Reviews are an important part of any business. With couples becoming more and more technology-savvy as the years go by, it’s more important than ever to make sure you have strong online reviews for your business. And a lot of them.
To help you with your reviews process, we chatted with three wedding businesses who have recently been highly-successful at asking for, and getting, reviews. Here’s what they had to say about their reviews process, how they improved them, and the results they’ve seen.
Ben from Flower Head Events
“We like to personalise the way that we ask for reviews. We find this makes our emails more likely to stand out and couples are more likely to want to review us. We try and find ways to go above and beyond to make our services and products a bit different.
We’ve found that contacting a couple after the wedding works well for our process. Couples are still on a high from their big day. They remember everything fondly plus might not have left for their honeymoon just yet.”
“Rather than asking for the review, we send a congratulations message. It helps make them feel like we actually care more about their day. Sending them a message like “I loved creating the flowers for your wedding and we hope they were everything you dreamed of” is a beautiful way to connect after the day. If they respond and tell us that they did love their flowers, we ask for the review.
Making it more personal makes it stand out a bit more. Think about it from the perspective of a couple. They’re probably receiving emails from every supplier the day after their wedding! So the less generic your message is, the more it will stand out.”
“At the end of 2019, we set ourselves a goal of getting the reviews we’d missed that year. We started to reach out to the 200 weddings we’d worked in 2019 where we hadn’t received a review.
We dedicated two weeks to the exercise. We categorised every wedding we’d worked on in a spreadsheet and how long it had been since the wedding. Then we were able to send a personalised email with something like “can you believe it’s been X months and X days since your wedding?”
Again, we ask them from a personal level for the review before actually sending them the review. “Would you be able to spare a few minutes to support our family business with a review?” If they respond with yes, then we sent the link through. This worked really well for us and we were able to get 40 reviews, just from taking the time to go through our process and try and get the reviews we hadn’t asked for.
A lot of businesses don’t want to ask for a review too early, and then after they’ve waited they think it’s too late. We made the mistake of not asking ourselves for a long time. But at the end of the day, it’s better to ask for a review at the wrong time than to not ask at all.”
Sam from Sam Lavery : The Celebrant
“My reviews were a bit hit and miss to start out with, so I looked into my process. I found I was waiting too long to ask for the review. I would go anywhere between three days or even a week to ask for the review. Sometimes it would work, but often couples had gone on their honeymoon or even back to work and were back in reality. I definitely wasn’t getting as many reviews as I could have.
I tried a few different things, but the one I settled on was asking for the review the day after with a two-email contact. The first email I send a couple is to tell them congratulations! As a celebrant, I also have to submit their legal paperwork, so I can let them know that this is submitted and that they should be able to request their marriage certificate in a few weeks. This is a great way to keep in touch with the couple on a personal level but also let them know that I’m completing the services that they’ve paid for.”
“I then send another templated email asking for the review. This used to be in the same email, but I found that by separating it I was able to get better results. The subject line for this email fits with my brand and is also a bit fun on a personal level: “reviews pretty please.”
I tailor my email around something like: “Sorry I’ll stop spamming you soon. But reviews make the celebrant world go round and I would love it if you could please leave me a review.” It acknowledges that I’ve sent them two emails on the same day because we know couples hate being spammed. That email will include a link to my storefront, Google, or wherever I want them to leave the review.
I’m generally able to get a review from one-third of my weddings this way. Which means that in busy periods when I’m working on two to three weddings a week I can get at least one review per week.”
“I also keep track of the reviews when they come in so I can respond to them all. I know this can help with other couples enquiring, so I’m happy to do any little thing that will help me get more leads.
The process itself isn’t complicated, but I’ve found getting in early is key. I’d recommend to any business to have a template to ask for reviews. This will make it easier for you. You also need to test what works best for your business, so don’t be afraid to try different things.”
Nicky from Sweet Floral
“We’ve actually been doing exactly what we were told at EVOLVE2019 and it has done wonders for the process of our reviews. We built a template and send it out one month after the wedding asking for a review.”
“One thing we pride ourselves on is our excellent customer service and keeping a strong connection with our couples before and after the wedding. Making this connection is really important to us because it means that we have a relationship with all our couples, and it’s not just about their flowers. We find that this relationship really helps our reviews process.
We always make sure to touch base the day before with a picture of what they can expect for their wedding. It could be a picture of the main bouquet, but this gets couples really excited ahead of their wedding. It’s also a really nice way of us reassuring them and letting them know that they’re getting what they ordered when they might be having some pre-wedding jitters.
This means that when we do reach out after the wedding couples are usually very open to leaving us a review. We usually get one in every five reviews we ask for. We ask for reviews on Easy Weddings as well as on Facebook, and a lot of couples do decide to give both.”
“We’ve worked on making our first ask for reviews really strong because we don’t have a followup process. It’s just my husband and I and we’re a small team, so we find that we don’t have the time. I know a lot of other wedding businesses are in the same situation so I would recommend perfecting your initial ask if you find you don’t have the time to keep chasing reviews.
We also find that a lot of other businesses are afraid of asking for a review in case they get a bad one. But at the end of the day if you don’t ask then you don’t get. At the end of the day, the risk and the benefit is worth it.”
Read more advice for your wedding business here.
Did you know: If you’re online with Easy Weddings you could be eligible for our 2019 Supplier Awards. All you need to do is achieve five or more 5-star reviews before June 30, 2020 and have an average rating of 4.7 stars of above to be eligible.
