How to Get Heaps of Glowing Testimonials From Your Clients

I’m often asked how you get raving testimonials. The request comes from people in business already, and also comes from ‘start-ups’ worried that they haven’t got any. The key of course to getting testimonials is to ask for them, after all many of your clients would willingly give them if you did.

Anyway…here’s a list of ways.

1. The obvious way is to do what you do so well, exceed clients expectations and turn them into raving advocates. Frankly, you’ll get them as I do without any prompting. Hey…but it wasn’t always that way. You’ve got to start somewhere. Here’s another way…

2. Offer your product or service for free to a prospect on the basis that the recipient will give you an honest written evaluation that you can use in your marketing.

3. Include a survey form when someone uses your product or service with an incentive to ‘turn it in’. Don’t forget to put on the form a box for them to tick giving you permission to use what they have to say.

4. Include a questionnaire with your product or service. The questionnaire should ask what you got right, what you got wrong and how you can improve your product or service. This is a very powerful strategy and also allows you to customise your product or service to your customers needs. Remember, ask them to be honest, not kind.

5. Everyone has clients who are advocates of what they do, people that continue to rave about your product or service and continue to do business with you. Simply call them up on the phone and ask them, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

A few more tips about getting and using testimonials…

TIP #1: If you get testimonials for GODS SAKE make sure you use them, after all the number one barrier to business is lack of trust.

TIP #2: The best testimonials are the ones that are meaningful and specific not vague and general.

TIP #3: Use your testimonials strategically to deal with objections buyers would have. Here’s an example from the printing industry. Here the prospects objection would be, would their prices be competitive, would the finished product be up to scratch and would they finish on time.

 

Our printing jobs were on time, on budget and the quality was guaranteed. I’ve been dealing with Mr. Print for 4 ½ year, in that time, they’ve never let us down and on occasion we’ve set them some very difficult tasks. They’re always prepared to do whatever it took to get our job done on time, and we’ve found their rates to be very competitive. Better still, they guarantee to replace free of charge anything we’re not absolutely happy with. Bob Smith, Auto Repairs, Osborne Park Western Australia, 08 9244 4225

TIP #4: Ask to be able to use their full name, company name, suburb, state and telephone number. The more the merrier. Even their initials are better than nothing. A full name dramatically improves believability in the mind of the prospect and strangely most will never call a telephone number. They’re satisfied with the mere fact that there is a number there.

TIP #5: Put a bold sub-head which is an abbreviation of the main points of the testimonial on top of the testimonial. Put the testimonial itself in italics but not bolded. And as I said, include the full name and address of the testimonial provider on the last line as above. Even better still, have a photograph of the person giving the testimonial. The only exemption from this rule is not to put the actual testimonial on italics especially if the font is small as it becomes difficult to read.

TIP #6: Don’t be shy in using testimonials in your advertising and in your copy. You can use sub-heads to introduce them like…
- Here’s what our clients say about us,
- To prove my point here are some real life examples,
- Real life comments and case studies from satisfied clients,
- Read what others have to say.

Finally, don’t forget to get WRITTEN permission to use the testimonial you get and make sure you use them liberally and strategically. It will dramatically affect you sales. By the way, if you personally don’t like or believe testimonials, it doesn’t matter what you think. All that matters is how the prospect thinks. REMEMBER! YOU ARE NOT YOUR CUSTOMER.

Committed to Multiplying Your Profits and Guilty of Conspiracy to Committing Capitalism,

Mal Emery
 

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