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Testimonials aren’t reviews

While testimonials are a form of feedback and praise or criticism for your company, they’re not the same as a review. Sure, on the outside they sound a lot like a review, but there’s a key difference: you own the testimonial. When you’re gathering reviews, they’re going on sites like Google and Yelp. It’s a way for one customer to tell another what they thought of your business. A testimonial is most likely going to be hosted on your site, and it’s directly curated by you. You can decide whether to publish them or not. You feed them to the customers on your site, and they work to earn the trust of your website visitors. So, how do you get more of them?

Key takeaways:

• Ask your clients for testimonials
• Create an email template for testimonials
• Test your templates
• What to do with testimonials you didn’t ask for

Ask them

This sounds a lot like one of the points for gathering reviews, but the difference is you don’t always have to ask for a review. To get a testimonial, you’re going to have to ask your customer. The important thing to remember when asking for a testimonial is that you do it while your company is still fresh in your client’s mind. Don’t wait several weeks after you’ve worked with them to ask for a testimonial because they may have forgotten some of the great feelings you gave them. Instead, the moment the work is done, and they tell you they love the work, ask!

Use a template

But how do you ask? Through email. Even if you’re working on-site, you’re going to want to send them an email asking for the testimonial. If you ask in person, they have to remember to write the testimonial later, when they’re at their desk. If you ask via email, the email will serve as a reminder. Also, through email, you can help them form the testimonial by:

• Providing them with samples of other testimonials you’ve received so they can see the format and how others wrote their testimonials.
• Writing a sample testimonial to include in your email.
• Giving them a deadline, so they don’t forget to get it done.
• Making it count double by asking them to leave their testimonial as an online review as well.

Test your favorite templates

Just as with newsletters, not every testimonial template is going to provide the same results. Some may not even be opened if you’re not using the right headline. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to test out your templates and see which one gets the best results. Once you find the right template, you can toss all the others and move forward with the one that customers prefer. You can even test this on the same client. If a client doesn’t open your first template, send a more optimized one to see if your new subject line catches their attention.

The magical testimonial you didn’t ask for

Sometimes when you’re working with a client, they may say something that sounds amazing, and you want to leverage that hidden testimonial for the good of your business. This may be one of the easiest testimonials you can get, but they can be rare.

Before you copy and paste those words onto your website, you still have to ask to use their words. The minute you see the testimonial, ask your customer if you can use it. Tell them what their words meant to you, how it would benefit your company, and ask if they would mind if you used them for a testimonial.

The name of the testimonial game is ease. Clients are busy people. Make the process easy for your client, so it doesn’t take a bunch of their time. How do you do that? We offer an incredible, one-click survey that helps your business get the feedback you need from customers. Leverage the power of our one-click survey and start seeing improved communications between clients and your business!