The most important piece of content you can have is a strong customer review, referral or testimonial. Why?

Reviews and testimonials are evergreen – they're always relevant. And they can validate (or completely rewrite) your value propositions. They communicate trust to your prospects and show them that there are others who have taken the ‘risk’ of going before them.

Since the words come from real people, they’re trusted more than anything you could say on your own. And, as Sam Shepler from Testimonial Hero says: “whatever you can say, your customers can say better”.

But most of your customers aren’t sitting around thinking “This product makes me SO happy, I’m going to go write a glowing review”. Sometimes that happens. But, in most cases, you either have to proactively reach out to happy customers OR find opportunities to make them really happy and capture that sentiment.

One of the best ways I've found to get great reviews (aside from having a product so good that people are compelled to leave reviews on their own) is by turning customer problems into praise. Every time a customer reaches out with a request for support, it’s the perfect opportunity to turn them into a raving fan.

This is good. They’re running into challenges because they’re using your product – that’s as good as it gets.

Take the time to help them be successful, then make a gentle request for a review or testimonial once they’ve expressed content. Many times people will reciprocate. It can be really simple.

Here’s my go-to when I help people with support tickets for Atlas, our SaaS HubSpot theme:

“I’m glad to hear that worked out! If you’re up for it, a review from you on our marketplace listing would go a long way in supporting us.”

It’s not a guaranteed win, but you don’t know unless you ask. The illustration attached is a real example of a user who came to me with a problem and ended up leaving a 5-star review on the product.