Our clients are often unsure when we recommend using testimonials on their website. They are concerned that they will not be considered authentic and so visitors won’t believe them. Of course we are all cautious about testimonials online, but this is not a reason for omitting them.
Testimonials are a big part of showing that you have a happy client base, that others who have used you would recommend your services. What’s important is that you link the testimonials to examples of work you have done and that you would be prepared to put a prospective customer in touch with those who have given you testimonials if you are asked.
Making the most of testimonials online
To ensure that your get the most effective testimonials from clients it is a good idea to give them some guidance on what they might write. Just getting them to answer a set of questions can result in you ending up with testimonials that all sound very similar and therefore don’t appear authentic.
However, supplying a set of questions just as a way of helping them know what sorts of things to write will get you a fuller, more useful testimonial. It will also make the client’s life easier as they won’t be worrying about what to write.
The type of prompts you might give will depend on the type of service that you offer, but if you were a web designer you might ask:
- Have you worked with a web designer before?
- How did you find working with us different from working with a previous designer?
- Did you find us easy to get in touch with?
- How would you rate our customer service?
- Did we give you value for money?
- Were you happy with the speed of our service?
- Did you find us knowledgeable in our field?
- What did you learn from us?
- Did you have any problems whilst working with us and how did we solve these?
- What other types of companies would you recommend us to?
- Were you surprised or pleased by any aspect of our service?
If you have plenty of testimonials from happy clients, where should you put them?
Some of the most productive places to have testimonials are on your social media profiles. This is because testimonials have to be posted by the writer if they are to appear on your LinkedIn profile, on Facebook, Google +1 or Twitter. These types of testimonials carry the most weight… they really must be authentic.
The only down side of this is that you have to rely on the client to not only spend time writing the testimonial, but to also create their own online profile if they don’t have one, and take further time posting their comments online. Some clients will be too busy or just disinclined to do this.
That’s where your own website becomes the best place to display the testimonials. You can have a dedicated testimonial page or scatter them around the site so different testimonials are viewed on various pages. If you have case studies on your website, then accompanying these with testimonials is an excellent idea.
Possibly the best testimonial of all is the video
This takes a really happy customer as they have to give their time and also be willing to appear in person extolling your virtues! It is for that reason that these type of testimonials are one the most effective. Your list of questions that will act as prompts are particularly useful for video testimonials, ensuring clients can think of the right things to say.
Once you have created the video, start a YouTube channel of your own and upload the testimonial there, before using the embed code to make it play on your own website. That way you may also benefit from people using YouTube as a search engine.
