I just found out that if I send a customer a review request but they don't click it, there isn't a way the system can automatically send a follow up reminder to the customer asking for the review, meaning to do this, I would have to make a note of who did and did not click the review request email, and then manually create a new follow up template, and then manually send to them again. It would be highly useful if the system could do this automatically like some of the other rep management platforms do out of the box.
The other thing, is do not think that the system is able to send a review request to both the mobile # as well as the email at the same time. I can send a review request to either the mobile or the email, but not both. This is an issue because if a customer asks for both I can't send them both plus I can't re-enter their information again in the system. I could be misunderstanding how the system works but I haven't found a way around these limitations.
If Vendasta could solve this it would make the platform more versatile and would remove unnecessary friction using the service.
Hey everyone! Great conversation—we hear you!
These are all big pain points that our Customer Voice team will be addressing and solving this year! ? We will be introducing campaign functionality, meaning you can not only automate review requests for new customers but also schedule a follow-up email to go out in a set number of days if the first one was not opened or not clicked. You will also be able to send it to either the customer's email, mobile, or both!
Chris, sounds like you understand that the biggest advantage of using the first party workflow is allowing customers to have a voice without going and "yelping" about their bad experience all over public review sites. Capturing negative feedback on a more private forum allows the business to hear the feedback without it doing damage to their reputation. And, I like your suggestion of the ?? option, but I wonder if it's veering too close to review gating... something to look into.
I like how https://www.brightlocal.com/reputation-manager/get-reviews/ does it:
Anyone interested in giving Movylo (www.movylo.com) a try? That's a part of what we do, to help with automated follow ups that generate engagement and extra clicks/sales.
Hope this is not off-topic on an existing Vendasta tool (sorry in case!), but if not and that goal can be achieved with a solution integrated with Vendasta...maybe Movylo could do.
There's the free Express plan here with Vendasta for you to try and we'd love to hear your feedback on it!
Great suggestion, funny I was looking that that today. It's actually easy enough to go through the list and see if a customer has opened the email or not, check the box and then re-send, but it's still another manual process that most will want to do without.
Also, I've never understood the whole first party listing site concept with Customer Voice - who would want to put their reviews onto an unknown platform, especially when customers are far less likely to then manually re-review the business on a proper review site? It would be way better to be able to bypass this feature in the settings and have an option to send the user to a simple interstitial with a thumbs up/down option - if they click thumbs up they are diverted to the preferred 3rd party review site; if thumbs down they are take to a private feedback form
I agree with you, I was a little bit surprised Vendasta doesn't offer the followup feature, it's not like they are a stranger to automation. And there are many rep management platforms that do the automated follow up thing as a standard every day feature, Birdeye, Grade Us, etc come to mind. It's just baked into their feature set out of the gate. They will create a drip campaign where if the recipient didn't open or click on the first one, they'll get a friendly reminder in a couple of days. They also will send the review request to both the email and the mobile # at the same time, letting the recipient choose the method most convenient. Vendasta only does one or the other not both so there are additional constraints the customer has to adapt to.
To be fair, I am not trying to say disparaging things about the platform. We very much like the platform. It does a lot of good things. The frustration is having to use a feature-rich, highly dynamic platform that juuuuuuuuuuuuust stops short of having particular features that other platforms have as standard.
Hey Paige - great point about possible review gating. Maybe you could use the same things that reduces the likelihood of a second review to offer the ability to review (but reduce the chance that they actually do).
So after they have given feedback, present something like (this is badly worded, but you get the gist): "Thank you for your valuable feedback. We review all comments personally, so please bear with us. In the mean time you are welcome to leave us a public review at the link below, or wait for us to review your feedback and come back to you to try and make it right."
Either that, or is there some way of being able to load the chosen review site and have it auto-populate with the same review they just left on the listing page? Or perhaps load the review site within an iFrame window and give the user a simple "copy" icon next to their My Listing review.
Thanks Chris! There are definitely ways we could remove friction so that reviewers are more likely to share their positive reviews on a public site. I like this idea and I've already spoken with the Product Manager about your suggestions and we're going to look into it!
Hey everyone! Love the conversation happening here.
The Customer Voice team is currently working on automatic review request reminders. If you'd like to be a trusted truster—be the first to try it and offer your feedback—please email me at psutherland@vendasta.com ?
Looking forward to delivering this much-needed feature!