Follow these best practices to create top-notch email invitations which comply with Trustpilot's guidelines.
We've got a range of invitation methods you can use to ask your customers to leave a review. Regardless of which option you choose, your review invitations must meet our Guidelines for Businesses (US version, UK version). It's important to ensure that your invitation processes and language are fair, neutral, and unbiased. Here are some useful pointers to keep in mind.
1. Is every genuine customer given the chance to express their opinion?
We ask you to invite all or none of your customers to write reviews. If that's not possible, you must select an equally impartial system, such as inviting every third customer.
Put the Trustpilot link first for more reviews
We've found that people are more likely to leave a review if the Trustpilot link is easy to find. You're welcome to link to your own website or other review sites, but these links should be placed below the Trustpilot link.
2. Is the language and format neutral?
Invitations must be written and structured in a neutral and unbiased way. Leave out any statements that try to persuade customers to write reviews that reflect anything other than their honest, genuine opinion.
An example of a biased invitation, which isn't allowed, is: "If you were happy with our services, please review us on Trustpilot. If not, please contact our customer support". This wording isn't allowed because it filters out negative reviews; happy customers will leave a positive review on Trustpilot, but unhappy customers will contact the business instead of leaving a negative review.
Filtering out negative reviews wastes an opportunity to get feedback and learn how to improve. You'll also miss a chance to build credibility: consumers reading Trustpilot reviews often see efforts to reply to and resolve negative reviews as a good thing!
3. We don't allow incentives
Businesses are no longer allowed to offer consumers an incentive of any kind for reviews of any kind. Incentives include, but are not limited to promotional discounts, monetary rewards, loyalty points, gifts, coupons, etc.
4. Will writing a review on Trustpilot trigger a user profile and account?
Customers have to register on Trustpilot to write a review. When a review is submitted, a user account is automatically created for the reviewer, and they receive an email about it. You should avoid stating otherwise in your review invitations, because this is incorrect.
We need reviewers to have a profile
We require reviewers to have a personal profile so that they can log in to see what they've written, and edit or delete information. This also allows us to contact them if we need to ask for documentation about their review or if it doesn't meet our guidelines.
5. Help customers write great reviews!
We have tips for writing good reviews, and businesses are welcome to direct reviewers to read our Guidelines for Reviewers (US version, UK version) that outline the requirements for writing reviews on Trustpilot. They set out a number of important points, including that we specifically prohibit personal information in reviews, such as names. Businesses should avoid encouraging reviewers to include names of employees or staff. If a review containing personal information is brought to our attention, we'll ask the author to edit their review. If the change isn't made, we have to remove the review to protect the personal information.
What happens if your review invitation or review invitation template doesn't meet our guidelines?
We work hard to protect the integrity of our online review community, so we take violations of our guidelines seriously. If we find problems, we'll ask you to make changes to bring your materials in line with our guidelines.
Change the templates to avoid resetting
If you have customized a Trustpilot review invitation template and fail to bring it in line with our guidelines, we may reset the template to our standard, optimized invitation template.
Follow the above pointers to create the best review invitations possible and make things clear and easy for your reviewers, right from the start.
If you have questions about whether your review invitation emails or templates comply with our Guidelines for Businesses (US, UK), please contact our Content Integrity Team.