Collect Reviews With SMS: 16 Templates That Work

A review request text gets read in about three minutes. The same request sitting in an inbox waits a day, if it gets opened at all.

That gap is the whole argument for SMS. What people get wrong is the message itself: too long, sent at the wrong hour, or asking for a review from someone who has not received the thing yet.

Below are 16 templates you can copy, the timing for each, the rules you have to follow before you send anything, and how to set the whole thing up.

Why SMS Works Better Than Email for Review Requests

Three reasons, and only one of them is about open rates.

• It gets seen. A text lands on a lock screen. An email lands in a queue behind everything else that arrived that morning.
• It suits people who do not sit at a desk. Tradespeople, drivers, anyone on their feet. Email assumes a working pattern plenty of your customers do not have.
• It leaves nowhere to hide the ask. One line, one link. An email lets you pad it, and padding is what kills reply rates.

The catch is that a text is more intrusive, so you get one shot and a short one. Email lets you be dull. SMS does not.

Factor	SMS	Email
Time to open	Minutes	Hours, if at all
Length you get away with	One or two lines	Several paragraphs
Cost per send	Per message	Effectively nil
Consent needed	Explicit opt-in	Lower bar in most places
Best for	Services, delivery, anyone not at a desk	Considered purchases, longer explanations
Tolerance for mistakes	Low. A bad text gets you blocked	Higher. A bad email gets deleted

Run both if you can. Email first, then SMS to whoever did not reply, is a cheaper sequence than texting everyone.

16 SMS Review Request Templates

Keep every one under 160 characters. Go over and the text splits in two, costs double, and lands looking broken on some phones.

Four things make the difference between a reply and a delete:

• Your name early. An unknown number with a link reads as a scam.
• The thing they bought. “Your order” is filler. “Your [product]” says a person wrote this.
• One ask. Not a rating and a photo and a referral.
• A link to the form. Not the homepage. The form.

Send between 10am and 6pm in their timezone. Swap the brackets and go.

After a delivery

Send two to three days after the courier marks it delivered.

1. Hi [name], your [product] landed on Tuesday so you’ve had a few days with it. How’s it working out? A quick review helps the next person decide: [link]

2. [Name], how are you getting on with the [product]? If you’ve got two minutes, a rating would help us out a lot: [link] Reply STOP to opt out.

3. Hi [name], it’s [your name] from [business]. Would you mind telling us what you make of the [product]? Takes a minute and we read every one: [link]

Number two carries the opt-out, so send that one first to any new number. Avoid “How was your order?” Every shop sends it and everyone ignores it.

After a service or appointment

Send within a few hours of finishing, while the visit is still fresh.

4. Hi [name], thanks for having us out today. How did [technician] do? Two minutes to let us know: [link]

5. [Name], hope that’s sorted the [problem] for you. Got a minute for a quick review? It helps us more than you’d think: [link]

6. Hi [name], [business] here. How’d today go? Rate us out of 5, takes about ten seconds: [link]

Naming the person who turned up lifts replies and tells you which of your team are getting the good scores.

Asking for a Google review by text

Use the write-a-review URL from your Business Profile, not your listing page.

7. Hi [name], glad we could sort that out for you. Fancy leaving us a Google review? Takes about 30 seconds: [Google link]

8. [Name], thanks for choosing [business]. Google reviews are how most people find us, so if you’ve got a sec: [Google link]

9. Hi [name], one small favour if you don’t mind. A Google review from you would help us out more than you know: [Google link]

Send someone to your listing instead and they have to hunt for the button. Most will not bother.

Asking for feedback rather than a public review

Send this before the review request, not instead of it.

10. Hi [name], how’d we do today? Just reply with a number from 1 to 5. Anything under 4 comes straight through to me.

11. [Name], quick one. What could we have done better with your [order]? Reply here and it comes straight to me, nobody else sees it.

12. Hi [name], was the [product] what you expected? Happy to hear it either way, and good or bad it goes to the team who made it.

You find out who is happy, then ask those people to say so in public. Do it the other way round and you hand a megaphone to the customer whose parcel arrived damaged.

The follow-up, when the first one got nothing

Three to five days later, worded differently. One follow-up only.

13. Hi [name], me again about the [product]. No worries at all if you’re busy, but it’d still be good to hear how you got on: [link]

14. [Name], last nudge from us on this one. Thirty seconds if you can spare it, and then we’ll leave you alone: [link]

15. Hi [name], guessing my last text got buried. Still keen to know how the [product] worked out for you: [link]

16. [Name], no pressure at all, but if you’ve got any thoughts on the [product] we’d love to hear them: [link]

Saying it is the last one, like fourteen does, gives people a reason to act now. A third message gets you reported, and a spam report costs more than one review is worth.

Rules You Have to Follow Before Sending

SMS is regulated in a way email is not, and the penalties are per message. This part is not optional.

• Get consent first. A number given at checkout for delivery updates is not consent to market to it. You need an explicit opt-in, and you need to be able to prove it later.
• Put opt-out in the message. “Reply STOP to opt out” on the first text to any number. Honour it immediately and permanently. Your platform handles the mechanics, but the obligation is yours.
• Say who you are. The recipient should know within the first few words. An unidentified link from an unknown number reads as a scam, which is the fastest way to get reported.
• Respect quiet hours. Many places set legal windows for marketing texts, commonly 8am to 9pm local. Check what applies where your customers are, not where you are.

How to Set Up SMS Review Collection

Six steps, and the first one is the one most people skip.

1. Start collecting phone numbers at checkout

You cannot text customers whose numbers you do not have. On Shopify, Wix and most carts, the phone field is optional by default, so turn it on and make clear at that point what you will use it for.

This is also where your consent record comes from. A number captured with a tick box that says what you will send is a number you can text later.

2. Connect your store to a review tool

Most install as an app or plugin and ask for an API key. Check two things before you commit: that it handles SMS as well as email, and that it can trigger on delivery rather than purchase.

WiserReview does both.

3. Set the trigger and the delay

Pick the order status that fires the message. Delivered is the right one. Completed or Fulfilled usually means it left your warehouse, not that it reached anyone.

Then set the wait. Two to three days after delivery for most products, longer for anything with a break-in period.

4. Pick a template and add the merge tags

Choose one of the templates above and drop in the tags your tool provides, usually something like {customer_name}, {product_name} and {review_link}. Those are what turn one message into thousands of personal ones.

Use a shortened branded link rather than a raw URL. It saves characters, looks like it belongs to you, and lets you count clicks.

5. Send yourself a test

Every tool has a test send. Use it, on your own phone, before anyone else gets it.

Check three things: the merge tags filled in properly rather than showing {customer_name}, the whole message arrived as one text, and the link opens straight on the review form.

6. Set the follow-up, then switch it on

One reminder, three to five days later, and only to people who did not click. Every decent tool can filter on that.

Turn the campaign on with a small batch first if you can. Fifty customers tells you whether the timing and wording work before you send it to five thousand.

Mistakes That Kill Reply Rates

• Texting before delivery. The most common error by far, and it makes the message impossible to answer.
• Batching sends to everyone at once. The replies land in one afternoon and most go unanswered, which defeats the point of asking.
• Sending from a number nobody recognizes. No business name in the first line means it reads as spam.
• Linking to your homepage. Every extra tap loses people. Link straight to the review form.
• Offering a discount for a positive review. That breaks the terms of every major review platform and can get your listing penalised. Incentivise the act of reviewing, never the rating.

What to Do With the Reviews You Collect

Collecting is the easy half. Reviews only pay for themselves once they sit somewhere a buyer sees them.

• Product pages, next to the buy button. That is where the doubt sits. A review in a footer carousel is a review nobody reads, and there are more social proof widgets worth borrowing from.
• Reply to the bad ones in public. A complaint answered well reads better than a page of five stars, because it shows someone is home.
• Keep the three- and four-star ones. A page of perfect scores reads as filtered. The mixed ones are what make the rest believable.
• Feed the good ones into ads. A real review, screenshots and unedited, outperforms copy you write about yourself.

How to Tell If It Is Working

Four numbers, checked monthly. Your SMS platform reports the first three.

• Delivery rate. Under 95 percent means dead numbers on your list, and you are paying for messages nobody receives.
• Click rate on the link. This tells you whether the message worked. Low clicks means the wording or the timing is wrong.
• Completion rate. Clicks that turned into a submitted review. High clicks with low completions means the form is the problem, not the text.
• Opt-out rate. The one to watch. Anything climbing past half a percent means you are sending too often or at the wrong hour.

Compare a month with requests running against a month without, and measure review volume rather than clicks.

How WiserReview Handles SMS Review Collection

WiserReview runs review requests over SMS, email, WhatsApp and QR code from one place.

• Triggers on order status rather than order date, with a delay you set.
• Follow-up sequences that only fire if the first message got no reply.
• Rules that skip anyone who already reviewed that order.
• Photo and video collection through the review form the link points to.
• 18 or more widgets for putting the results on product pages.

Wrap Up

Get consent, wait for delivery, keep it under 160 characters, name the product, and link straight to the form.

Start with the delivery template and one follow-up. That combination does most of the work, and you can add the Google and feedback flows once it is running.

Also check: How to use social proof in email marketing (9 ways)

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