Posted by Here’s the truth: You can be the exact solution your audience needs, but if they don’t trust you or what you’re offering, they’re going to give their money to your competitors.
While it sounds harsh, the reality is that customers are more skeptical of marketing tactics now than before. In fact, a survey found that 9 out of 10 people will trust what a customer says about a business before trusting what the business itself said. And in that same survey, 95% of people said that reviews, whether positive or negative, impact their purchase decisions.
So, what does this mean?
It means that you can’t persuade your target audience to trust you as a business, but your customers’ testimonials can.
And one of the best ways to showcase your most influential reviews is with a dedicated customer testimonial page. This post will explain customer testimonials, why they’re important, examples of exceptional testimonial pages, and much more.
What is a customer testimonial?
A customer testimonial is a written or verbal statement that’s a genuine representation of a customer’s experience with a brand. They’re either from previous or current customers satisfied with the product or service they received and are recommending it to others based on this.
So, what’s the difference between customer testimonials and reviews?
Testimonials are provided directly to a business, while reviews are collected by third-party sites. Both of them are very important in building brand credibility. What’s more, you can even have some of your Google reviews working for you as testimonials.
Why is it important?
Customer testimonials help your prospects see that your brand and what you offer are legit. Let’s say you have the good (like, really good) product for a bargain price and have a detailed sales page outlining everything you offer. But, if no one has tried it before and you don’t have any social proof, potential customers are less likely to work with you.
But with testimonials, prospects can trust your brand to solve their problem since you’ve solved similar issues in the past.
It’ll also help you generate more high-quality leads. From a customer’s perspective, by reading reviews on your customer testimonial page, they can see the type of people you’ve helped and determine if their position, problem, or results are similar to their own.
From a business perspective, it can help you see who your ideal customers are and how your business benefits them. You might have created your product or service to solve one problem, but you see your customers are using it differently than you anticipated through customer reviews. Or they might be using it to solve a different issue than the one you’ve been marketing.
With this data, you’ll be able to target the right leads and promote the right features to help you increase your conversion rates. Plus, building your customers’ trust through testimonials is an excellent customer retention strategy.
Type of customer testimonials
There are several customer testimonial types that your audience can benefit from, so let’s look at them here.
Quote testimonials
One of the most commonly used testimonial types is a quote. These are customer quotes that are bite-sized information for your audience to digest. You can increase their effectiveness and credibility by including an image of your customer with their quote.
Video testimonials
Video testimonials are effective because you can’t fake them. Whether they’re 2- or 20-minutes long, anyone who watches them can see your customer’s genuine emotions.
Besides connecting with your testimonial emotionally, it also allows your prospects to see a real person benefiting from your business. This makes video testimonials one of the most trustworthy review types.
They are resource-intensive, but the ROI you’ll generate from them can last for months or even years. In fact, a study found that 77% of people who watched a testimonial video converted.
Influencer testimonials
Both B2C and B2B influencers are trusted sources of information that your target audience recognizes and respects. So, by collaborating with someone your audience trust and getting the influencer-approval rating, you can increase your conversion rates.
Plus, it’ll put your brand in front of more high-quality leads who probably never heard of you before.
Social media testimonials
Social media testimonials are testimonials that your customer published directly on social media. They’re organic and allow your audience to see how real-life people use your product or service in their everyday lives.
You can showcase these by screenshotting the social posts you want to use and adding them directly to your testimonial page or using a WordPress testimonial plugin. Another way is by embedding your website with curated content from your social feed with a social media aggregator.
Peer testimonials
Your customers want to know that you understand them and the problems they’re facing. That’s why peer testimonials are so effective. They show your potential customers that you’re helping people just like them get results.
Case study testimonials
Case studies can double as a full-length descriptive blog and a value-packed testimonial. While these don’t work in every industry, they’re incredibly effective at proving a company is trustworthy.
Tips for creating a high-quality customer testimonials page
Now that you know what customer testimonials are, the different types, and why they’re essential for both your customers and your business, let’s discuss best practices to get testimonials below.
Be strategic in who you ask
One of the most important steps to getting exceptional testimonials is knowing who to ask. You’ll need to keep in mind that these testimonials will be used on your customer testimonial page to represent your company. And not all of your customers will be a good representation of your brand’s image.
You don’t want to ask new customers who haven’t been using your product long enough to form an opinion of it. You also don’t want to use previous customers that weren’t satisfied with your product or service.
You do want to use customers that:
- Have previously expressed satisfaction with your company
- Have been using it for a few weeks to a few months, depending on the problem you solve
- Are loyal to your brand
These customers are the ones that can provide you with testimonials that’ll explain the problem they need to solve, what changed, and how your product has helped them.
Know how to ask for customer testimonials
Here’s the thing, brand-worthy customer testimonials aren’t going to be placed in your lap. A few of them might, but overall, you have to ask for them.
And how you ask for them will make the difference between customers agreeing to share their experience and them ghosting you.
While you can ask for testimonials through social media, your website, or in person, one of the most common ways to ask is through emails. Email testimonial requests are fast, streamlined, and relatively straightforward for your customers.
Plus, unlike other methods, you can use an email tracking tool to see who’s opened your request but hasn’t responded, so you can send segmented follow-ups when needed. You can ask through email with appreciation, incentives, or predefined actions in drip campaigns. Let’s look at each one more below.
Customer appreciation
Appreciation emails are essential to let them know that you appreciate them as customers and would love to hear from them about how they’ve benefited from your product in a short survey. These types of emails show your customer that you see them, appreciate their business, and would love to hear more about their experience.
Incentives
There are mixed opinions about whether you should provide your customers with an incentive to share their experience. Some people believe that you’re bribing your customers to give a good review of your company in exchange for money, free merch, or discounts. On the other hand, others see it as you showing your customers you value their time.
How you feel about it and what you offer is relevant to your customer base and business model.
But that doesn’t change the fact that customers love providing testimonials when there’s something in it for them.
Drip campaigns
Emails sent through drip campaigns based on predefined actions can be sent directly after your customer completes an action or after a specified amount of time has passed. Again, the approach you choose is dependant on your customer and business.
Ask the right questions
The quality of your testimonials depends on the questions you ask. If you’re asking simple yes or no questions, your testimonial page will lack depth. So, you’ll need to help guide your customers through their experience by asking the right questions.
Here are some questions you can ask them:
- What problems were you facing before you started using X?
- What other solutions were you considering, and what made you choose ours?
- What was the turning point that made you use X?
- How has your life changed since you started using X?
Each question is open-ended, so it allows participants to share their experiences without restrictions. But they’re also specific, which helps you get the details you need to craft testimonials that convert.
You can also ask more questions or tweak the ones above to fit your need. Just keep in mind that your customers are likely answering your survey on their phones, and too many questions might make them back out.
Use various testimonial types
Your customers don’t all consume the same type of content. So, one way to reach more customers is by including various testimonial types on your page. If you don’t have the resources to get them at first, then use the one you know will best represent your business and that your customers will be more receptive towards.
But if you do, showcase your business with quotes, videos, case studies, etc. And by including several types, you’ll create a comprehensive testimonial page that keeps your readers interested throughout.
Highlight top-tier testimonials
With so many testimonials on one page, your audience won’t know which ones to focus on that are best for their situation. So your testimonial page will need to work for them.
By using sticky elements, you’ll highlight some of your top-tier testimonials that cover various problems you solve, audiences you help, or your best product features.
Examples of customer testimonial pages
Knowing what elements are involved in creating a testimonial page that converts is only part of the equation. Let’s look at how some well-known brands are using testimonials to reach their target audience.
Nectar
On average, humans spend at least a third of their day sleeping. So, the quality of sleep we get and what we use for it is crucial to our life. Nectar, a mattress company, understands that to get customers to trust them and buy their product, they need to go beyond a few generic reviews.
On their customer testimonial pages, they provide quotes, videos, expert, and peer reviews. Their quotes can be filtered based on product type to help visitors conveniently find reviews related to the product they’re interested in. Their videos testimonials are product reviews from industry experts. And they also provide peer reviews by allowing their potential customers to filter reviews based on everything from sleep position to why you’re purchasing a new mattress.
One of their most notable testimonial pages is one that’s catered to their primary customer base – people who suffer from back pain. It’s an entire page with quotes and research-based statistics to help potential customers decide if a Nectar mattress is right for them.
Khoros
Khoros is a digital-first, customer engagement software. Because they help enterprise companies, their testimonial page is focused on case studies. And to help potential customers find the testimonial that best suites them, customer stories can be filtered by use case, industry, and topic.
Hiver
The world’s first Gmail-based helpdesk software, Hiver, keeps its testimonial page impactful yet straightforward. It starts with a quote and video testimonial from one of their customers then finishes with one-sentence case study summaries from different industries.
Buffer
Social media management software, Buffer takes a different approach and focuses on user-generated content for their page. It’s easy to look through, and since the tweets are embedded on the site, their audience can click through, view, and engage with each tweet.
As you can see, there’s no superior way to create your customer testimonial page. It depends on your brand and customers. But with this guide, you’ll have testimonial examples and tips you can use that’ll help your customers trust you and eventually convert.
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