Testimonials – get the right feedback

Testimonials can help people see you in a new light. When you ask someone for a testimonial you have certain hopes or expectations. You want people to say your work was great. You want them to say they are so happy with your product or service and your the best thing since sliced bread.

A lot of the time these things aren’t what’s important to people. This is why testimonials can be so powerful if you ask for them correctly.

Get Honest Feedback

Don’t ask for testimonials straight away. Ask people for Feedback. Tell them you wan their opinions to help you improve your business. Make sure you ask them

• what could be improved
• what was the deciding factor to use your business (what obstacle did they have to overcome)
• what can you do to make things better next time
• what they liked or remembered most
• what they would say to a friend if recommending you

By including the above questions you show people you are interested in their opinions. You can then ask them if you may use some of their feedback as a testimonial. It is a nice surprise when a company follows up on a sale to find out what you thought.

Free Market Research

When someone takes the time to write something about your business whether it’s good or bad you should take the time to review it. Understand the points the person is making. Don’t just say that’s great and throw it with the rest of your testimonials. Look for key points. Are they happy with the product, service, individual they dealt with ? You might have a terrible product but really friendly and helpful staff. A good testimonial doesn’t mean everything about your business is great. A testimonial should show how your service or product solved a problem for the customer.

Most people demand 3 simple things when buying something:
Price, Service and Quality.

Ask yourself “what did the customer not feel strongly enough about to mention in their testimonial”. Improve this area of your business. If it’s a great product and people mention how it was cheaper than others then maybe you need to improve your service and quality.

Join the Club

Everyone wants to be part of a group thats popular. If other people are talking about how great something is more people will want to get in on the act and be included. Testimonials can show how everyone else thinks something is great. This is so very different to you actually telling someone your product is great. Of course you will say this. You want people to buy it, but a testimonial comes from someone who has used what you sell.

Don’t forget your manners

Always make sure to thank people who take the time out of their day to give you feedback or tell others about what you do. If people email or call to give feedback you should do the same and return the correspondence via the same manner.
If they recommend you to a friend and it gets you some work then send them a quick email or short letter to say thank you.
If people leave comments on your blog respond to them. I see a lot of people make this mistake. They write a great blog. People leave comments thank them and saying how great it was. The author never replies to any of these comments. The people who posted the comments didn’t do so in the hope that other readers would view their comment and boost the sites profile. They done it to give feedback directly to the author. Therefore the author should return the favour.