Personalize Your Responses Without Spending a Ton of Time on Each Customer Review

Your customers are important and their opinions matter, but you don’t exactly have time to respond to every person who leaves you a message, comment, or review. After all, you’re running a business and taking care of the current customers in your shop. The problem is, you know you need to respond to your online customers because they are just as important as the customers in your shop.

So how do you keep the conversation going online but not get bogged down and spend too much time there? Keep these tips in mind to not only respond to your online customers but to respond in a way that sounds personal while also not costing you a ton of time.

Have Several Canned Answers

We’ve all seen the canned answers that companies use to respond to reviews and they usually sound something like, “Thanks for reaching out to us, we’re sorry to hear about the problem you had with our product/service. Please contact us via email and we will look into it.” The problem with this is the company only ever uses it when a customer is unhappy and the same answer is used for every message.

It is pretty clear to the customer that you aren’t really trying with this method. Instead, have several canned answers for each type of comment or review. Having several options ready for when a customer is happy and several more for when a customer is disappointed, and so on, will keep it different enough for your customers while also saving you time. You’ll vary up the answers and sound a little more genuine when responding without the hassle of writing a new message each time. You may even want to switch up your canned answers every few months just to keep it fresh!

Personalize the Response

An easy way to personalize the response to the person who left it while not spending a lot of time doing so is just to mention their name somewhere in the canned response you choose to use. Mentioning the person’s name or username can go a long way in making them feel special. If your customer gave more information in their review, you can also incorporate that into one of your canned answers for even more personalization.

“Thank you, Jennine, for your awesome feedback on the dress you bought from us! We love that it has pockets too!”

Keep the Conversation Going

Nothing makes a conversation more personal than when you ask for more information. This is an easy way to make your responses more personal while not spending a lot of time trying to keep the conversation going yourself. Push the responsibly back on the reviewer by asking a simple question or request more information. Build questions into your canned responses so it’s a simple plug and play when customers leave reviews and comments. By doing this, you gain more customer feedback and encourage more interaction while not having to do anything yourself.

“Thank you, Jennine, for your awesome feedback on the dress you bought from us! We’d love to see you using the pockets in action!”

“We’re glad you gave us try and found something you loved! What made you skeptical of our company in the first place?”

Respond in Your Brand’s Voice

An easy way to personalize responses to customer reviews is making sure your canned responses are in your brand’s voice. Nothing is worse for a customer than when you give them a robotic sounding response after they poured their heart into a review. By putting your canned responses in your brand’s voice, you save time while also avoiding sounding like a machine. Use words and descriptions that fit what you sell and stand for to make your responses sound more personal.

“Oh my goodness! We are so sorry for the mistake 🙁 We’re going to make it up to you, pinky promise. Just send us a direct message, and we’ll fix it in no time!”

“You rock those boots like a goddess. Time to conquer the streets of New York in style.”

Sounding personal in your responses doesn’t have to take a long time. Starting with a canned answer and tweaking it to fit your brand while incorporating small details from the customer can go a long way in personalizing a response. You’ll sound like a company that cares without spending tons of time crafting each response.  Now get those creative ideas flowing and go respond to your customers!