Review Request Emails: When to Ask and What to Say

Send a review request email after the product has arrived and the customer has used it for real, and make it one ask: rate this product. That's how Hayes Media, an eCommerce growth agency that runs email and SMS retention for DTC and Shopify brands, sets up the review ask. The timing follows the product, not a template.

This article covers the review email on its own. For where it sits in the full sequence after checkout, see our post-purchase email flow examples. To ask customers why they bought, use our post-purchase survey questions.

Review request email: an automated email that asks a customer to rate and review a product they bought.

First real use: the point where the customer has used the product the way it's meant to be used, and so has an honest opinion of it.

Review rate per delivered order: reviews collected divided by delivered orders that got the ask. It's the number this whole article works toward.

Why does a review request fail when it arrives before the product is used?

Because the customer has nothing to report yet. If the email lands before the box, or before they've opened it, the honest answer to "how was it?" is "I don't know yet." So they ignore it.

An early ask can only get a review of what's happened so far, which is the shipping. You end up with reviews of your carrier on your product page.

The review email is part of the first experience with your brand, and that whole experience is what earns the next order. A badly timed ask costs more than one missing review.

How do you set review request timing by product type?

Start from the delivery date, then add the time it takes this specific product to reach first real use. Don't count from the order date. Shipping times vary by carrier and region, so a fixed delay from purchase lands at a different point for every customer.

If your store passes a delivery event to your email platform, trigger from that. If you only have a fulfillment event, add your typical shipping time on top of it. Then set the extra delay by product type.

Consumables (coffee, supplements, skincare). First use usually happens soon after delivery, but an opinion on results can take longer. Ask about the first impression (taste, texture, ease of use) once they've had a chance to try it. If the product promises results that build over time, match a later ask to the usage directions on your own label.

Apparel and footwear. Fit gets judged at try-on, and quality gets judged on the first real wear. Ask after they've had time to try it on and wear it out once. Keep your return window in mind: someone still deciding whether to send it back isn't ready to review it.

Durables (furniture, appliances, tools, electronics). There's often assembly or setup before any real use, and quality shows over repeated use. Ask later than feels natural. Your support inbox tells you when: look at when setup questions stop coming in for that product.

Gifts. The buyer isn't the user. If your checkout captures a gift option or a shipping address that differs from the billing address, branch those orders. Ask the buyer about the buying experience, or ask whether the person they gave it to liked it, and skip the detailed product review.

To find your own number, read the reviews you already have and note how long people say they used the product before writing. Check when "how do I use this?" tickets arrive. Then test two delays against each other and keep the one with the higher review rate per delivered order.

Who should you ask for a review, and who should you skip?

Ask customers whose order arrived and whose experience has been clean. Skip anyone with a refund, a return, or an open support ticket, and anyone you've asked recently.

Skip refunds and returns. A review request after a refund reads as tone-deaf. Exit them from the flow the moment the refund or return is logged.

Skip open support tickets. Sync a tag from your helpdesk to your email platform and filter on it. Let the ticket close first. A problem that got fixed well can still turn into a fair review later.

Don't ask the same customer every time. Set a frequency cap for customers who order often, and only ask about products they haven't reviewed yet.

Skip orders that didn't arrive whole. Cancelled orders, lost parcels, and partial shipments all wait until the full order is delivered.

Build these as filters on the flow itself, so they apply to every order. Our guide to Klaviyo email flows covers the other core flows a store needs.

What should a review request email say?

One ask, the product they bought, and a star rating they can tap from the email. Ask for a photo only after they've left the rating.

Name the product in the subject line. "How's the Field Jacket?" tells them what you want before they open it.

Make one ask. No cross-sell block, no discount banner, no new arrivals. The email exists to get one tap.

Show the exact product. Use the image and name of the variant they bought. For a multi-item order, lead with one product so the first tap is simple.

Put tappable stars in the email. If your review app supports it, each star links to the review form with that rating already filled in. The customer has committed with one tap before they see a text box.

Ask for a photo second. Put the photo request on the thank-you page after the rating, or in a short follow-up to people who left a rating. Asking for a photo upfront makes the task look bigger before they've started.

Should you send the review request by SMS?

No. Send the ask by email, and keep texts for delivery facts: shipped, out for delivery, delivered.

If you send a reminder, keep that in email too. For the wider rules on texting customers, including consent, see our guide to SMS marketing for eCommerce.

Can you offer an incentive for a review?

Yes, within limits from the US Federal Trade Commission: the reward can't depend on the review being positive, you tell customers in advance to disclose what they received, and if the incentive materially raises your average star rating over non-incentivized reviews, it may still be deceptive.

In its answer on review incentives, the FTC says:

"Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions or experiences of the endorser."

On incentives, it says you can't condition one, such as a discount, "on a review being positive, as that may motivate people to give a positive review for reasons unrelated to their honest opinion about your product."

Source: FTC, "FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking," https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides.

In practice, that means:

Offer it to everyone you ask, for any honest review. One star or five, the reward is the same.

Say so in the email. Tell them what they get, that it's for an honest review, and that they need to mention the reward in their review to receive it.

Mark incentivized reviews. If your review app can tag them, turn that on.

Check where the review lives. Marketplaces and third-party review sites have their own rules, and many don't allow incentives at all.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. If you sell in several countries, check the rules in each.

What should you do with a bad review?

Publish it, reply to it in public, and fix the cause in private.

Reply on the review itself with what you're doing about it, then contact the customer through support to make it right. Tag the reason (sizing, damage, taste, setup) so you can count them.

If the same complaint keeps coming up, fix the source: add a sizing note to the product page, improve the setup guide in your onboarding email, or change the product.

We don't build flows that send happy customers to the public review form and unhappy ones to a private survey. It skews the rating shoppers see, and it hides the problems you most need to hear about.

How do reviews feed your ads and flows?

Reviews give you proof and the customer's own words, and both get reused well beyond the product page.

Ads. Customer photos and quotes show you the angles and words real buyers use, which you can brief to the creators behind your ads. Our UGC ad examples show what those ads look like. Check that your review app's terms give you permission to use customer content in ads.

Flows. Star ratings and short quotes belong in abandoned cart emails, the welcome series, and browse reminders, next to the product the shopper looked at.

How do you measure a review request flow?

Track review rate per delivered order, defined at the top. Open rate and click rate tell you the email was seen. They don't tell you whether it worked.

Counting per delivered order strips out skipped and undelivered orders, so you're measuring the ask itself.

Here's an illustrative worked example, with made-up numbers only to show the math. Say a supplement brand sends its ask at a fixed delay from the order date. In a month, 400 orders are delivered and get the ask, and 16 leave a review: a review rate of 4%. Reading the reviews, many mention the parcel and few mention the product. The brand moves the trigger to the delivery event and adds time for first real use. The next month, 400 delivered orders get the ask and 28 review: 7%, with more of them talking about the product. Your own numbers will differ. The method is the point.

Alongside review rate, watch three things:

Average rating by send delay. If earlier sends rate lower, look at timing before you look at the product.

Photo rate among reviewers. This tells you whether the second ask is working.

Share of reviews about shipping. A high share means the ask still lands too early.

Reviews are one part of retention. For how they fit with the rest, measured on lifetime gross profit to CAC, see our guide to eCommerce retention marketing.

What do good review request emails look like?

Here are two short examples in plain text. Swap in your own product, name, and sign-off.

Example 1: a consumable (coffee).

Subject: How's the Morning Roast?

Hi Sam,

By now you've brewed a few cups of the Morning Roast. How would you rate it? Tap a star below. It's one tap, and it helps other coffee drinkers decide.

[1 star] [2 stars] [3 stars] [4 stars] [5 stars]

Thanks, Priya, head roaster

Example 2: apparel (a jacket).

Subject: How does the Field Jacket fit?

Hi Alex,

You've had a chance to wear your Field Jacket (olive, size M). How does it fit? Tap a star to rate it.

[Rate it: 1 2 3 4 5 stars]

If the fit's off, reply to this email and we'll sort out an exchange.

Thanks, Dana, customer team

Thank-you page after the rating: "Thanks for rating it. Got a photo of you wearing it? Add one here. It helps other people see how it fits."

When does this advice not apply?

Marketplace sales. If most of your orders go through Amazon or another marketplace, follow that marketplace's own rules for contacting buyers and requesting reviews.

Subscriptions. Ask after the first shipment, not on every renewal. Ask again only when the product or formula changes.

Made-to-order or long-lead products. The rule still holds, but the anchor is the date the finished product reaches the customer, which may be well after the order.

Very low order volume. If you ship a handful of orders, a personal email from the founder can do the job without a flow.

A known product problem. If returns or tickets point to a real defect, fix it before you push for more reviews.

Want your review flow set up properly?

Hayes Media builds review requests as part of its retention practice: email, SMS, loyalty programs, and subscribe-and-save, judged on lifetime gross profit to CAC. Hayes works in Klaviyo for most accounts and has experience in most other email and SMS platforms. See the email and SMS retention service for the full scope. One-time email projects start from $2,000 USD, and retainers for ongoing full management start from $4,000 USD per month, scoped on the discovery call.

Book a discovery call and we'll audit your post-purchase review ask: the trigger, the timing by product, who's being skipped, and your review rate per delivered order. No onboarding fees. No lock-in contracts. No junior marketers.