Help Centre

The system can be set up in any one of three ways, depending on your preferences and what you are trying to achieve.

These ‘Request Modes’ are:

1. Ultimate Mode
2. Review Mode
3. Direct Mode

The main difference between each mode is the number of steps your customer has to take before being invited to leave a review on a third party website like Google or Facebook.

Typically ReviewsMANAGER uses a rating system (the Net Promotor Score) to assess from the outset if your customer is likely to submit positive or negative feedback. This then determines what options they will see when submitting their feedback – for example, for positive ratings they will be prompted to add a review on a third party website like Google or Facebook.

Here are the features of each Review Mode:

Ultimate Mode

In this mode, there are quite a few steps before the customer is asked to share a review on a third party website:

1. Initial email asks for the rating (Net Promotor Score)
2. The next screen asks for Direct Feedback (plus some optional survey questions)
3. The next screen asks the customer to share their feedback on a third party website – it make it easy by enabling the user to copy the feedback they submitted so they can paste it into one of the third party websites

This mode is useful when you want to capture as much direct feedback as possible, including any additional survey questions. If your primary focus is getting reviews on third party sites like Google or Facebook, then you should use one of the other two modes.

Review Mode

In this mode there are fewer steps before the customer is asked to share a review on a third party website:

1. Initial email asks for the rating (Net Promotor Score)
2. The next screen asks the user to submit a review either via a third party website or direct to you

This mode is useful if you want to ensure that only satisfied customers are prompted to write a review on a third party website. It is likely to yield more third party reviews than Ultimate Mode, but potentially less feedback overall.

Direct Mode

In this mode, the rating step is skipped completely – so there is just one step:

1. Initial feedback request email contains the third party website links.

This mode is useful if you are sure that your customers will provide positive feedback and you want to make the process as simple as possible for them. It does run the risk of negative feedback being published on third party websites.

How to see the three Feedback Request Modes

In your dashboard, go to Settings and select Request Modes. You will immediately see on the left hand side which mode is currently activated.

On the right hand side each step in the process is detailed in a logical order. You can view and edit any of the emails and landing pages in each step.

You can specify various options and customise the content of emails and pages that your customers see.

To do this, go to Settings and select Request Modes.

The different Request Modes are explained separately in this guide. For your chosen Request Mode, you can:

• Edit the content of the emails
• Specify options for reminder emails
• Edit the content of the landing pages
• Edit your survey questions (Ultimate Mode only)

Everything is shown in the order that it happens and you can customise any part of the process:

• Feedback Request: This is the initial email your customer receives. The highlighted content will be personalised for your business. It is important that this email contains the link [provide feedback] as this will open up the page for rating your business and submitting feedback.
• First and Second Reminder Emails: These are follow up emails sent to those customers that haven’t responded to the initial email. You can turn these off or on and specify the time delay.
• Positive Landing Page: This is the page your customers will see if they have given your business a favourable rating (e.g. 7/10 or higher). Typically this will include any online review sites for your business and the Direct Feedback option.
• Positive Email: This is the confirmation / thank you email that your clients will receive if they have given your business a favourable rating (e.g. 7/10 or higher). It can include the [review links] to prompt the recipient to submit an online review, e.g. on Facebook or Google (even if they have already submitted feedback directly to you).
• Negative Landing Page: This is the page your customers will see if they have given your business an unfavourable rating (e.g. 6/10 or lower). This only provides the Direct Feedback option.
• Negative Feedback Email: This is the email sent to those who have given your business a less than favourable rating (e.g. 6/10 or lower). Here you will want to show that you take their feedback onboard and perhaps that you will be in touch.

For any standard email, you can see how it will look to your customer by clicking on the Save and Send Test Email button and send yourself a test. You can view the email and click on the links to see the landing pages (this will all be in test mode so you can fully test everything without it affecting your actual data).

If you right click your mouse button you will see the merge tags that can be included in the emails (e.g. [customer first name] will insert the first name of the customer).

How to add your company branding

Go to Settings and select Brand & Colors. Here you can specify:

• Company logo: This should be your business logo, ideally sized to 300 pixels wide.
• Accent colour: This is the main accent colour used for the design of your emails and landing pages
• Banner image: This is an optional banner image at the top of your feedback pages.

The above will be applied to your emails and landing pages.

Click on Settings and Feedback Settings.

Here you can control and customise various feedback settings including the following.

• Repeat Customer Feedback: this specifies how to handle customers that have previously been added to the system. If it is set to OFF then feedback requests will not be sent to any customers that have already been uploaded to the system. If it it set to ON, you can specify how long to wait until the same customer is sent another feedback request.
• Positive Feedback Page Threshold: what feedback rating is classed as positive – the default would be 7 out of 10 or higher.

If you want to include additional survey questions, you need to select Ultimate Mode. To do this, go to Settings / Request Modes and select Ultimate Mode on the left hand side.

Scroll down to the Feedback Landing Page section and click to Edit. Then click on the Add survey question button to add a question. Please note you can add up to 4 questions and the answers can only be a rating (on a scale of 1 to 10).

Here’s what the customer might see with a survey question included:

If your customers visit your business premises, you could use a tablet (e.g. iPad or Android tablet) to initiate the feedback process. This is ideal where you have a reception area or towards the end of the customer experience. It could also be used if you provide a mobile service, towards the end of your visit.

If you click on Settings / Kiosk mode you will see a web address (Kiosk Mode URL). You would simply open up the tablet at this page (or even better set this as the homepage) and hand it to your customer.

They can then enter their rating, details (and optionally direct feedback there and then). The system will then send them a follow up email inviting them to leave a review (on 3rd party review sites or direct to you).

In Kiosk Mode, the page automatically reverts to the blank entry screen 30 seconds after the process has been completed, ready for the next customer.

There is a specific website address that you can use to direct your customers to give feedback for your business. When they click on the link, they will see a screen with the feedback form. For example, you could include it in your your email signature or invoice templates.

To obtain your specific URL, click on Settings / Feedback Settings and scroll to the bottom of the page to the Leave feedback URL.

If you want to give someone else in your business their own login to manage your ReviewsMANAGER account, simply email your request to support@reviewsmanager.co.uk and we’ll set them up on the system and email them all the information they need to use it.

In your dashboard, you will see two options for adding customers who should receive a request to submit feedback for your business – Import Customers and Add customer:

If you have an existing customer list, the quickest option is to use the Import option, but if you want to add customers manually one at a time (for example after they have made a transaction) then use Add customer.

1. Import a list

This is for uploading a list of your customers in a CSV format. The spreadsheet should be created in Excel and saved as a CSV format file as per this example:

The three required fields are:

• First name
• Last name
• Email address

One other field you may wish to use is Tags – this enables you to group testimonials according to a particular service or member of staff so you can display relevant testimonials on different parts of your website. There are other potential fields too, for more information see ‘How do I format my upload spreadsheet’.

Once you upload a list, the ReviewsMANAGER system will drip feed the feedback requests by email.

The number of recipients to be emailed per day can be edited by clicking on ‘Communication method’ at the top right. The recommended setting is ‘Automatic’ so that the sending of emails is automated.

Download CSV file template

2. Add customer

This is for manually adding customers one at a time. You need to enter their name (first name and surname) and email address. The phone and customer notes fields are optional. If you want the feedback request to be sent immediately, tick the box and then click Add.

If you don’t tick the ‘send feedback request immediately’ box, the customer will be either added to the queue of customers scheduled to receive the email (see above) or will simply be added to the system, ready for you to manually trigger the feedback email.

There is also the option to add tags. These are useful if you want to group your reviews according to the relevant services or products they refer to. You can then use the tagged testimonial widget to display only service or product-specific reviews in various places on your website.

There are various options when creating your CSV list of customers to upload to ReviewsMANAGER. The spreadsheet should be created in Excel and saved as a CSV format file.

In this section we will explain the various formatting options.

The basic standard format

This is the most commonly used format and has the three basic required fields.

The three required fields are:

• First name
• Last name
• Email

Additional optional fields

One very useful field you may well wish to use is:

• Tags – this enables you to group testimonials according to a particular service or member of staff so you can display relevant testimonials on different parts of your website. This is one field we recommend using if you have a number of different services, products or wish to group testimonials based on who is providing the service.

Other less used optional fields are:

• Mobile Phone – this would be if you wish to send out feedback requests by SMS text messaging (there is an additional fee for this service)
• Job ID – if you want to link feedback to specific jobs or projects
• CustomID – an optional custom field
• Communication Preference – set this to Email or SMS (if none set it uses Email)

Download example CSV file

Click to download a template CSV file you can use to create your list:

• Download basic format CSV template
• Download CSV template with all fields

For instructions on how to upload your file, see ‘How to add customers to receive feedback requests’.

When you add a customer’s name and email into the system, they will be queued to receive an email request for feedback. The system is set up to limit the number of feedback emails sent out per day (this limit can be seen by clicking on Communication method).

They will typically receive an email like this:

Depending on the rating they select, different things will then happen.

If they pick a high rating (e.g. 7/10 or higher – and this setting is specified in Feedback Settings) they will then be taken to a page that prompts them to submit a review on third party review sites or direct to you like this:

The customer also receives a positive feedback email request:

But if they pick a lower rating (e.g. 6/10 or less) then they will only be prompted for direct (private) feedback:

The customer also then receives a different email response:

This means that you capture all feedback – including negative – but maximise the opportunity to gain positive online reviews. You can then get back to any unhappy customers and put things right without their feedback going public.

Positive direct feedback is automatically published to your own website if you have the reviews widget embedded on your site. All direct feedback will be visible in your ReviewsMANGER dashboard, where you can choose to publish or unpublish any individual review on your website.

You will receive an email notifications for all direct feedback, as well as reviews added to third party websites through our automated monitoring. All direct feedback is stored in your dashboard.

When you log in to the system here you will see your dashboard:

If you have reviews submitted (or requests sent out) you will see them straight away and there’s a number of things you can do:

View full review & customer info (1)

Click on a person’s name to view the full review and other details.

Moderate reviews (2)

If you have set up the Testimonials Widget on your website (instructions available in this Help Centre) then you can decide for each review whether it should be shown on your published list of reviews by simply clicking the Yes/No button under ‘Show on Website’.

Filter results (3)

Click on the Filter button to refine the results shown (e.g. Show all feedbacks received).

Export data (4)

At the bottom of the screen is an Export Customer Data button which you can use to export your reviews and customer list into a spreadsheet.

Email send settings (5)

If you click on Communication method at the top of the page you can decide if feedback request emails should be sent out automatically (e.g. whenever you add customers to the system) or manually triggered. Our recommendation is to set this to automatically, but limit the number of emails sent per day (this helps avoid a flurry of reviews happening in a short space of time, it’s much better to have a steady flow of feedback).

Navigation options

At the top of the page you will see some navigation options:

• Settings: these are the customisation options for how your account is set up
• Account: here you can manage the users for your account
• Reports: here you can find summary reports for how your business is performing
• Help: how to obtain assistance

If you receive customer feedback and you have the time to do it, it’s a nice touch to respond to your customer. You may just want to thank them for the feedback – or touch on a topic raised in the review. The more personal you make it, the better.

Links to respond are provided in notification emails you receive whenever feedback is submitted – as well as on your dashboard.

The two options for responding are:

• Responding Privately: the response is emailed to your customer (and they can reply to the email if they wish). The conversation is tracked in the dashboard.
• Responding Publicly: the response will show on the testimonials widget (if it has been published on your website). The customer will receive an email informing them that the business owner left a public comment.

You may want to segment your customer list according to the email domain, for example if you want to sent Google review requests to those that have a gmail email address.

Here’s how to sort your list in Excel to be able to group all the gmail addresses together:

1 | Before you start, save a copy of your data list so you can still access the original.

2 | In your Excel data list, ensure you have a blank column to the right of the column containing the email addresses:

3 | Copy the column containing the email addresses into the blank column

4 | Highlight the newly created column and select Text to Columns (under the Data tab)

5 | Choose Delimited and click Next

6 | Check Other and type in the @ symbol into the box – then click Finish:

Your list can now be sorted by the email domain list (Column E in the example below):

You can then save separate versions of your list, one containing only the gmail addresses and one containing the rest.

In ReviewsMANAGER you can then select the Review Mode you want (for example Direct Mode) and upload your gmail list, so that these customers will be directed to submit a Google review directly from the feedback email. ReviewsMANAGER will always remember the selected Review Mode at the time the list was uploaded.

Remember to switch back to your default Review Mode before uploading the other email addresses.

Embedding the ReviewsMANAGER widget on your website allows you to publish a live feed of your testimonials like this:

How to get your Testimonial Widget Embed Code

To access your widget code, log in to the dashboard and click on Settings and select Testimonials Widget.

This is where you obtain the code to display your testimonial widget. You can preview what this will look like by clicking on the link See a preview. Click here.

With reference to the image below:

1. Leave the Default Theme selected and click into the code box – this will highlight all the code. Copy and paste the code into a text box
2. Insert the full code snippet into the web page where you want the testimonials widget to be displayed. If you have a WordPress website, see below for details of the WordPress plugin to use.

Once you have added the code to a page on your website, copy the URL of that page into the box (see screenshot below) and click ‘Activate’:

This will allow you to open the third setting:

Tag Testimonial Widget & Badge Embed Code

This creates a Testimonials Badge that you can add to your website showing the overall rating and number of testimonials – perfect for displaying on your website’s pages, footer or sidebar. It looks like this:

To obtain the code for this, simply click in the code box and copy the code:

You can add this to a widget, sidebar, footer or page – ideally so that it appears on every page of your website.

How to add the Testimonials Widget to a WordPress website

If you have a WordPress website, there is a WordPress plugin you can download here which will allow you to insert the code using a shortcode. You need to do the following:

• Download the plugin and save it to your computer
• Upload the plugin to your WordPress website and activate it

Once you have done this:

1. In WordPress plugins click on Settings for the plugin Testimonials Widget
2. Paste in the widget code from General Testimonial Widget Embed Code (step 1 – see above) into the box, give it a name (e.g. Testimonials) and click the save button
3. Copy the shortcode e.g.
   [testimonials_widget id=”1″]
4. Insert the shortcode on the page your want to use for your testimonials feed

If you need technical help with embedding your code on your website please contact us.

If you have added the testimonials widget to your website, you can edit various display settings by going to Settings and selecting Testimonial Widget. Open up the Testimonial Widget Settings.

There are a number of optional settings for your Testimonials Widget:

• Include Feedback Form link in General Testimonial Widget: check this box if you want people to be able to submit a review via your testimonials widget
• Include a Share button with each Testimonial: if you check this box, anyone (including you) can easily share a testimonial to a relevant social media site.
• Share image: This is the image that will appear if you choose to share a particular testimonial via social media (e.g. on your Facebook page). You should add a share image that is 1024px wide x 512px high. If we haven’t already added one for you, we’ll be happy to create one – just email support@reviewsmanager.co.uk
• Include Links to Review Sites in the Widgets: if you check this box, the widget will display prominent links to your chosen social media profiles (e.g. Facebook or Google)
• Auto Approve Feedback: this defines which testimonials will be automatically published to your testimonials widget. If you leave this checked (which we highly recommend) then positive feedback will automatically be published on your Testimonials Widget. You can set the threshold for this, but typically any feedback where the reviewer has selected a rating of 7 or higher will be automatically published. You can still manually set any individual review to published or unpublished in your dashboard.
• Set the number of Testimonials shown on each Page before Pagination: this is the number of reviews shown on one page, without having to click on next page. We recommend as high a number as possible.
• Schema Image – Required by Google to pass Verification: a version of your logo purely for Google to pass Schema validation.

If you’ve managed to gather reviews via ReviewsMANAGER then you really should get the maximum value from these.

The first thing to do is to create a page on your website featuring the Testimonials Widget (for instructions see the section ‘How to publish testimonials on your website’ in this help guide).

Once you have published this page, you can then create a Testimonials Badge to signpost your website visitors to this page. Here’s what the Testimonials Badge looks like:

This “badge” displays a smaller version of the widget to showcase your overall rating and number of testimonials perfect for displaying on your website’s pages, footer or sidebar. The badge also links to the page where your full Testimonial Widget is displayed.

To include this badge on your website, you need to have published a page on your website with the Testimonials Widget to showcase all of your testimonials.

You then login to the dashboard and click on Settings / Testimonials Widget and open the ‘General Testimonial Widget Embed Code’ option.

Add the URL of your testimonials page here and click ‘Activate’:

You can then open up the ‘Tag Testimonial Widget & Badge Embed Code’ option. To obtain the code for the Testimonials Badge simply click into the box containing the code.

You can then paste this code into the relevant place (or WordPress Widget) of your website to display your badge.

You’ve worked hard to get your testimonials, so be sure to use your badge to highlight your reputation. If you can’t do this yourself, contact your web developer or get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.

ReviewsMANAGER makes it easy to share your reviews on Social Media. This is a great way to highlight your customer feedback via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google.

How to share a review:

Visit the page on your website where you have published the Testimonials Widget and click on the share link below any review:

Then select the relevant social media icon. It will then prompt you to specify which profile you wish to post this to (for example you could post it to your Facebook Business page).

What is shown on social media?

It will show an excerpt of the review which links back to the reviews page on your website.

Here’s an example of how sharing a review on Facebook looks like:

How to change the image used on social media

The default image used when sharing a review is defined in your ReviewsMANAGER Dashboard. To change this image:

1. Login to the Dashboard and click on Settings / Testimonial Widget
2. Open the Testimonial Widget Settings option
3. Make sure the box for Include a Share button with each Testimonial is checked
4. Under ‘Share Image’ select the image to use – this image should be 1024px wide x 512px tall.

Facebook and Twitter will embed this image – other social networks may not accept pre-set share images.

Need help creating the share image?

Please get in touch – we’re happy to help.

You will receive email alerts whenever feedback is submitted.

You can edit who receives the notifications by going to Settings / Notification Settings and clicking on Feedback Alert Notification Settings. Here you can manage and add recipients.

Additionally you will receive a performance report (either weekly or monthly) summarising your performance.

You can also log in to your dashboard at any time and see all your customer data at a glance.

If you click on Reports in the top navigation, you can access various real time reports:

• Performance Report: a summary of the key stats, how many requests have been sent and the response rates.
• NPS Report: your Net Promoter Score (see separate section in FAQs)
• Reviews Report: Reviews on third party sites like Facebook and Google this is really useful!

The NPS is a way to quickly measure how satisfied your customers are with your business. We don’t all have the time and ability to do complete customer surveys, and sometimes our customers are too busy to answer lengthy forms.

But what if there was an easy way to get feedback from your customers, that was simple for them too?

The basis of the Net Promotor Score is that one simple question can tell you a lot about how your customers perceive your business.

The question is: “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?”

Customers answer on a scale from 0 – 10, with 0 meaning Not At All Likely and 10 meaning Extremely Likely.

• Those who answer 9 or 10 are “Promoters”
• Those who answer 0 – 6 are “Detractors”

The percentage of detractors is subtracted from the percentage of Promoters to get the Net Promoter Score.

Monitoring this Net Promotor Score (NPS) gives you a quick indicator of the health of your business in terms of customer satisfaction.

ReviewsMANAGER helps you collect these responses and computes the score for you right on your dashboard.