Whether you have a service-based business or sell a product – how your clients feel about your business, services received or how the product functioned – these are things potential clients like to read about as they make their purchase decisions.
Testimonials or product reviews. Both speak to how the service was received, how the product worked and the results the customer saw from using it. It can be a service testimonial, hotel review, restaurant review or product review – they all are the same and, in this day of the Internet, potential customers are looking for opinions of other people who ‘used’ the item.
Collecting client testimonials is an often missed part of business for a variety of reasons. However, it needs to be a regular part of your client follow-up plan. Many of us skip it because we feel awkward asking the clients, but may never receive any unless we ask. It is not often something offered up by the clients first – generally the onus is on the service / product provider to request a testimonial.
This is where the tricky part comes in.
Writing a testimonial can be a real struggle for some people – this may mean having a ‘fill in the blank’ template to help clients when you do request one. There are people that will argue this is not a genuine testimonial but I find it gives the clients a starting point and then they tend to add more words – enough so that testimonials using the template never sound like a repeat / clone of each other.
The other struggle is simply in the ‘ask’ as many business owners avoid it – possibly scared of the response? I would not recommend asking a client who parts on bad terms but it should be a general practice to ask parting and long-term clients. Testimonials should not always be former clients. Having them from current clients is great too. It shows others that some people can’t live without you or your service.
The two main steps to ensure you keep a good list of testimonials:
- Ask. Have it part of your ongoing parting client process. You need to ask while your service or product is still fresh in their mind…not months later when they forget why they appreciated your service.
- Have a template ready in case it is needed.
A good sample to start with for a testimonial template is here. There are four main parts but replace my name / business with yours and change the product or service descriptions. You want to try and frame these in a way of what was the problem you had, what did my business do for you and what are the results.
TESTIMONIAL TEMPLATE
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If gathering testimonials is a struggle for you, try the methods above and see if you cannot garner more and on a regular basis. If you have any questions on this, please feel free to post them on my Facebook Page.
Next, we will tackle what to do with these testimonials once you start receiving them.
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