What Percent Of Customers Leave Reviews

Introduction

Online reviews shape purchase decisions. Most shoppers read reviews before committing, yet only a fraction of buyers ever take the time to write one. That gap is both a problem and an opportunity for merchants who want to turn retention into a dependable growth engine without bloating their technology stack.

Short answer: On average, roughly 10% of customers leave product reviews, but that rate varies widely by industry and by how actively the brand asks for reviews and makes the process simple. Service industries and specialized niches can see rates above 25–30% when they have a deliberate request-and-reward strategy; many retail categories hover between 5–18%.

In this post we’ll explain what drives review submission rates, give realistic industry benchmarks, and walk through practical, merchant-first strategies to increase review volume and quality. We’ll focus on tactics you can implement right away—email sequences, incentive design, timing, survey methods, and display best practices—while explaining how a unified retention solution reduces friction and costs. Along the way we’ll connect each tactic to ways Growave’s retention platform can simplify execution so you get more growth with less stack.

Our main message: reviews are a core retention lever. Treat review collection as part of a holistic retention strategy—paired with loyalty, UGC, and referral mechanisms—and you’ll boost trust, conversion, average order value, and customer lifetime value.

What Percent Of Customers Leave Reviews: Industry Benchmarks And Reality

Average Review Submission Rates

When merchants ask “what percent of customers leave reviews,” it’s important to remember averages hide variation. A practical baseline across e-commerce is:

• Average baseline: roughly 10% of purchasers will leave a review without targeted prompts.
• High-performing categories: service-oriented businesses and niche B2B/subscription services can see submission rates between 25% and 32% when prompted and incentivized.
• Common retail ranges: fashion and apparel often fall between 8–15%; home and furniture tends to see 12–18%; electronics and gadgets often produce 8–12%.

These ranges reflect natural behavior: many buyers read reviews, but fewer write them unless prompted, incentivized, or emotionally compelled.

Why Industry Matters

Industry differences come from the purchase cycle, emotional intensity, and review effort:

• Low-effort, repeat purchases (e.g., consumables) produce higher review rates when reviews are easy to submit and quick to write.
• High-consideration purchases (furniture, electronics) can drive customers to leave longer, richer reviews but often require stronger nudges and visual UGC.
• Services and B2B often see higher review rates because reviews are part of professional reputation and customers are motivated to share outcomes.

Platform Differences

Where customers leave reviews matters. Some patterns to note:

• Third-party review platforms (search listings, marketplaces) capture huge volume and reach, but conversion for site-level SEO and sales depends on making those third-party reviews visible on your product pages.
• Native on-site reviews convert better for product pages and SEO when combined with structured data and fresh content.
• Social reviews with images and videos drive higher purchase intent than text-only reviews.

Why Customers Leave Reviews: Psychology And Motivations

Motivations That Lead To Review Submission

Understanding the motivations helps shape the right ask:

• Altruism: many shoppers leave reviews to help others decide.
• Reciprocity: customers who receive value (discounts, rewards) return the favor with a review.
• Emotional response: exceptional or terrible experiences motivate reviews more strongly than neutral ones.
• Social recognition: being featured or rewarded publicly can motivate users to contribute content.
• Convenience: the easier the review flow, the higher the submission rate.

Barriers That Prevent Reviews

Common reasons customers don’t leave reviews:

• Too many steps or a clunky submission form.
• Unclear prompts or email requests that arrive at the wrong time.
• Low perceived value in leaving a review (no reward or recognition).
• Concerns about privacy or being contacted.
• Lack of visual or social incentives (photos/videos).

The Impact Of Increasing Review Rates

Business Outcomes From Higher Review Volume

Increasing review volume and quality produces measurable wins:

• Higher conversion rates: products with multiple authentic reviews convert at materially higher rates.
• SEO lift: fresh reviews add unique content to product pages, often improving organic rankings.
• Reduced acquisition cost: better conversion reduces the need to pay as much for traffic.
• Improved retention and LTV: customers who engage (write reviews, upload photos) feel more connected and are likelier to return.
• Product insight: reviews surface trends, complaints, and improvement opportunities that reduce churn.

Quality vs Quantity

Both matter. A higher volume of short, genuine reviews is better than few glowing but potentially suspicious ones. Mixed feedback with a healthy number of authentic negative comments actually increases trust.

How To Measure Your Current Review Rate

Metrics To Track

Tracking the right metrics turns guesswork into a repeatable program. Track:

• Review submission rate: number of reviews received divided by number of orders in the same period.
• Review coverage: percentage of active SKUs with at least one review.
• Average rating and rating distribution: mean score and spread across stars.
• Time-to-review: average days between purchase and review submission.
• UGC ratio: percent of reviews that include photos or videos.
• Review-source split: on-site vs third-party vs social.

Practical Measurement Approach

To calculate review submission rate over a 30-day window:

• Count completed orders in that period (excluding returns/refunds).
• Count the number of unique review submissions tied to those orders.
• Divide reviews by orders and multiply by 100.

This gives a practical percent-of-customers metric that you can monitor over time and tie to campaigns.

Proven Tactics To Increase Review Submission Rates

We’ll cover practical tactics you can implement immediately. Each tactic includes why it works and how to do it without annoying customers.

Make Leaving A Review Frictionless

Why it helps: convenience is the single biggest driver of participation.

How to implement:

• Use one-click review links in email or SMS that prefill product details.
• Offer simple star-and-comment forms with optional photo upload.
• Support guest submissions for verified buyers without forcing account creation.

Connect to Growave: our Reviews & UGC product supports one-click review collection and easy photo/video uploads, which reduces friction and increases participation. Learn how to collect social reviews and UGC with features that make submission easy and visual (collect social reviews and UGC).

Ask At The Right Time

Why it helps: timing aligns with strong memory and satisfaction signals.

Timing tactics to test:

• Post-delivery window: wait until customers have had time to experience the product—often 5–14 days depending on product complexity.
• Event-based triggers: for consumables, trigger after the first refill or use; for apparel, trigger after a wash cycle or first wear.
• Multi-touch approach: send an initial, friendly reminder and a follow-up if no response—don’t spam.

Measurement note: A/B test intervals by cohort to find the sweet spot for your product line.

Use Personalized, Benefit-Focused Requests

Why it helps: personalization increases perceived value and response rates.

What to include:

• Mention the specific product and order details.
• Explain what the review will do (help others choose, improve product).
• Offer social recognition or loyalty points for leaving a review.

Practical language: a simple, empathetic template—short subject line, product mention, single CTA—performs better than long emails with multiple CTAs.

Connect to Growave: integrate review requests into loyalty flows so customers see the value up-front—reward points for reviews from your loyalty and rewards program (loyalty and rewards features).

Incentives That Work (And Those That Don’t)

Why incentives matter: incentives lift participation but must be designed to maintain authenticity.

Effective incentives:

• Loyalty points that tie into your program—points are earned and can be redeemed later.
• Small future discounts or free samples that reward time without encouraging fake positivity.
• Recognition: featuring reviewers on product pages or social channels.

Avoid:

• Paying for five-star-only reviews. This damages trust and risks violations of review policies.
• Overly large immediate discounts that devalue the product.

How Growave helps: by linking review submission to loyalty points, you create a balanced reward that encourages honest feedback while strengthening lifetime value (build a loyalty program).

Capture UGC (Photos & Videos)

Why it helps: visual reviews convert better and encourage more submissions.

How to encourage UGC:

• Make media submission easy on mobile.
• Run photo contests and showcase winners.
• Offer micro-incentives (extra loyalty points) for photo submissions.

Display tip: prioritize image-based reviews on product pages and social proofs like shoppable Instagram UGC.

Tie-in: We enable shoppable social content so UGC drives both trust and direct purchases through visual merchandising.

Use A Multi-Channel Request Strategy

Why it helps: different customers prefer different channels.

Channels to use:

• Email: core channel for post-purchase requests.
• SMS: higher open rates—use sparingly and with consent.
• In-dashboard or in-app prompts for subscribers or loyal customers.
• Packaging inserts with QR codes to a mobile review form.

Best practice: unify messaging across channels with one clear CTA to avoid confusion.

Integration note: our retention platform centralizes on-site and messaging workflows so you can orchestrate review requests without adding multiple systems.

Convert NPS & Feedback Into Reviews

Why it helps: people who give high NPS or positive feedback are prime candidates for a review request.

How to implement:

• Trigger a review request only for customers who score high on satisfaction.
• For negative responses, route to support to resolve issues first and avoid public negative reviews.

This approach increases the signal-to-noise ratio of your reviews and protects your public reputation.

Use Social Proof To Drive More Reviews

Why it helps: seeing reviewers rewarded and featured convinces others to join.

Tactics:

• Showcase recent reviews on homepage and category pages.
• Pull star ratings into search snippets with schema markup to improve CTR.
• Share UGC on social and tag authors (with permission) as recognition.

Growave features: our Reviews product helps you showcase social reviews and UGC across your store, supporting structured data and visual widgets (collect social reviews and UGC).

Building Review Request Flows (Technical How-To)

Email Flow Blueprint (Recommended)

A practical multi-email flow that respects customers:

• First friendly ask: delivered after an appropriate usage window, short and visual, single CTA to leave a review.
• Reminder: if no response after 5–10 days, quick follow-up.
• Final nudge: offer a small loyalty perk for submission, sent after final reminder.

Design tips:

• Use short subject lines and preheaders that reference the product.
• Use a single CTA button that deep-links to a prefilled review form.
• Include examples of photo reviews to inspire UGC.

SMS Flow Blueprint

Use SMS for a short, immediate nudge with explicit consent:

• Keep messages brief, include order/product, and a single link to a mobile-optimized form.
• Limit follow-ups to one reminder to avoid fatigue.

In-Package & QR Codes

Include a simple insert with a QR code linking to a one-tap review flow. These inserts are low-cost and work well for products that show value on first use.

Pre-Filled Forms And Verified Purchase Links

Pre-populate product and order identifiers in the review form to remove friction and verify submission attribution. Make sure the UX is mobile-optimized.

Handling Negative Feedback Privately

Use branching logic: route a dissatisfied customer to a private support path instead of a public review page. This preserves public ratings and allows you to recover the customer.

Legal And Policy Considerations

Disclosure And Authenticity

Maintain transparency. If you incentivize reviews, disclose it clearly. Allow honest opinions and avoid conditioning rewards on positive ratings.

Avoid Fake Reviews

Policies vary by platform, but the safest approach is to encourage honest reviews and reward participation, not particular sentiments. Regular audits and moderation help maintain trust.

Data Protection

Respect privacy and consent for SMS and email. Ensure review collection complies with privacy laws and platform terms.

Displaying Reviews To Maximize Trust And Conversion

Where To Show Reviews

Strategic review placements:

• Product pages: primary place—use rating summary plus recent reviews with photos.
• Category pages: highlight top-rated products and review snippets.
• Homepage: show recent UGC and high-level ratings to build credibility.
• Checkout: subtle proof elements to reassure undecided buyers.

What To Show

• Rating summary and distribution.
• Recent, media-rich reviews.
• Verified-purchase badges and timestamps.
• Responses from your team to demonstrate active engagement.

Schema & SEO

Structured review data helps search engines understand ratings and may improve organic click-through rates. Keep reviews fresh to avoid stale signals.

Common Mistakes Merchants Make With Reviews (And How To Fix Them)

• Over-relying on a single channel: diversify (email, SMS, inserts, loyalty).
• Using heavy-handed incentives that bias results: reward participation, not positivity.
• Ignoring negative feedback: respond quickly and use it as product insight.
• Fragmented systems: multiple platforms create admin burden and data silos.
  • Fix: consolidate into a single retention platform to streamline collection, rewards, and display.

This last point is where our “More Growth, Less Stack” philosophy pays off: one unified platform replaces multiple separate solutions and reduces operational friction, saving time and improving results.

How Review Programs Tie Into Broader Retention Strategies

Loyalty Programs That Motivate Reviews

A well-designed loyalty program turns occasional buyers into engaged brand advocates who are more likely to leave reviews.

Tactics to test:

• Points for review submissions (extra points for photos/videos).
• Tiered incentives—higher-tier members receive shoutouts or advanced perks for quality UGC.
• Bonus points for reviewers who also refer friends or share on social.

Growave integrates loyalty and reviews so points and review collection work together seamlessly (loyalty and rewards features).

Referrals Amplify Reviews

Referral programs convert satisfied reviewers into active promoters. When new customers arrive via referral, ask them for reviews early to build velocity.

Wishlists And Returning Shoppers

Wishlist signals show product interest. When a wishlister purchases, prioritize them for review requests—they’re already engaged.

Shoppable Social And UGC

When reviews include images or social posts, we can make them shoppable—turning social proof directly into revenue. That elevates reviews from a trust signal to a conversion driver.

Operationalizing Review Collection With Less Stack

Centralized Workflows

Centralizing review requests, rewards, moderation, and display saves time and removes manual steps. Key benefits:

• Fewer integrations, less sync complexity.
• Single customer view for loyalty and review history.
• Consistent UX across channels.

Growave’s retention suite unifies Reviews, Loyalty, Referrals, Wishlists, and Shoppable Social to reduce the number of tools merchants need and to unlock synergies across features. If you’re tired of juggling multiple point solutions, moving to one platform gives you "more growth, less stack"—a merchant-first approach built for long-term stability and value.

Moderation And Scalability

Plan for moderation: automations can flag suspicious entries, and curated displays can prioritize the best media-rich reviews. Centralized dashboards help teams scale without adding headcount.

Measuring ROI From Review Programs

Key Performance Indicators

Monitor KPIs to measure success and make decisions:

• Change in review submission rate over time.
• Conversion lift on product pages with reviews vs without.
• Incremental revenue attributable to improved conversion and repeat purchases.
• UGC conversion rate: clicks/visits from UGC that result in purchase.
• Cost per incremental review: overall spend divided by additional reviews collected.

A/B Testing

Test review display formats, timing of requests, and incentive structures. A/B testing reduces guesswork and identifies what truly moves metrics for your audience.

Realistic Targets And Timelines

Expectations should be pragmatic:

• Short term (30–60 days): implement easy flows (email, packaging inserts), expect a measurable bump in review rate (1–4 percentage points).
• Mid term (3–6 months): integrate loyalty rewards and UGC campaigns, aim to double baseline review rates if starting from a low base.
• Long term (6–12 months): optimize site display, SEO, and cross-channel prompts to reach sustained higher submission rates and quality.

Benchmarks to aim for:

• Good initial goal: move from 10% to 15–20% with targeted asks and rewards.
• Ambitious but achievable: 25%+ in high-engagement categories with multimodal programs and social incentives.

Implementation Checklist (No Numbering)

Use this checklist as a guide while you build your program:

• Audit current review coverage and calculate your baseline submission rate.
• Define review goals and KPIs for the next 90 days.
• Set up a one-click, mobile-first review form with media uploads.
• Build email and SMS flows with optimal timing based on product type.
• Integrate review collection with your loyalty program for balanced incentives.
• Add packaging inserts and QR codes for in-person prompts.
• Implement moderation rules and automate spam/fake detection.
• Display reviews prominently with schema markup and UGC prioritization.
• Measure, iterate, and test variations.

Growave helps centralize these steps into an integrated workflow to reduce manual operations and make it easier to scale review programs.

How Growave Helps Increase Your Review Rate

We design our retention suite around merchant needs. Here’s how our core pillars directly tie into review growth:

• Reviews & UGC: simplify collection, support photos and videos, and showcase social proof across your storefront (collect social reviews and UGC). This reduces friction and improves conversion.
• Loyalty & Rewards: offer points and tiered incentives to motivate honest feedback without biasing ratings (loyalty and rewards features). Points tie review submission to long-term retention.
• Referrals & Wishlists: convert reviewers into referrers and amplify social proof to new audiences.
• Shoppable Social: turn UGC into buyable content so reviews directly impact revenue.

We’re trusted by 15,000+ brands and maintain a 4.8-star rating on Shopify because we focus on merchant outcomes—turning retention into growth while replacing multiple systems with one stable, long-term partner. If you want to evaluate plan options and see how the platform fits your store, you can view our pricing plans to compare features.

If you prefer to install quickly, you can also add our retention solution to your store from the Shopify marketplace and start collecting reviews with minimal setup.

Common Questions Merchants Ask About Review Programs (Answer-First)

How many reviews do I need per product?

Short answer: More is better, but quality matters. Aim for at least a handful of reviews per SKU as a minimum; 10 reviews gives shoppers a reasonable initial signal, while 30+ reviews starts to create broad confidence. Freshness matters too—recent reviews carry extra weight.

Should I ask every customer for a review?

Short answer: Not necessarily. Prioritize satisfied customers (via NPS or CSAT) and customers with high engagement signals. This approach increases the rate of positive and useful reviews while avoiding unnecessary frictions.

Can incentives bias reviews and harm trust?

Short answer: Incentives can be effective without biasing sentiment if you reward participation rather than positive ratings. Use loyalty points, future discounts, or recognition rather than conditional rewards that demand a five-star rating.

How quickly should I respond to negative reviews?

Short answer: Fast. Customers expect a timely response—ideally within 72 hours. Prompt, empathetic responses can turn negative experiences into retention wins.

Conclusion

Knowing what percent of customers leave reviews helps set realistic benchmarks, but the real leverage comes from turning review collection into a retention engine. By streamlining the review experience, timing requests well, rewarding participation through loyalty, and showcasing media-rich social proof, merchants can increase submission rates, improve conversion, and drive sustainable growth.

If you’re ready to stop juggling tools and start scaling honest reviews as part of a retention-first growth strategy, start a 14-day free trial and explore our plans to see how Growave can turn retention into a growth engine: view our pricing plans.

FAQ

What is a realistic baseline review submission rate for a new store?

A realistic baseline is around 5–10% without proactive asks. With targeted flows and a loyalty-linked incentive, you can expect to move toward 15–25% over time depending on category and product type.

How much should I reward customers for a review?

Rewards should be meaningful but modest—loyalty points worth a few dollars or a small percentage discount on a future purchase. The aim is to reward time and effort, not to buy positive sentiment.

Can I collect reviews automatically from third-party platforms?

Yes. Many tools can import third-party reviews into your storefront widgets. Centralizing display and moderation is important to maintain authenticity and SEO benefits.

What review metrics should I prioritize first?

Start with review submission rate (reviews/orders), review coverage across SKUs, and UGC rate (percent of reviews with photos/videos). Then measure conversion lift on reviewed vs unreviewed SKUs and track changes in average order value and repeat purchase rate.

Additional resources:

• To see plan options and feature comparisons, view our pricing plans.
• To add Growave to your store quickly, you can add our retention solution to your store.
• Learn more about how our loyalty features can support review collection (build a loyalty program).
• Read about how our Reviews & UGC solution simplifies collection and display (collect social reviews and UGC).