. change it (then write about it in your PD)

2. Copy. Does it oversell or undersell, creating false expectation? If so, change it. Listen to what your customers are saying and review your listing to see if you are making any claims, using any SEO or even just random words that may convey a false message.

3. BONUS TIP: Get Reviews Email. A great place to remind customers how great you are while reminding them to write a review. Make sure it’s true!

That’s it. Just by appealing to the psychology of expectations, emotion and action taking, you can uplift your review score. It’s a simple concept that might take a little effort to execute. But the result I guarantee you is a solid and consistent improvement in your product reviews.