Customer testimonials are a key element to driving up the trust factor of your website. Good reviews are key to getting your visitors to trust you enough to purchase your services or products. According to Myles Anderson, “88% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.” Gathering reviews can be a difficult task especially when you don’t know what you need from them. We’ve put together a checklist that you can run through so you know exactly what to ask your customers when requesting reviews.
4 points That Make Up Great Customer Testimonials
1. Customer testimonials clearly outline their problem. You want to make sure your customer’s testimonial includes the problem that they are having. People need to relate to the review so that they may see some of their own problems within the testimonial. This lets them forge a connection to your company before even initiating contact with you.
2. They mention what you did to help solve the problem. You want your potential customers to see how great your company is. Build trust for your readers. Show them how you helped existing customers solve their problems. Alternatively, you can use case studies for this as well. Get a testimonial from the customer and link it to the case study.
3. The testimonial mentions the results. You want your visitors to see that you were successful in solving your customer’s problem. You must be the hero for your customers. Ask your customers questions such as “How did our service/product solve your problem?” “What positive results did you see because of the service/product you purchased from us?” You want your customers to back up their claim that you solved the problem by offering hard facts and data to support the claim.
4. How are things going now? You customers should mention how life has been following the service/purchase. Did leads increase for your customer? Did your service/product help them increase revenue or decrease costs? These are the type of benefits that potential customers will look for before they decide to reach out to you. Hearing from a past customer’s positive experience will make them more likely to want your services too.
How to get Testimonials from customers
How do you go about getting clients and customers to write a brilliant testimonial for your company? There are dozens of methods out there to help you gain reviews. That being said, there are 3 very simple steps that can lead you to a great testimonial.
- Ask for them. You need to ask your customers for reviews and the easiest way to do this is via Facebook or Google Plus. Write a Facebook post or an email with a link to the review page. Then ask your customers to leave a review on their experience with you.
- Optimize your local listings. Local listing directories are the best ways to gather reviews because sites like Yelp and Google Places allow users to leave reviews for you. Using a local SEO service will go a long way to helping you claim your listings on these sites and help consolidate your brand on the internet. Make sure your name, number, and address are identical on all your local listings.
- Customers need to know WHY they should leave you a review. What’s in it for them? You need to provide some sort of an incentive that makes them want to leave a positive review. One of the easiest ways could be to run a promotion where you offer 5% off their next order, or if that can’t work in your industry, maybe offer a mailed gift card in return for their review.
Display Customer Testimonials on your Website
You need to ensure your testimonials are front and center on your website. There is no point gathering reviews and testimonials if you aren’t going to show them to your visitors. The whole purpose of gathering reviews is to increase the trust in your brand and company. Make sure you spread out your customer testimonials throughout the content on your website in places where they will stand out against the surrounding content. Add graphics to make them stand out even more and then link to an in-depth review page.
The possibilities are endless for you to showcase your testimonials. Just be sure that the testimonials you decide to show are thoughtful and directly related to the content on any given page. For example, don’t show a testimonial for a Wedding photoshoot on a page for a birthday party session. You want them to add value to the page they’re on.
Start building customer testimonials today
As you can see, testimonials carry immense power to help drive sales and conversions on websites. They verify all your claims through your marketing efforts to establish trust for your would-be customers. Testimonials also verify that you can deliver on promises and provide users the results/products they expect to receive from you.
If you would like to take the next step in gaining customer testimonials, or you’d like to see how you could improve your current strategy, contact us today!