There are a number of things to consider when soliciting reviews from your customers. The first thing to consider is how much time you’d like to wait before contacting a customer after they’ve been added to your campaign. You can choose any time period you like, but we suggest an initial wait period of one hour.

Next, decide whether your first message is going to be an SMS or email. We’ve found that most users choose to have their first message be an SMS, but you know your business better than we do. You should make the appropriate choice.

Something to keep in mind with text messages is that the software we use to send them draws the line for a single text message at 160 characters. If you have 161 characters or more, it will count as two messages. If you have 321 characters or more, it will count as three messages, and so on.

Be brief with text messages to conserve your credits. A good example message can be seen below.

A message like this can easily be tailored to any fixed address business. If you run a service area business or your customers order delivery from you, consider a message like the one below.

Notice the use of placeholders. They help your messages seem more personable and they allow a wide range of customization. You can see all of the available placeholders below.

If your business does not have a high volume of customers, you may not need to worry about being so brief with your text messages. You can make them as long as you like. Just be aware of the 160 character cutoff and plan accordingly.

You will notice that both messages end with the Feedback page url placeholder. You always need to include that in every SMS and email. That is the link your customers will click to begin leaving you a review.

There are no character restrictions for emails. You do not need to be anywhere near as brief as you are with text messages.

It is a good idea to begin your emails with the business logo. Customers will remember that they recently did business with you, and when they see your logo at the top of the message, it makes your request look more official.

Let’s take a look at an email below.

You see that we waited four hours to send this email. This is coming after our first message went out an hour after the contact was entered into the campaign. It is generally a good idea to send two messages on the first day a contact is added. You may choose to send daily or twice-daily messages after that. Your contacts will stop receiving messages after they’ve left a review. Depending on your business, it may be a good idea to keep asking your customers for a review for a week or even two weeks.

When setting your campaign up, you can choose to send messages at any time of day, or Monday through Friday during business hours. We suggest choosing the business hours option. The decision is up to you. Maybe you have a business that thrives during late night hours and your customers would not mind a text message in the middle of the night. Most businesses do not fall into this category though. Use your own judgment. Be sure to pick the correct time zone so Linda Local reputation management knows when those business hours are.

These are some of the best practices we’ve put together, based on things we’ve seen from our users. None of these suggestions are ironclad. As the business owner, you should rely on your experience to come up with the best campaign you can. However, following the advice in this help doc is a good place to start if you’ve never engaged in reputation management before.