TL;DR
- Responding to positive customer reviews, as shown by companies like Jersey Watch, creates a strong impression of customer care and enhances company reputation. Most companies overlook this, focusing more on negative reviews for damage control, but acknowledging satisfied customers is equally important.
- Best practices for responding to positive feedback include quick replies, showing appreciation for the customer's effort. Quick response times, comparable to handling support tickets, are crucial.
- Genuine expressions of gratitude, such as personalized "thank you" messages, are effective. Highlighting specific positive aspects mentioned by customers in their reviews makes them feel heard and appreciated.
- Use Claire, our review reply assistant custom GPT to help you craft good review responses.
You've landed on this post wanting to know the best way to respond to positive reviews. Here's some encouraging news. If you're responding to positive reviews, regardless of how well you're doing it, you're already ahead.For some anecdotal evidence, we picked five US-based software companies at random on Trustpilot, and here's what we found:
- Four out of five companies didn't respond to positive reviews. The one company that did, Jersey Watch, replied to 99.6% of positive reviews.
- On average, the companies responded to 49% of negative reviews. This suggests a higher priority is placed on damage control instead of acknowledging your most satisfied customers.
- Four out of five companies didn't respond to over 96% of reviews on Trustpilot.
[ninja_tables id="2056"]The contrast in how you perceive Jersey Watch compared to the other companies on this list is striking. Jersey Watch feels like a company that deeply cares about its customers and reputation. While the other businesses have excellent ratings, they lack the extra trust-building bonus points.Wouldn't you be more inclined to leave a positive review — or even sign up — after seeing that the company responds every single time?Now, this is one platform and a tiny sample size. But if you do the same exercise on various review websites and marketplaces, you'll see that this is a recurring theme. And unsurprisingly, Jersey Watch is just as proactive in responding to reviews on other platforms. To drive home this point, G2 surveyed over 700 B2B buyers in 2021 and found that 86% use peer-review sites when purchasing software. By merely responding to positive reviews, you're differentiating your business. But there's still great value in thinking about how you reply to customer feedback to stand out to existing and prospective users. You don’t want to come across as too general or disingenuous. Next, we'll examine five examples of how businesses successfully respond to positive reviews and share the best practices from these case studies to scale your reputation management.
#1 Jersey Watch - Leveraging review response templates on Capterra
Capterra is a free online marketplace that helps people choose the right software by connecting buyers with technology vendors in the software industry. Capterra's review system gathers detailed feedback from users in different industries, going beyond simple star ratings. Users discuss aspects like ease of use, features, customer support, and overall satisfaction.Only a fraction of companies respond to reviews on Capterra, to the point that you’d think it wasn’t even an available feature on the platform. With so few responses, there’s a glaring opportunity to stand out. And that’s precisely what Jersey Watch, a tool tailored to help volunteers manage sports organizations in the US and Canada, has done.The Jersey Watch team uses a template for their replies.
Addressing reviewers by their first name, as seen in the response to Mark's positive review, creates a connection that goes beyond the transactional nature of the review. This personalization adds a human element to the communication.Jersey Watch takes it further by acknowledging specific details about the user's experience. In Mark's case, the reference to his wrestling club demonstrates a keen understanding of the user's context. This showcases a deep level of attentiveness and reinforces the idea that each customer and their unique needs are valued.
#2 Setmore - Trustpilot positive review responses
Trustpilot, a colossal online review platform boasting over 167 million reviews, is a crucial arena for technology companies. For SaaS tools, Trustpilot has become a trusted space where millions of users share genuine experiences, influencing potential customers and solidifying these companies' reputations.As mentioned above, so much opportunity remains as many businesses fail to respond to positive feedback on Trustpilot. Then, companies like TermsFeed write the same response to every review.
Sure, responding to reviews is better than not responding. But we can do better than repeating, “Thank you for your feedback!”.A good example of responding to positive reviews on Trustpilot is Setmore, a popular appointment-setting tool.
Setmore's response reflects a thoughtful and appreciative approach. Michelle from the Setmore team acknowledges the user, Rennie, by name, expressing gratitude for their positive feedback and emphasizing the significance of their endorsement, particularly given Rennie's 20 years of experience in the mental health field. By stating, "It's great to hear that you have found it to be the best app for client management," Setmore appreciates the compliment and reinforces its commitment to providing a top-tier service. Michelle also encourages Rennie to continue reaching out, demonstrating Setmore's enthusiasm for seeing users succeed.
#3 YNAB - Adding personality to review responses on the App Store
The app store review system is pivotal in the digital marketplace, particularly on platforms like the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, where almost 5 million apps are available. Notably, positive reviews wield significant influence, impacting an app's ranking and visibility, underscoring the critical importance of the developer community actively engaging with user feedback.The YNAB app, or You Need A Budget, is hailed as an excellent cash flow management tool that stands out for its flexibility and dynamic approach to budgeting. The team has done a fantastic job responding to positive feedback on the Apple App Store.
YNAB's reply to a positive app store review is friendly and grateful. In this example, Caitlin from the YNAB team thanked Catherine for her detailed feedback and mentioned that they're improving the areas she highlighted. She also shared that the app's startup process is now simpler. It's worth noting that sometimes, usernames on the App Store don't show the user's real name, making it challenging to reference users personally in responses.It’s fair to assume that the username CatherineB58 suggests the user's name is Catherine.In the following example, however, it’s unclear if the username “Berrivas” is the real name, so Catherine does not address the user by name in her response — opening with “Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review.”
#4 Tradify - A perfect Google review response
Google Maps has a review system that allows users to provide feedback on businesses based on location, offering insights into their experiences. While this system is widespread in the local service and retail sectors, it's less common in the SaaS industry with global audiences. However, for SaaS companies, cultivating positive reviews on platforms like Google Maps can significantly boost SEO rankings and increase search traffic. Tradify, a job management tool for tradespeople, has over 250 Google Reviews with a 4.8-star average rating. One big reason for their success is their thoughtful replies to customer feedback.
Tradify's response to a positive Google review reflects a personable and appreciative approach. The acknowledgment of Elevate Roofing's positive experience with Tradify is warm and expresses gratitude for the recommendation.The use of emojis, like 🙌, adds a friendly touch, creating a fun interaction.
#5 1Password - Responding to positive reviews on G2
G2 is a popular website where users can review various types of software, making it a solid alternative to platforms like Capterra.1Password is a premium password manager known for its exceptional security, user-friendly interface, and seamless integration with various platforms and browsers.The 1Password team is active in responding to feedback on G2. However, the quality of responses varies. First, look at a good example of a reply:
In their review of 1Password on G2, the user, Ramiro, commends the software as the "Best password manager" they've ever used. Ramiro specifically highlights the ease of integration with various apps across multiple devices and the convenient grouping feature for organizing passwords based on different environments. Ramiro also addresses potential concerns about internet dependency and security, expressing a positive disagreement with those concerns.In his response, Blake Brandon of 1Password promptly (within three days) and appreciatively acknowledges Ramiro for the "great 5-star review" and their support. Blake addresses Ramiro's concern about internet dependency by informing them about 1Password's built-in offline mode, assuring that users can still access shared data even without an active internet connection on the device.This is a good example of focusing on positive sentiments while swiftly addressing minor concerns.However, if you look at all the reviews on 1Password’s G2 page, you’ll see some that use the same templated response: “Thanks so much for taking the time to leave us a review. We’re so glad you’ve had such a positive experience with 1Password and really appreciate you letting us know. “This response is okay but lacks personalization. 1Password’s reputation management on G2 is a lesson in consistency, as some reactions can bring down the quality of others.
Best practices when responding to positive reviews
After analyzing various ways in which companies respond to positive feedback across different platforms, we can see recurring themes and best practices to implement in your reputation management process.
Track your teams' responsiveness to reviews
When you respond quickly to reviews, you show that you appreciate and value your customers' efforts.Just as SaaS businesses measure response time to support tickets, you can report similar metrics for reputation management. Tracking how quickly you respond to positive or negative feedback can be a valuable metric for your customer success team. What’s the ideal response time? It will depend on your process and resources. Most examples above respond to reviews within two to three days.According to a survey by ReviewTrackers, 53% of customers expect businesses to respond to negative reviews within a week, and one in three expect a reply in three days. It’s reasonable to assume a similar expectation for responses to positive reviews, even though they may not be as “urgent” as negative reviews.
Say thank you
A simple "thank you" can go a long way. Express genuine gratitude for the positive feedback. Make it personal and specific to the customer's experience to convey sincerity.To get started, here are four ways to say thank you:
- "Thank you so much for your kind words."
- "We’re grateful for your positive feedback.”
- "We can't thank you enough for your wonderful review.”
- "Your positive feedback made our day!”
Highlight the positive
When responding to positive reviews, reiterate the positive aspects mentioned by the customer. Point out details or features they liked so they feel heard while giving your product a chance to shine. If a customer says they loved your software's user-friendly interface, you can respond by saying, "We're thrilled to hear that you found our software's user-friendly interface helpful.”
Use AI to scale your replies
AI and automation help you respond quickly to reviews, so you can spend more time adding personal touches to responses.Be smart about it however. We've seen how templated, robotic answers can have a catastrophic effect on your brand image rather than help. Luckily, we've built a custom GPT to help with replying to your reviews, whether they're positive or negative. It leverages thousands of reviews and replies to build straight to the point suggestions.It's as simple as copy-pasting a review inside the GPT window, and watch it write up a reply. You can access it and use it for free here.Make sure you edit the reply to suit your brand voice and double check everything before publishing.When using AI to respond to positive customer reviews, be cautious of generic replies that lack specificity. Inappropriate tone or misinterpretation of customer sentiment can also be problematic. Train the AI model using diverse datasets that include nuanced customer feedback. Implement sentiment analysis to provide tailored responses, and regularly refine the model to align with your brand. Avoid overusing specific phrases and prioritize personalization to add authentic touches to your responses.
Automatically share feedback with your team
Recognize and share compliments with team members who contributed to the positive experience. This increases morale and demonstrates to customers that their feedback impacts your team.To effectively share reviews about team members, use internal workflows and tools like integrating a Slack bot with your review management system. Here's an example of how this integration can work:
- Set up a Slack channel dedicated to sharing positive reviews and customer feedback.
- Connect Slack with your review management system to receive automatic notifications whenever you receive a positive review that mentions a team member.
- When a review is received, the bot can notify the relevant team member's Slack channel, ensuring they know the positive feedback.
Invite customers to re-engage
Express a desire to serve the customer again. Use phrases like "See you in the forums" or "Feel free to reach out anytime." This helps build a connection and encourages repeat business.
