How to Get Customer Testimonials & What to Do With Them?

There’s no better person to tell you that your services or products are great than a customer who has tried them. Testimonials from happy customers allow you to learn how much your business impacts their lives.

Potential customers can also determine whether your company is worth their time and money, but how do you actually get and use customer testimonials?

Let’s explore customer testimonials, their role in boosting your business, and how you can maximize them.

What Are Customer Testimonials?

A customer testimonial is like an endorsement from a happy customer. It’s a written or recorded statement from someone who has tried your product or service and had a great experience.

Customer testimonials, unlike reviews, are mostly positive. They focus on the customer’s great experience and how your business made a difference in their life.

Here are some types of customer testimonials:

• Quote: The traditional testimonial is a short, one to two-sentence statement from a satisfied customer. This is commonly used on business websites and in marketing materials. It may be short, but it can be extremely effective!
• Long-form: A long-form testimonial is a more in-depth story from a customer. These are usually a few paragraphs long and go into detail about how your product or service helped them; they’re great for sharing on your website.
• Social Media: Social media testimonials are statements that customers post on their social media accounts, usually with a photo. They can be status updates, photo captions, or even reviews. These are powerful because they involve the customer themselves sharing their great experience with your business through their own channels.
• Video: A video testimonial is a great way to show off customer satisfaction. They can be recorded in person if your customer is local or online if they’re not. Video testimonials are great because you can really capture the customer’s enthusiasm and body language.
• Mashup: A mashup testimonial is a combination of two or more types of testimonials. For example, you could have a short quote from a customer with a photo of them using your product. You could also have a video testimonial with a long-form written testimonial — anything to keep the interest of your readers.

Why Are Customer Testimonials Important?

About 92% of consumers head to reviews before making a purchase, and 40% form an opinion just by reading at least one review. Moreover, 68% reported that they trust a local business more when they find positive reviews.

Do you see how powerful customer testimonials are for businesses yet?

Simply put, customer testimonials influence purchase decisions. If a potential customer is on the fence about your company, a positive testimonial could be just what they need to finally convert.

Even if they don’t use your company, they might remember your business the next time they need your services.

What Are the Benefits of Collecting Customer Testimonials?

Customer testimonials are one of the many business tools you can use to make your brand thrive. What do customer testimonials exactly do?

Build Relationships With Customers

Customer testimonials are a way to connect with your customers on a deeper level. It helps you understand how they use your product, what they like and don’t like, and how you can improve.

Customer testimonials also show your customers that you’re interested in their experience.

Improve Your Products or Services

Customer testimonials are an excellent way to see what you’re doing right and wrong.

If you constantly receive feedback that your product is too complicated or takes too long to ship, it’s time to make some changes.

Highlights How You Understand Your Customers

Your business’ goal is to provide for the needs of your target market. If you can do that, it will show in your customer testimonials.

With customer testimonials, potential customers will see how you understand their needs and how your product or service fills that gap.

Explains the Customer Journey

The customer journey is the process customers go through when interacting with your brand. It starts with becoming aware of your product and continues after purchase.

Testimonials show you how customers behave at each stage and help you see how you can tailor your products according to their needs.

Boosts Brand Awareness

A positive customer testimonial has the potential to reach hundreds or even thousands of people. It’s like word-of-mouth marketing but on a larger scale.

If you want more people to find your business (or the other way around!), focus on the ones you’ve already made a connection with.

How to Collect Customer Testimonials

The way you communicate with your customers says a lot about your business. If you want to collect customer testimonials, it’s vital that you make the process as smooth and effortless as possible.

Here are a few tips on how you can do that:

1. Find the Right Time: If you wait too long, your customers might forget how they felt or what they experienced. On the other hand, if you ask too soon, they might not have had enough time to experience your product or service fully. The best way to know if your customers are ready to give a testimonial is to simply ask them. You can do this through a phone call, email, or even in person.
2. Make It Easy For You and For Them: Your customers are busy, so make it easy for them to write a testimonial. You are running a business, too, and you don’t want to spend too much time chasing after testimonials. Have a system in place where customers can easily submit their testimonials. If possible, adjust your plans according to their availability. It would also be best to decide beforehand if you want to automate or personalize the process.
3. Have Several Options: Your plans may not always work out the way you want them to. There will be times when your customers just don’t have the time or the inclination to write a testimonial. When this happens, you should have other options in place. Give your customers more reasons to say yes to your request!
4. Aim For Quotable Answers: Provide questions that aim for short, sweet, and direct answers. More importantly, you should provide questions that will help you get the most out of your customer testimonials. The last thing you want is a long-winded testimonial that doesn’t really say anything.
5. Ask For Referrals: Customer testimonials are valuable, but they’re not the only thing you should focus on. Aim to collect referrals. Referrals are basically the leads that come from your current customers. Asking for referrals is a great way to get more customers. Not only that, but it’s also a great way to show your current customers how much you appreciate them.
6. Inform Them About Backlinks: If your satisfied customer used your products or services for their business, you could guarantee them that you’ll link back to their website. Backlinks help improve your website’s ranking on search engines like Google. In turn, you can help them get more website visitors through their customer testimonials.
7. Go Beyond Templates: Templates help you get started in asking your customers for testimonials, but you should also go beyond that. If you really want to stand out, personalize your request.  Use your genuine relationship with your customer and let them know how much their testimonial would mean to you and your business. How you talk to them in person or how you word your email can make a big difference.

How Should You Use Testimonials?

You can place customer testimonials on your business website or social media. You can even ask permission to use them on marketing materials, such as brochures or flyers!

Customer testimonials can go a long way if you know how to use them correctly. Work doesn’t stop after you collect them. What should you do, then?

• Nurture Your Business Relationships: Genuine customer testimonials work best. Your customers should feel like they’re part of your business and not just a number. Nurture your business relationships before, during, and even after you get customer testimonials.
• Have a Testimonial Page: If you want things to be easy for your customers, you’ll want the same for your potential customers. Have a dedicated testimonial page on your website where people can easily read what others have to say about your business.
• Be Visually Appealing: No one wants to read a huge block of text, no matter how well-written. Make your customer testimonials visually appealing by using images, videos, or infographics.
• Be Specific: When using customer testimonials, be as specific as possible. This means sharing particular details about your products or services and how they helped your customers so your potential customers can quickly see how you can help them.
• Make Them Shareable: Include social sharing buttons on your website or blog post so they can share it with their friends and followers. You can even create a hashtag for your customer testimonials to make them more discoverable on social media.
• Speak About Them in Public: Customer testimonials don’t have to stay online. If there’s an opportunity to speak about them in public, take it!

Examples of Testimonials

What do effective customer testimonials look like? At Search Click Grow, we placed a couple of testimonials at the bottom of our homepage.

One is from Roman K., and it says:

“SearchClickGrow is a team of professionals who are ready to work with you and communicate effectively about your needs. I’ve had a terrific time working with them and would highly recommend them.”

Another excellent example is how Bizzabo features quotes and other types of testimonials from its customers in different industries. Alternatively, you may find Hootsuite’s “Success Stories” on its website and an inspiring testimonial on its YouTube channel.

Esch Landscaping LLC also dedicates a page for their client testimonials where you can find videos and quotes.

Plus, many businesses maximize social media for customer testimonials. bioClarity, for example, shared a photo of their product on Twitter along with a customer review.

You can also find them on Instagram and read testimonials through hashtags like #FueledByFloralux and #gardengivenbeauty.

Another genius example is FocusLab. As a design agency, they display their testimonials beautifully on their website in the form of visual catalogs.

They also included all their testimonials in their case studies, allowing potential clients to see more of what others are saying about their work. How FocusLab used their industry — which is design — in their testimonials is creative, unique, and definitely eye-catching!

Explore the different ways different businesses use customer testimonials and how you can use them for your business. Whether you decide to place them on your website, social media accounts, or marketing materials, make sure you maximize them to your advantage.

You have the freedom and creativity to use customer testimonials in any way you want, as long as it benefits your business.

Grow With Customer Testimonials

The keywords for customer testimonials are feedback, impact, and conversion. They’re there to show how your product or service helped your customers and how it can help potential customers, too.

Customer testimonials help you with lead generation and can even increase your conversion rate. That’s how powerful they are!

Search Click Grow is a business growth marketing agency that knows just how significant a single customer testimonial is. We can help you get customer testimonials that are specific, shareable, and visually appealing.

We’ll also help you use them to their full potential so you can reach your business goals.

Anything you need for business growth marketing, we’ve got you covered. We’re here for you if you’re currently focused on learning your customers’ experience with your products and services.

Contact us today!