Every dollar of marketing decays except one: the review. Ads stop working the day you stop paying. SEO drifts when the algorithm shifts. A G2 review from three years ago is still converting buyers today.
The math
The average B2B buyer reads a handful of reviews on G2 or Trustpilot before shortlisting. A single specific review, "cut our onboarding time by three weeks, and their CS lead Priya answered every Slack within an hour", outperforms a month of paid social.
What the best teams do
1. Ask before the honeymoon ends. The best reviews come in the first 60 days, when the customer's win is still fresh.
2. Ask for the specific thing. "If you write a review, the detail that helps the next buyer most is [the thing they raved about on the call]." Reviews become concrete instead of "great product, would recommend."
3. Reply to every review — publicly, in a human voice. Buyers read the vendor's replies as much as the reviews themselves. A canned "thanks for your feedback" is worse than not replying.
The one-star review
A negative review with a great reply is a marketing asset. It shows how you handle problems, which is what every buyer is really trying to learn.
Two tools to run this loop: the Customer Support Reply and the Public Review Response tool.