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Can A Company Ask Clients To Leave Reviews?
Within certain limits, yes. Before you tell your marketing department to go wild, read the rules carefully.
1. Even if employees also use the service or product, they are NOT permitted to leave a review. When my moderators catch a company self-reviewing, the penalties are severe. You can learn more about that by CLICKING HERE.
2. IBs or other affiliates have a business relationship that goes beyond being a simple client. They have a vested interest in the company being well-rated. Never ask them to leave a review.
3. No form of compensation may be offered in exchange for submitting a review or that review being published by the FPA. Compensation is only cash. Offering a free indicator. a bonus, or any other incentive beyond saying "Thanks for leaving a review." is offering compensation. The FPA considers compensated reviews, from clients or from non-clients, to be just as unethical as self-reviews by employees. Like self-reviews, if the FPA detects this form of unethical behavior, the relevant reviews will be set to Zero stars.
4. Any request for a review must be for an honest review. Specifically requesting a good review is also an ethics violation and is likely a legal violation in some countries.
5. Never send a bulk mailing to your clients, an announcement to a live chat room, or any other form of mass request for reviews. Think about it. Sometimes a company can go months without getting a review. If that company suddenly gets dozens of reviews in a very short time, those reviews look fake even if each and every one of them is sincerely written.
6. Don't have tech support ask everyone who contacts your company to leave a review. "Wow, support answered my questions quickly. I think I'll open an account tomorrow. 5 Stars!!!" is like a restaurant review that says, "The waiter showed me to my table, described today's specials, and answered a couple of questions. I'm giving this place 5 stars even though I haven't even seen the food yet." A review that just says, "I've had an account for a while, and support answered my question quickly." is also no better than a review saying "I've been eating here for 30 minutes. I just asked the waiter about dessert and he answered." Some very bad scammers received many waiter-style reviews, which enabled them to get good ratings and more victims before the complaints came in. Because of this, the FPA banned waiter-style reviews back in 2018. Mentioning great support is fine if other details are included, but a review based only on good support won't be approved.
But you said we could ask clients to leave reviews. How do we do it?
I did say not to ask large groups for reviews at the same time. I also said not to ask everyone who contacts support to leave a review. Think carefully. If you see one review page with 100 "Wow, I really like it!" type reviews and a competitor's review page with reviews starting out more like "I signed up with this company 5 years ago. Let me tell you why I'm still with them.", which company are you more likely to pick?
If you are smart and willing to do a small amount of work, this still leaves you a great way to get quality reviews instead of a large quantity of mostly useless reviews. It's not very hard to do.
First, get a list of your clients that includes 2 pieces of information. The date they joined and the date they last interacted with your company.
Delete anyone who is an IB or affiliate of your company.
Delete people where it has been a long time since the last interaction. A very small percentage might be willing to leave reviews, but most people who haven't traded or been in touch for over 2 years are very unlikely to leave a review no matter how nicely you ask.
Then sort the list by join date in reverse order. You want the clients who have been around the longest to be on top.
Now is the part where you need to show some restraint and do some work. Don't send a bulk mail to these people. Tidal waves of reviews always look fake. Instead, write a personal email to three or four clients per week. Make sure it really is a personal email and not something that looks like a cheap sales pitch. Something like this...
Hello Ms. Pipsgrabber,
I'm John Smith from ForexProductOrService. I noticed you've been our client since January 3rd, 1983. I checked your account and your net pips gain has been 14,283 pips since you began with us.
Could you please do me a favor? I'd love it if you could submit a detailed review of ForexProductOrService at our ForexPeaceArmy review page. (Do not forget to include a link to your review page.) Please tell everyone what it's been like to work with us for all these years.
Here's where I'll mention some other unique details of your trading or specific products you have used so this doesn't look like a form letter. If I actually copy/paste this exact text into a paragraph sent to a client, I should not be allowed to work in any job that involves communicating with clients.
Sincerely,
John Smith
Send messages like this to 3-4 clients per week. Some of them won't bother to read it. Some will read it and delete it. Some won't respond, but will send a review. Some will write back and promise to leave a review and some of those really will submit one.
Of those who do submit reviews, a few will write very short useless reviews. Most who bother to actually write a review from a request like this will give some really good details. If you get 2 or 3 well-written reviews per month, over time your company will stand out above the others who have larger numbers of mostly uninformative reviews.
Bonus methods for selecting clients to ask.
1. Check your review page at the FPA for people who left a review with a reasonable amount of details over a year ago. If you can identify them from the information in the review (this may include an account number only visible to logged in company representatives), then you can ask them to submit an update. There's no special button for updates. They just need to log back into the FPA and submit a new review. If they are kind enough to mention the prior review's date in their new review, that makes life easier for my moderators. The old review will be nested beneath the new one and only the rating given on the new review will count. I personally think a review where a client shows up again a few years later and still says good things is likely to help get new clients.
2. Similarly, you can find people who submitted reviews for your company on other review sites and ask a few of them to submit reviews at the FPA.
3. I saved the single most effective way to improve a company's overall rating for last. I did this as a reward for those who actually read these FAQ pages.
You can also ask for followups for any negative FPA reviews where you can identify the client and the issue is already resolved. In cases like this, trying to get a followup in a great idea. Turning a 1 or 2 Star review into a 4 or 5 Star review is the fastest way to improve your rating. Seeing that a company cares enough to actually fix problems is also a good way to help get new clients.
Related Questions
Several clients promised to leave reviews or even said they had left them. I don't see them. Where are the missing reviews?
Other Company Representative questions? CLICK HERE
Other Reviews Questions? CLICK HERE
Other Forums Questions? CLICK HERE
Within certain limits, yes. Before you tell your marketing department to go wild, read the rules carefully.
1. Even if employees also use the service or product, they are NOT permitted to leave a review. When my moderators catch a company self-reviewing, the penalties are severe. You can learn more about that by CLICKING HERE.
2. IBs or other affiliates have a business relationship that goes beyond being a simple client. They have a vested interest in the company being well-rated. Never ask them to leave a review.
3. No form of compensation may be offered in exchange for submitting a review or that review being published by the FPA. Compensation is only cash. Offering a free indicator. a bonus, or any other incentive beyond saying "Thanks for leaving a review." is offering compensation. The FPA considers compensated reviews, from clients or from non-clients, to be just as unethical as self-reviews by employees. Like self-reviews, if the FPA detects this form of unethical behavior, the relevant reviews will be set to Zero stars.
4. Any request for a review must be for an honest review. Specifically requesting a good review is also an ethics violation and is likely a legal violation in some countries.
5. Never send a bulk mailing to your clients, an announcement to a live chat room, or any other form of mass request for reviews. Think about it. Sometimes a company can go months without getting a review. If that company suddenly gets dozens of reviews in a very short time, those reviews look fake even if each and every one of them is sincerely written.
6. Don't have tech support ask everyone who contacts your company to leave a review. "Wow, support answered my questions quickly. I think I'll open an account tomorrow. 5 Stars!!!" is like a restaurant review that says, "The waiter showed me to my table, described today's specials, and answered a couple of questions. I'm giving this place 5 stars even though I haven't even seen the food yet." A review that just says, "I've had an account for a while, and support answered my question quickly." is also no better than a review saying "I've been eating here for 30 minutes. I just asked the waiter about dessert and he answered." Some very bad scammers received many waiter-style reviews, which enabled them to get good ratings and more victims before the complaints came in. Because of this, the FPA banned waiter-style reviews back in 2018. Mentioning great support is fine if other details are included, but a review based only on good support won't be approved.
But you said we could ask clients to leave reviews. How do we do it?
I did say not to ask large groups for reviews at the same time. I also said not to ask everyone who contacts support to leave a review. Think carefully. If you see one review page with 100 "Wow, I really like it!" type reviews and a competitor's review page with reviews starting out more like "I signed up with this company 5 years ago. Let me tell you why I'm still with them.", which company are you more likely to pick?
If you are smart and willing to do a small amount of work, this still leaves you a great way to get quality reviews instead of a large quantity of mostly useless reviews. It's not very hard to do.
First, get a list of your clients that includes 2 pieces of information. The date they joined and the date they last interacted with your company.
Delete anyone who is an IB or affiliate of your company.
Delete people where it has been a long time since the last interaction. A very small percentage might be willing to leave reviews, but most people who haven't traded or been in touch for over 2 years are very unlikely to leave a review no matter how nicely you ask.
Then sort the list by join date in reverse order. You want the clients who have been around the longest to be on top.
Now is the part where you need to show some restraint and do some work. Don't send a bulk mail to these people. Tidal waves of reviews always look fake. Instead, write a personal email to three or four clients per week. Make sure it really is a personal email and not something that looks like a cheap sales pitch. Something like this...
Hello Ms. Pipsgrabber,
I'm John Smith from ForexProductOrService. I noticed you've been our client since January 3rd, 1983. I checked your account and your net pips gain has been 14,283 pips since you began with us.
Could you please do me a favor? I'd love it if you could submit a detailed review of ForexProductOrService at our ForexPeaceArmy review page. (Do not forget to include a link to your review page.) Please tell everyone what it's been like to work with us for all these years.
Here's where I'll mention some other unique details of your trading or specific products you have used so this doesn't look like a form letter. If I actually copy/paste this exact text into a paragraph sent to a client, I should not be allowed to work in any job that involves communicating with clients.
Sincerely,
John Smith
Send messages like this to 3-4 clients per week. Some of them won't bother to read it. Some will read it and delete it. Some won't respond, but will send a review. Some will write back and promise to leave a review and some of those really will submit one.
Of those who do submit reviews, a few will write very short useless reviews. Most who bother to actually write a review from a request like this will give some really good details. If you get 2 or 3 well-written reviews per month, over time your company will stand out above the others who have larger numbers of mostly uninformative reviews.
Bonus methods for selecting clients to ask.
1. Check your review page at the FPA for people who left a review with a reasonable amount of details over a year ago. If you can identify them from the information in the review (this may include an account number only visible to logged in company representatives), then you can ask them to submit an update. There's no special button for updates. They just need to log back into the FPA and submit a new review. If they are kind enough to mention the prior review's date in their new review, that makes life easier for my moderators. The old review will be nested beneath the new one and only the rating given on the new review will count. I personally think a review where a client shows up again a few years later and still says good things is likely to help get new clients.
2. Similarly, you can find people who submitted reviews for your company on other review sites and ask a few of them to submit reviews at the FPA.
3. I saved the single most effective way to improve a company's overall rating for last. I did this as a reward for those who actually read these FAQ pages.
You can also ask for followups for any negative FPA reviews where you can identify the client and the issue is already resolved. In cases like this, trying to get a followup in a great idea. Turning a 1 or 2 Star review into a 4 or 5 Star review is the fastest way to improve your rating. Seeing that a company cares enough to actually fix problems is also a good way to help get new clients.
Related Questions
Several clients promised to leave reviews or even said they had left them. I don't see them. Where are the missing reviews?
Other Company Representative questions? CLICK HERE
Other Reviews Questions? CLICK HERE
Other Forums Questions? CLICK HERE
