Why do customer testimonials matter? A business’ credibility is key to building its customer base and improving long-term relationships with buyers.
Positive customer testimonials allow businesses to be seen as trustworthy and reliable. That type of credibility seen on a business website can help build customer trust in your product or service. It can also drive sales. That’s why you utilize customer testimonials on a business website.
What Is Social Proof?
Social proof is proving the value of your product with customer reviews. Social proof can take several forms. The most common is customer reviews or testimonials. A customer receives their product, takes some time to learn how it works, and shares their review.
Potential clients want to hear from real people that use your product or engage with your service. Sharing reviews builds a higher degree of trust than passively reading about product or service descriptions on your website.
Why Use Customer Testimonials?
Customer testimonials are raw evidence that your business delivers on what it promises. By asking your client to provide a testimonial at the end of your working relationship, you can demonstrate the reliability and efficacy of your service. In highly competitive markets, reliability can be as important to growing your business as your rates, USPs, and timeframe.
How Can I Get Customer Testimonials?
Approaching customers for testimonials can be tricky. However, there are a few ways you can encourage them to leave reviews for your business and obtain permission to post them on your site.
- After purchase. Let’s say your business is an eCommerce company. Integrate a post-sales page on your site that asks for a short review of your product once the customer receives it.
- Email. Sending a post-purchase email to a customer encouraging them to leave feedback is a great way to further engage audiences. This can help create a lasting relationship between your business and customers.
- Direct approach. If your business is service-based and regularly works with clients, you may ask for a testimonial as part of the ‘wrapping up’ process at the end of your working relationship. Set up a dedicated online video call to discuss their feedback in-depth and get permission to post their review on your site.
Customers that had a positive experience with a small business are usually keen to share that experience with others. They want to show support for the business.
How to Use Customer Testimonials
The purpose of customer testimonials is to build trust in your business and offerings among future customers. These testimonials are also a chance for impressed former customers or clients to repay you for your service.
How Many?
The number of customer testimonials you choose for your website will depend on how many you have and where you plan put them.
Chunks of text can quickly crowd a site page. It may put customers off from visiting the website. There are two optional spaces for presenting testimonials:
- Carousel
- Dedicated page
A dedicated testimonials page will take longer to develop. However, it will allow you to include long-form reviews that go into greater detail. Customers looking for a business they can trust like to see tangible results. These reviews are best described in longer pieces of text. A carousel is less intrusive. It will allow you to include short, pity testimonials.
Placement
Where should you put customer testimonials? Place them where customers can see them. Customers want to be in control of their purchasing decisions, especially if they’re committing a lot of time and money.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Firstly, ask yourself these questions:
- Which page are they likely to visit first?
- How long does it take them to get through to purchase?
- What pages do customers turn to for information?
For example, a client looking to register a domain name may research their options. If your business has content based around these terms, then customer testimonials on this page may be useful for clients.
Visuals
Customers are often wary of reviews they come across online. It’s easy to fabricate snippets of praise as false reviews.
Adding visuals like photos can help to assuage these fears. It’s also a great way to brighten up your testimonials page – which is generally quite text-heavy – and makes it more visually appealing.
Content
Now, you have a strong collection of testimonials. Make sure to pick out some of the most effective phrases to use as headlines.
Look for content that will be useful to future customers. Moreover, here’s what to look for in customer testimonials:
- How your business helps customers
- Why your product or service is worth their time and money
- USPs or competitive edge
- An expression of recommendation
- Specifics, such as data or location
For example, let’s say an area of your business helps customers to buy ai domain names and maintain their site after setting it up. This can be a daunting process for clients. Luckily, your services will have made their lives a lot easier.
Go through testimonials. Focus on those that praise your assistance, information, reassurance, and tailoring of the experience to their needs.
Example of a Customer Testimonial
For example, here’s a great customer testimonial. This covers a lot of elements you should look for in your pool of testimonial content. This example is based on a digital marketing agency that has helped a local eCommerce business raise its sales numbers.
[Agency name] has done wonders for us at [company name]! Our sales figures have risen by 30 percent, and our website traffic has nearly doubled. Support and planning are excellent and very fast.
Or, you could create a dedicated testimonials page. Here’s an example, using the same scenario, of a long-form testimonial.
[Agency name] has really helped us. They listened to our needs and gave us a project consultant to build a plan that would work for us. We do not have a full-time digital marketing officer. However, [agency name] was able to work around that and provide a solution.
The content strategy we put together was a collaborative effort. It was manageable from the start. Our sales figures have gone up by 30 percent over the last [sales period], and our web traffic has increased by almost 50 percent!
We’d recommend [agency name] to any small business wanting to step up their business without overworking their team or taking on more than they can manage.
Therefore, encourage clients to write this testimonial. You can provide them with an incentive to do so. This might be in the form of a discount or promo code they can use in the future. This has the added boon of encouraging repeat custom and long-term loyalty.
Moving Forward with Customer Testimonials
Credibility is vital to a business’s success. In conclusion, customer testimonials can help keep building it and grow your customer base,
Francis King leads customer acquisition at OnlyDomains, a domain management solution that offers global services and support that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Francis has been a part of the team since 2009. He is our go-to guy for everything online advertising. Originally from Melbourne, Francis cannot go a day without lifting weights; he is considering taking on Jiu-Jitsu next. Read his blog here.