Showing your company’s worth through customer testimonials is a very important aspect. Most of the companies are using them in a way or another – in marketing materias, on the website, in advertising, etc. If your clients are praising you and say great things about you, why not sharing them with the world by publishing them on your marketing channels, right?
But before you do so, you have to think on a few things. Consumers are more cautious than ever, and the worst thing you can do is throw in a few generic sentences from your customers. Since testimonials are not really a new marketing strategy, many potential new clients will be reluctant to them. They tend to believe the testimonials are fake, so you might get exactly the opposite effect.
So how will you make sure that all your efforts in creating testimonials are not in vain, and will convert potential customers to actual ones?
Well, we have the answers:
They must look authentic
You probably read plenty of testimonials that ended with just a name or a company name, at most. But it takes more than that for you to identify yourself with that customer. To create an efficient, authentic testimonial, add more information about the one “testifying”. For example, you can add an image of your customer, her job title and even the age. Anything that can be relevant and help your prospects identify themselves with the situation.
You can even add pictures of the work you have done or the problem you’ve solved.
Twitters study from August 2015: by including the customers’ name and the customer service representative name, instead of just the brand name, in responses, customer recommendations increased with 77%
Make sure they give the complete picture
Testimonials need to be specific. Add real facts, hard numbers and benefits. What if prospects can not only see the “after” scenario, but also the ”before” one? That would make the testimonial believable! Because they can see you’ve solved a problem. A problem they might also have, since they are on your page.
Just like a résumé needs both sides of the picture, so does a testimonial
Have them validated by a third-party service
Your potential clients gain trust when they see that a third-party tool has validated the genuineness of your customer testimonials.
Everyone can write a few praising sentences, attach them to a customer name and publish them on his website. But not in the case you’re using a third-party verification service, that reassures your visitors that your testimonials are real, verified by the customer and guarantees for your brand’s reputation.
Before you invite your customer to validate your work, make sure he agrees with you publishing his information on the web. Read more on how to ask your customers for testimonials.
Add diversity into your testimonials bank
Having testimonials from only one client or using the same lines over and over again, will not be as effective as having different types of testimonials on your page, from different types of people that prospects can identify themselves with.
Collect testimonials from a variety of clients, from many groups of people that potential customers could relate to, about different experiences with you. The more diverse your testimonials are, the more problems you can solve. That is what prospects see.
Takeaways: Shortly, don’t leave room for speculations, when it comes to customer testimonials. Your trust assets are your happy customers. Ask them to share their experience. Broadcast their satisfaction. Use pictures! Make sure the testimonials speak about the benefit of being your client and that they are verifiable.
Small details create big changes! With a small effort in paying more attention to how you build your customer testimonials, you create trust and credibility for your potential customers, and so influence their buying decision in a positive way.
