Time to start turning customer feedback into a powerful growth engine.
Millions of consumers trust Trustpilot. Businesses and consumers rely on the verified reviews they read on Trustpilot to make informed decisions. We give potential customers the confidence they need to purchase when customer satisfaction is showcased by prominently displaying our recognizable stars across your ads and search results.
Trustpilot offers a range of plans designed to adapt to your evolving needs. From basic free features to advanced analytics, our flexible plans empower you to start small and scale up as your business grows.
This ensures you always have the tools to gather valuable customer insights from authentic reviews and improve your products and services.
We have a few tips if you’re considering or you’ve just signed up for a free plan with Trustpilot and are unsure where to start or how to maximize the experience.
Optimize your business profile
Optimizing your business profile is crucial when you start a Free Trustpilot plan. Your business profile is your trust storefront, where your customers share their experiences and where you can showcase your brand’s trustworthiness.
By providing comprehensive information about your business, you can attract more customers and enhance your brand's reputation on Trustpilot.
Taking the first steps:
Fill in the basic info: Add your business name, domain, and logo to create an eye-catching preview.
Describe your business in detail: Tell your customers about your business and what sets you apart. Use at least 200 words to make a compelling statement.
Verify, verify, verify: Verify essential business information to boost transparency and build trust. Verified details will display as a checkmark on your profile page.
Trustpilot customer and major furniture chain Raymour & Flanigan have developed a comprehensive profile, which has led to nearly 50,000 reviews and an Excellent 4.5-star rating.
We suggest continuing to adapt and update your profile to make it an informative and inviting base for reviewers to express themselves.
Start inviting and collecting reviews
Now that your profile is set up, it’s time to collect reviews by inviting customers to leave them. At Trustpilot, we have a range of tools for sending review invitations on the Free plan: ecommerce integrations and Automatic Feedback Service (AFS).
Free plan users get access to 50 monthly review invitations and pre-built email templates that boost open rates and keep messages out of spam. We offer best practice advice for creating review invitations that make an impact and stay within Trustpilot guidelines.
Best practices we suggest:
All or none method
Invite all or none of your customers to write reviews. If that's not preferred, select an equally impartial system. We believe in this method because it is the most ethical and transparent route to take as a review collector.
Neutral language
Keep it unbiased. Don't incentivize or coerce reviewers to leave a review; this results in inauthentic reviews and goes against our guidelines.
Do not incentivize
It's so vital that we’ve mentioned it twice. Businesses are no longer allowed to offer consumers an incentive for reviews. Incentives include but are not limited to, promotional discounts, monetary rewards, loyalty points, gifts, coupons, etc.
Review management
Once reviews start coming in, we've found that the best way to manage them is to use helpful customer insights to identify development opportunities and respond quickly to negative reviews. Many business profiles with Excellent TrustScores reply in less than two days.
Managing reviews with a free plan is easy. Turn on review notifications to notify you when a review comes in, removing delays in replies and actions.
What about responding to negative reviews?
Always respond to negative reviews (and positive reviews; gratitude matters too). Almost 26% of consumers consider responding to reviews an important part of business activity.
We recommend responding to negative reviews positively and professionally in a way that aligns with your brand. Our tips for replying to all reviews include keeping responses polite and brief, thanking the reviewer for their feedback, and inviting a more in-depth offline discussion.
Here’s a recent example of a great response to a negative review:
Why it works: The responder acknowledged the reviewer’s feelings and negative experience without judgment and immediately offered information, context, and a solution.
Use the Review Collector Widget
What’s a widget? Widgets are mini-applications that display dynamic information on-screen at all times and interact with the user. Typical examples are search boxes, clocks, weather icons, calculators, and stock market widgets.
Trustpilot offers TrustBox widgets, which allow you to easily display your Trustpilot reviews and ratings on your own website. These widgets come in various styles and formats. We also offer a wide range of TrustBoxes as you progress through the plans.
Free plans have access to the Review Collector widget, which allows customers to simply click an icon and leave a review for your business on your Trustpilot profile directly from your website.
Key takeaways
Optimize your business profile: This is your storefront on Trustpilot. Fill out all the information, describe your business in detail, and verify your details to build trust with potential customers.
Start collecting reviews ASAP. Trustpilot offers free tools, including email templates and best practices, to help you collect reviews. Remember to keep invitations neutral, never incentivize reviews, and always ask customers to register on Trustpilot.
Connect with your customers: Respond to all reviews, both positive and negative, in a timely and professional manner. Use negative reviews as an opportunity to learn and improve.
Use the review collector widget and explore others we offer: This free widget lets customers easily leave a review for your business directly on your website.
Finally, a Free plan can be powerful: Even with a free plan, you can take advantage of many Trustpilot features to build trust and improve your business. You can always upgrade to a paid plan later for more advanced features.
