Incentivize customers to leave a review with a coupon

AutomateWoo can send a unique coupon after WooCommerce approves a customer’s product review. The workflow in this guide clones a template coupon, emails the generated code to the customer, and limits the reward to one coupon per customer.

This setup rewards a customer after their review is approved. If you tell customers about the reward before they leave a review, make it clear that any honest review qualifies.

Before you start

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• Install and activate AutomateWoo.
• Enable product reviews in WooCommerce > Settings > Products.
• Decide the discount amount, expiry period, and usage limits before creating the template coupon.
• Check the laws and review-platform rules that apply to your store. Some platforms prohibit incentivized reviews even when the incentive is disclosed.

Create a template coupon

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AutomateWoo generates each customer’s coupon by copying an existing WooCommerce coupon. The template controls the discount type, amount, product or category restrictions, minimum spend, and other coupon settings.

1. Go to Marketing > Coupons and select Add new coupon.
2. Enter a recognizable coupon code. This example uses review-thank-you-template.
3. Choose the discount type and amount. Add any usage restrictions your store needs.
4. Set a usage limit if the generated coupons should not be reusable. The workflow can also override this value when it generates the code.
5. Publish the template coupon.

For more options, see How to create personalized coupons.

Create the review workflow

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1. Go to AutomateWoo > Workflows and select Browse presets. Find Reviews: Reward customers for a review (with coupon) and select Create workflow.
2. Enter a descriptive title and keep the workflow disabled while you configure and test it.
3. Confirm the trigger is New Review Posted.
4. Keep Timing set to Run immediately.
5. Confirm the preset rule Workflow – Run Count For Customer is set to is and 0 to send one reward per customer.

The trigger runs only after a review is approved. It already prevents the workflow from running more than once when the same customer reviews the same product multiple times. Add the run-count rule only when you want one reward per customer across the whole workflow, rather than one reward for each product they review.

Add the coupon email

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1. In Actions, open the preset’s Send Email action.
2. Confirm the To field uses the customer email variable.
3. Write the subject, heading, and message. Thank the customer for their honest feedback without describing the review as positive.
4. In the coupon variable already in the email content, replace the placeholder template name with the code of the coupon you created.
5. Optionally set expires to the number of days the generated coupon remains valid and limit to the number of permitted uses.

The template coupon is required. AutomateWoo cannot generate a coupon when the variable does not name an existing template coupon.

Keep the review offer neutral

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Do not require a positive review, a minimum star rating, or specific wording. Apply the same offer to positive and negative reviews, and disclose the incentive clearly wherever required. The US Federal Trade Commission says an incentive must not be conditioned on a particular sentiment and that the review should disclose the incentive. Review the FTC’s guide for marketers, plus the laws and platform policies that apply to your store.

Test the workflow

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1. Save the workflow while its status is Disabled. Select Preview in the email action and choose suitable preview data. Check the message and coupon placeholder.
2. Use Send Test from the preview to send a test email to yourself. Check the generated test coupon’s amount, restrictions, expiry, and usage limit.
3. To test the review trigger end to end, use a staging store with test customers and email delivery under your control. Set the workflow to Active and save it, then submit and approve a test product review. Disabled workflows do not run.
4. Check AutomateWoo > Logs for the workflow result and verify the coupon at checkout. If the test fails, check that the review is approved, the template coupon exists, and the customer has not already received a reward through this workflow.
5. Once you’re satisfied with the test, activate and save the workflow on your store. If you used a staging store, disable the test workflow there.