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Consumer feedback has long been a great way to learn what aspects of your product did (and didn’t) resonate with shoppers. In the era of online reviews, it’s become the single biggest key to building confidence with those who might be considering purchasing your product. For every genuine and positive product review a consumer sees about your products, another stamp of approval nudges them closer to conversion and lifetime loyalty.
As consumers continue to research products prior to purchase, reviews have become a more crucial piece of the buyer journey, acting as a form of social proof.
Reviews from shoppers who share positive experiences and recommend the product can build your overall authenticity, trustworthiness, and digital visibility for those who are just discovering your brand. For CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands, building a positive and credible online presence through reviews can support long-term brand growth. Yet sometimes, getting those product reviews and opinions from the masses may be a challenge, so let’s review some of the ways to build up your overall consumer feedback.
Ask for it
It sounds simple, but this first step is often overlooked. The best way to collect product reviews and start growing your consumer feedback is to take a critical look at your buyer journey and ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for shoppers to reach you. That means whenever someone makes a purchase, online or offline, ensure that you have some form of mechanism to prompt a review.
Whether it’s in the email purchase order, via SMS text, or a card in a bag at retail locations, make sure that every touchpoint includes a no-fuss feedback loop for consumers. Most importantly? Make it as easy and seamless as possible to increase the odds that they’ll share their experience with your product.
Use incentives carefully
Consumers get asked to review many types of products and brands on a daily basis, which can make it difficult to cut through all of the noise and connect with them. Incentives can encourage participation, but brands need to follow the rules of the platform where a review will appear and applicable advertising requirements.
If you offer a discount, free sample, or another benefit in exchange for a review, don’t require or imply that the review must be positive. Material incentives should be clearly disclosed, and some platforms prohibit incentivized reviews altogether. Check the relevant platform policy before using this approach.
Use QR codes
From direct advertising to product packaging, there are plenty of places that brands can add a QR code that consumers can easily scan on-the-go and be redirected to a place to leave product reviews. QR codes can make the feedback process easier and allow brands to measure engagement with the review request. They also create an experience where shoppers can quickly scan and submit feedback while the product experience is still fresh.
For example
Example of a direct review QR code
Socialize your reviews
Social media channels are an incredibly useful tool when it comes to product reviews, as consumers often use these platforms to discover products and see what other shoppers are saying about them.
With this in mind, social proofing has made it more important than ever to include your hard-earned product reviews on relevant social media business channels. By doing so, you’ll allow those who come across your brand to see what their peers are saying and extend the reach of word-of-mouth marketing for your products.
Consider a digital sampling program
Digital product sampling can be a useful way to generate product feedback. By getting samples into the hands of consumers and asking them to provide an honest online review, you’re able to combine product trial with feedback collection. Any review generated through a free sample should follow the disclosure requirements and review policies of the platform where it appears.
Digital sampling can help brands reach their target market, receive candid product feedback, increase consumer feedback collection, and get products physically into the hands of relevant shoppers. It combines word-of-mouth, product trial, and experiential marketing while giving consumers a chance to share their experience.
It can also help you collect deeper insights about your target consumers. Learn more about their thoughts on the product, whether they plan on purchasing it in the future, and if they would recommend it to a friend. Ask comparative questions relative to other CPG brands, and whether there’s anything specific they’d change about the product.
Combined, these insights not only give you a fuller view into how your product resonates with consumers today, but can also help you understand where to take your brand in the future.
Actively engage with reviews
Consumer engagement, especially in the digital marketing industry, is important for brands looking for strong relationships with reviewers. Brands that value product feedback should respond thoughtfully to both positive and negative reviews when it makes sense.
Responding to positive reviews
Responding to negative reviews
The example responses above show other potential customers that your brand listens to and values the time people took to share their experiences.
Provide superior customer support
When consumers leave product reviews, it’s often about more than just the product—it’s about the brand behind it. A strong product can still receive a lower rating when the surrounding customer experience or support falls short.
Consumers increasingly expect to be able to reach a company quickly and get their questions or issues resolved in a timely manner. Don’t let something that can be easily managed affect the ratings on those product reviews that come your way.
Remember that every consumer touchpoint, from a thank you email to a product sampling program, is another way to engage and receive consumer feedback.
Keep the process simple
While it can be tempting to try and get as much information out of consumers as possible, it’s often best to avoid unnecessarily long surveys. Consumers are busy—asking them to complete a lengthy questionnaire can be overwhelming, requires a high level of effort on their part, and will likely result in lower engagement. Even with an incentive, extremely cumbersome survey experiences can make consumers feel like giving feedback isn’t worthwhile.
Whether it’s a quick thumbs up or down, a one-sentence review, or a simple star rating, keep it as simple as possible to increase your chances of getting real feedback.
Build lasting relationships
Product reviews are a useful indicator of which consumers are most engaged with your brand. Brands that win at loyalty can see product reviews as the beginning of a long-term consumer relationship. Based on the feedback given, brands can create more personalized marketing touchpoints around product attributes, star ratings, and other relevant signals, subject to applicable privacy and marketing rules.
For consumers who have given high ratings and shown engagement, this can be an opportunity to nurture the relationship further with special offers, loyalty programs, and VIP incentives. For consumers who gave a less desirable rating, use their feedback to understand what went wrong and, where appropriate, address the issue before trying to re-engage them.
Track everything in one place
Once the product reviews start to roll in, it can be challenging to sift through thousands of ratings and find actionable takeaways. Using a centralized system to collect reviews, analyze consumer sentiment, and identify trends can help brands manage feedback at scale.
Indellia vs. Wonderflow – overview
Wonderflow has a strong presence among large European CPG and consumer electronics brands, with a focus on multilingual feedback, brand performance, loyalty, and consumer insights. Indellia is more US-focused and combines product review analysis with feedback from support tickets, returns, surveys, social media, and other sources. The choice between the two really comes down to what your brand needs. Wonderflow may be a better fit for large international brands looking to analyze consumer feedback across markets and languages.
Useful questions include:
- Where did the product reviews come from (emails, calls to action, social media, direct)?
- What are consumers saying about your product?
- Are the reviews negative? And if so, are they about a specific area that you can improve?
- Are the reviews referring to a specific SKU or the brand as a whole?
- Based on the feedback, can you refine your target audience or consumer profile?
- How can you build these insights into your business objectives?
Having a centralized tool to store this information and support the appropriate action can make product review analysis easier and help teams identify recurring themes across products and channels.
Find the right long-term strategy for your brand
Collecting, syndicating, and amplifying product reviews can be a hefty task for any brand. With all of the work that goes into building brand loyalty, it’s important to use tools and processes that help you sort and understand exactly what your consumers are saying at scale.
The right long-term approach should make it easy to request genuine feedback, respond to consumers, monitor recurring themes, and maintain a steady flow of recent reviews without compromising authenticity or platform policies.
About the author
Anatolii Oslovskyi is a Senior SEO Engineer at Rankability.ae, a UAE-based SEO and digital marketing agency. He helps brands grow through social media, organic search, and paid search. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/seomonkua.
