Prompt · Review request
Review request after a purchase
Get one honest review, positive or not.
- Email type
- Review request
- Business
- Ecommerce
- Tone
- Friendly
- Length
- 70-110 words
The review request email prompt
Write a plain-text review request from [BRAND] to someone who bought [THE PRODUCT] about [HOW LONG THEY HAVE HAD IT] ago. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes. The single action this email drives: writing one review. Rules: - 70 to 110 words. - Name the product and roughly how long they have had it in the first line. A review request that could have been sent to anyone gets a review that could have been written about anything. - Ask [THE SPECIFIC QUESTION] rather than "how did we do". A specific question produces a specific review, and specific reviews are the ones other buyers read. - Do not indicate what a good answer looks like. No "we hope you love it", no five-star imagery, no "if you were happy". Steering the sentiment is how a review section becomes worthless, and on many platforms it is against the rules. - Do not offer anything in exchange. A discount for a review buys reviews, not honesty. - Give them a way to reply directly if something went wrong, in one line. Some of these emails should end as a support conversation instead of a review, and that is a good outcome. - One ask, written as an ordinary sentence with the link inside it. - Never invent a number, statistic, rating, review count or customer figure. Where a figure belongs and I have not supplied it, leave a bracketed placeholder. - No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case. Write a subject line under 40 characters referencing the product. Return subject, preheader, body, sign-off.
What to fill in first
[BRAND]- Your shop name as a customer would say it.
[THE PRODUCT]- What they bought, named. A generic "your recent order" gets generic reviews.
[THE SPECIFIC QUESTION]- One question about actual use. "Does it fit the way you hoped?" beats "How did we do?"
[HOW LONG THEY HAVE HAD IT]- Roughly how long since delivery. It anchors the ask in their experience.
When to send it
Once they have actually used it, which is a different date for a candle and a mattress. Sending on delivery gets reviews about the packaging, because packaging is the only thing the customer has experienced yet.
What to change first
[THE SPECIFIC QUESTION]. “How did we do?” produces “Great, thanks”, which persuades nobody. “Does it
fit the way you hoped?” produces a sentence about fit, which is exactly what the next buyer is trying
to find out. The question you ask determines the review you get, and it is the only lever in this
email.
What good output looks like
Subject: How is the [THE PRODUCT] holding up?
Preheader: One question, and a reply gets to a person.
You have had the [THE PRODUCT] about three weeks now, which is long enough to know.
The thing most people want to know before buying: does it stay sharp, or does it need doing after a month? If you have a view either way, that is the review worth leaving.
Here is where to leave one.
If it has not gone well, reply to this instead and we will sort it.
The prompt writes the words. Bring them here and the studio builds the campaign — branded, dark-mode safe, and ready to import.
Generate your ownIn the studio
A model writes copy. It does not write email.
Production HTML that survives Outlook, dark mode and a Gmail clip is a different job from writing the words. Describe the send once and export it to Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign or MailerLite.