Why Reviews Matter More Than You Think And How to Actually Get Them

Let’s talk about one of the most underrated, powerful tools in your business toolkit REVIEWS. They cost you nothing but can absolutely skyrocket your credibility and sales. And yet… so many of you forget to ask for them, or don’t know how to use them to their full potential. Sound familiar?

In this episode, I’m diving into:

• Why reviews are way more powerful than any marketing copy you could write yourself
• How they boost your website conversions, SEO, and even wholesale success
• The exact tools I recommend to automate the whole process (no awkward follow-ups needed)
• Where to put reviews on your website to maximise their impact
• Clever ways to ask for them (without sounding desperate or robotic)
• And why YOU need to be giving reviews too—not just asking for them!

Whether you’re selling direct-to-consumer, through retail stores, or wholesaling to stockists, reviews matter. And if you’re not collecting them (and using them!) you’re leaving money and trust on the table.

🛠 Tools I mention in the episode:

• Trustpilot
• Judge.me
• Loox (perfect for visual reviews with customer pics)
• Stamped.io
• Yotpo
• Google Forms for post-program feedback

💬 Quick reminder:
If you’ve ever listened to an episode and thought “Omg that helped so much,” please scroll down in Apple Podcasts and leave a review. It means the world to me and keeps this podcast going. Plus, I read every single one!

🎯 This episode is for you if:
→ You’re running a product-based brand or retail store
→ You want to build trust fast and boost your online sales
→ You need better copy but don’t have time to write it—use your customer words instead!

Let’s get those reviews working for you.

 Take 30 seconds to scroll down and leave a review on Apple Podcasts—it’s free for you and priceless for me!

Transcript

Mel Robbins (00:00)
and welcome to today's podcast. My name is Melissa Robbins I am a Product -based Business Coach, Mentor and Consultant. Today we're diving into something that cost you nothing but builds your credibility, drives sales and yet so many business owners forget to do it. And what I'm talking about is getting reviews and using the reviews that you get. I'm going to share why they're more powerful than you think and how to get more without feeling awkward and also the exact tools that I recommend to automate it as well.

know about you but reviews for me are so crucial in my decision making. I don't

lately, of course the first thing you look at is reviews to make sure that it's legit and

the pillows are comfortable, it's not too noisy, they provide everything that you need. when you go on all those bigger marketplaces and websites, the Amazon, Etsy, all those things, they are based off reviews. You can get more...

the sales are going to increase when you have more reviews. Whenever I am purchasing from a new website, I want to know that people have had a good experience with that website.

If I'm looking for a hotel, I'm looking for

new service provider in any way, I'm always going to look at the reviews because you're going to find out information there that you don't find out from anywhere else.

And the truth, and vice versa too, if there's no reviews at all, I'm gonna be really reluctant to make that purchase because I just don't know

So why are reviews non-negotiable? Number one.

Number one, it builds social proof. People trust what other people are saying over marketing or you telling everyone else how amazing you are. it's going to have much more cut through when it's coming from someone else. It improves your SEO. People are talking about particular areas of product, and it also improves that product page conversions. If people see five star reviews or lots of different reviews on that product, they know that it is more trustworthy. It gives you priceless copy too. You literally have the words that people use.

for your best marketing copy. You can use the language that they use to explain your product or to explain why people have thought your product was different to other people's as well. And then for wholesale brands as well, if you're wholesaling, retail is obviously a customer's too and they want to know that if your product sells through quickly or how good you are at responding to customer service, store buyers are much more likely to take a chance if they see that you're getting customer love from other people as

and of course they can be repurposed into your marketing, into your catalogs, into your emails that you're sending out too. So the reviews from all sides, whether it's direct-to-consumer, e-commerce or wholesale can be super, super valuable.

And

little bit of data for you here as well. 92 % of consumers hesitate to buy if there are no reviews. And I had a few people say to me at the trade show recently previous clients of mine say they've had a few people come up and to ask them about their experience with me working with me. And so, you know, that just hold that word of mouth social proof. It's so important. So, you know, they were saying to me that they, they trusted the other brands judgment clearly more than what I'm going to say about my service.

they wanted to know what the other people's experience had been like. And going straight to that source of those other people. they were able to tell me that they'd offered, thankfully, great reviews for my services as well. So that was really lovely.

So on your website, you should make sure that you are listing them on your homepage and they should either be in a scrolling format or sort of a scrolling format where there's sort of lots of them coming along all at once. And ideally you've got more than two or three on there. You've got lots of different reviews on there.

and have it on your product page and have your star rating listed just under your product name as well. So having your reviews there but also a position where people can click and read more and they can, know, maybe it's further down the page on your product page where people can go and read more reviews about something as well. So two places to put the reviews on your website.

that's all well and good to use those reviews but how do get more of them in the first place without sort of feeling weird about it and a bit salesy too as well. The thing is you have to just ask and most people are more than happy to help but they just need a little bit of prompting and this is where those crucial automations come in that makes such a big difference. Email post purchase flow so have that automated it's automatically going out

and it's having a spot for them to place that review. Personal follow-ups for high touch, getting people to actually respond to you personally.

When you deliver your order in your unboxing experience, have a leave a review card and have an option to scan something and straight away give that review. Incentivise if you need to offer a 10 % off the next purchase when they go through the process of adding that review. Or maybe they go into a monthly giveaway draw when they provide that review.

What doesn't work is waiting for people to do it on their own because they're probably not going to. Varying your review section at the bottom of a page so people aren't going to see it or they're not going to know that they can click through and do it there. And sounding desperate or robotic so you don't need to be doing that either. So how do we automate it? How do we make it easy? What are some of the apps that you can use? A few suggestions of clients use a few different ones of these as well. You've got things like Trustpilot, you've got judge.me, you've got looks which is L-O-O-X.

It's great for visual reviews with customer photos as well. You've got stamps.io, which is really good for loyalty and things as well. And then you've got Yoatt Pro, which is great for scaling up and stuff as well. And for product-based brand selling wholesale, ideally you would have, might be a verbal review that someone gives you, or maybe it is a reply to an email that you can then put into a Canva template. Maybe you use a Google form to sort of capture your reviews and capture information back.

I do that at the end of most of my programs and courses. have a Google review form where I get you to fill out what your experience has been, what you found good or bad, what feedback I can get, and then just a follow up with what can I do to improve this all the time as well. Adding that in allows me to get like, how do I make these things better? I want my programs and offers to always be improving, and I want you to be able to have a space for that feedback as well.

really important to do. And then using those, you know, making sure you use those either in your social or on your website as I said, in your email, maybe even printed on certain things if it's your catalogs and or certain packaging could work as well. So using them in all those sales materials too.

look sometimes it can feel a bit weird to do it and to ask but I think it is just something that you just gotta keep doing and keep doing it again and again.

going to put this on stories on Instagram after this as well where I go on and ask for reviews again for my podcast. if you're listening right now and you haven't given me a review yet, please, please, please go and do it. I spoke to someone today again in person and they said to me how much they love the podcast and thank you so much for creating the podcast. But I said to them, have you actually placed a review yet? I would so appreciate it. And they said, my gosh, you know what? I know that you say that at the end of every episode, but I haven't.

done it yet. So I'm asking you now if you're listening and you have taken any little snippet of information out of the podcast and it's helped you in any way at all please go on to your Apple podcast app afterwards and that's where you can leave a review. Scroll all the way down to the end of the show and there's a spot for you to leave a review.

But I would so appreciate it if you can go and do that. If this podcast has helped in any way at all in your business, I would love it if you could leave a review on there. And on that note, I wanna read out one that I got from someone else, which I really appreciate it. So I'm gonna read it out.

So as a little example, I met Nikki at a trade show a couple of years ago and I said to her, you know, really love getting feedback on the podcast. she sent me this email, which is amazing. So, hey, Mel, hope you're well. I listened this morning to my walk to your podcast with Nareen from Marmoset Found and I'd missed that one and I just loved the chat. I found so many parallels with my business model and the way she lives and works and it's great to listen to and I related to everything she said. Of course, she's, you know, different down the track and in different space to me, but she articulates.

relates her journey so well. I also related to the concept of finding that sweet spot in the middle of the market. And she loved what she'd said about stock management, development, price, instructor, wholesale, website, photography, shipping costs, all of it, she loved it. So it was so relatable to what she was experiencing.

And he goes on to say, I know you like getting feedback, so I just wanted to share this with you. So thank you so much, Nikki, for that feedback, and thank you for listening. And I'm gonna read one more out as well.

Kay Cara said, practical and entertaining. Thank you so much Mel for your fun, informative, and always relevant podcast episodes. I always take away at least one invaluable lesson, if not more, from each episode that I can then apply to running of my own small business. They keep me motivated, they're concise, and on track, and both you and your guests share such honest, interesting, and relatable accounts of your own experiences. So thank

you. Thank you Kay Kara, that's amazing. then yeah always great to get them so I really would so appreciate if you can provide a review I would love that.

I read every review that comes in and honestly they keep this podcast going. So knowing that people are actually getting valuable insights from this with podcasts I get you know I can see numbers I can see downloads but I can't see you know what you have taken from it and if you like particular type of episodes or which things work. So I would so appreciate if you could pop a quick review in when you're listening and it's free for you to do but it makes a huge difference to me as well and something for that to keep in mind for when you're buying other people's products too if you think this

This is amazing, I really love this. It has made my life easier or I cannot believe how good it smells. I cannot believe how amazing this product fits into my home or whatever it might be that you've purchased. Remember to give that person a review and follow up and give them some insights. And then also for your own brand, for your own product business, for your own retail store, ask for that review and put them on your website, share them as many places as possible because

people read them and they make a huge difference for when people are, you know, that conversion on your website, people are deciding whether to buy something or not, that decision making comes back to what other people think of that as well and other people's insights. So at any time or place that you can provide a review, do so and in any time or place that you can ask for a review, then please do so as well so you can get that feedback from people, you can make some changes, you can make some edits, you can improve what's going on.

on as well and really maximise and so you can keep getting better and better as well. So I hope this has been helpful. I know it's a short little episode but I wanted just to touch on that you need reviews, you need to ask for reviews, you need to give reviews and any feedback is welcome as well. So appreciate you listening. Thank you so much and I look forward to sharing more with you next week. Alright, bye.

Helping brands, retailers and product-based businesses start-up, build solid foundations and grow and scale is my favourite job in the world. Knowing I can help save you money, increase your profit and build the business of your dreams is my dream!!