Send service review invitations by uploading a file with customer data

Want to manually invite previous customers to review your business on Trustpilot? Follow this guide to create a file with customer data and upload it to your Trustpilot Business account to start sending review invitations.

Who should I send review invitations to?

It's important to invite a random sampling of your previous customers from the last year to leave a review because being open to all feedback, even when it's critical, is a fundamental part of building trust. Where we have detected, or have reason to believe, that a business isn’t collecting reviews in a fair, neutral, or unbiased way, we’ll take action to stop this. You can read more about this here, and don’t forget to follow our Guidelines for Businesses to maintain best practices.

Considerations before you get started

You’ll have access to manual invitations for 90 days from the first file upload, with your monthly invitation limit based on your plan. Once you reach your limit or the 90-day period ends, all invitations—including any unsent invitation reminders—will stop. Since around 20% of Trustpilot reviews come from these reminders, they’re an essential tool for getting customer feedback. After the 90-day period, you’ll need to switch to one of our automatic invitation methods to keep collecting reviews.

To maintain better control over your invitation limit, we recommend spacing out your invitations by uploading multiple files over the 90-day period.

Create your customer data file

You can either use a .txt or .csv file to upload your customer information. You can create these files in Google Sheets, most versions of Excel, or a simple text editor like Notepad.

To ensure that special characters (or non-Western European characters) display correctly in your invitations, please save your file using UTF-8 encoding.

Using Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a free, online spreadsheet tool that makes it easy to create a file compatible with Trustpilot.

1. In Google Sheets, create a spreadsheet with three columns, making sure the data is entered in this exact order: customer email, customer name, and reference number.

2. Download the file by selecting File > Download as > Comma Separated Values (.csv).

   

Using Microsoft Excel

Not all versions of Excel support the necessary CSV UTF-8 format, so we recommend using Google Sheets if possible.

1. In Excel, create a spreadsheet with three columns, making sure the data is entered in this exact order: customer email, customer name, and reference number.

   Your spreadsheet should look like this:

   

2. Once your spreadsheet is ready, go to Save As, and then choose CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) from the file format options.

   

3. If you have international characters in your invitations, find the small Tools button and select Web Options. In this dialogue, find the Encoding tab and select Unicode (UTF -8). This ensures that your characters display properly.

   
4. Click OK and then Save.

Upload the CSV file to your Trustpilot Business account

It’s a good idea to review both your email settings and your time & delivery settings for your review invitations before uploading your CSV file, otherwise they’ll be sent with the default settings.

1. In Trustpilot Business, go to Get reviews > Invitation methods. If you have access to manual invitations, then you'll see the headline Invite previous customers.
2. Under Upload your customer list, click Get started.
3. Click Choose a file or drag it here and upload your CSV file. The columns in the CSV file must include the following data in this order:
   • Customer email
   • Customer name
   • Reference number
4. Check your customer data to make sure it's correct, then click Next.
5. In the Sender name field, enter your sender information. Then select the Reply-to email address you would like the invitation to be sent from in the drop-down menu. Click Next.
6. In Create your invitation email, click Select template.
7. In the dialog box under Optimized templates by Trustpilot, choose the language and template you would like to use for your invitation. Click Select this template.
8. In the Send your customers to this website to write their review drop-down menu, select the local Trustpilot website that you want to send your customers to when they write their review. Click Next.
9. Review your data. If you're satisfied, click Send Invitations.

Troubleshooting common issues

The file you chose does not contain any valid lines.

If you get this error message, then our system has detected something wrong with your file. You can click Download invalid lines in a new file to get more information about how to fix it. Update your file and upload it again.

My csv file won’t load correctly.

This issue often occurs when using a CSV file from Excel. If you're experiencing this, we recommend using Google Sheets instead.

I can’t find anywhere to upload my csv file.

If you can’t find or access the page to upload your file, you’ve likely lost access to this invitation method. Learn more about that here.

If you need further assistance, contact our Support Team for help.