How testimonials help & provide credibility for your business
[5-minute read]
This blog will go into detail on how testimonials help your business
Testimonials are first-hand examples that reflect the quality of your services and products that have been used and experienced by legitimate customers and clients.
It gives a rigorous idea for your future customers, partners and the general public about the level of trust and quality that your business has.
According to Bizrate Insights, almost 55% of online consumers read a minimum of 4 reviews before purchasing a product or service.
How do testimonials help with the reputation of your business?
All in all, Testimonials provide social proof for your business.
An example can be that you’re looking for a web design business to develop a new eCommerce store for you.
You ask your network for some recommendations, and you have been given a choice of around 4-5 agencies or web designers.
Other than just looking at their websites and previous work, it’s pretty obvious that you will also check out their reviews on various platforms.
Let’s use our own business as an example of a 5-star one.
Essentially, how likely is it that you’ll choose one that has a 5-star rating with detailed reviews over a 3-star rated business?
Therefore what can be learnt from here is that as a client or customer, seeing positive reviews and testimonials gives a first impression of what to expect.
Thus depending on the reviews and testimonials, customers will:
- Feel comfortable about being recommended to your business
- Know details about what experiences people have had
- Be more inclined to trust your company
- Have an outlook of how credible a company is without even needing to contact them
What forms of testimonials are there?
Written testimonials
Starting with the basic understanding, the most common and known ones are written ones.
These can be written messages and emails from the customers directly to your business, or a written review on an online platform.
This is always done with a star rating from 1 to 5.
The ones we use are Google, TrustPilot and Facebook.
However, many of our clients have also used Reviews.io, especially for retailers or brands that sell products on their store.
Video testimonials
Moreover, the other form of testimonials is a groundbreaker for many out there.
These are known as video testimonials, such as the ones that you can find on our ‘Why choose us’ page.
An example of one from Johan Calisthenix:
Video testimonials take reviews to a completely different level.
In essence, users can watch and listen to what someone has to positively say about your business.
It’s as if someone is persuading a potential customer to trust your business without directly selling anything.
Video testimonials are definitely something you should be considering for your business.
Many companies that have bigger marketing budgets have a studio and ads based around professional video reviews.
Argos is a great example of their review tester videos, as you can see here
The best way to request a review & testimonial
Here at complx.co, we tend to ask for a review and testimonial after the full completion of a project.
However, as expected, no matter how nicely you may ask them, you won’t always get it.
The best way to ask your customer is via email or on your usual chat such as Whatsapp.
- You send the link of where to review you (We show all our platforms on a LinkTree so that it doesn’t come across as overwhelming)
- Then briefly explain to them how a review would be massively beneficial to your business.
What we do is give an incentive by telling them that they’ll get a commission for someone they recommend to us in the future.
On top of this, the person they recommend will receive a % discount on the service.
We give them an affiliate code and they get a commission if they write us a review.
They get a higher commission if they send us a video testimonial.
Other businesses that we work with provide discounts & incentives to give anyone a reason to spare 4 minutes of their day.
To learn about out how to use events to create testimonials for your business, check out Newny’s valuable blog here
Now it’s time to apply this to your business
Whether your business is online or not, it is vital to know how much positive impact reviews and testimonials have on your business.
So if you’re not already collecting them, at least this is your wake up call to start today!
Remember that with positive reviews also come negative and fake ones.
So keep your professional caps on and ensure your responses don’t give a negative reputation to your business.
Many firms out there handle negative reviews very well!
If you need help setting up your review platforms, you can contact us today and we can help you set them up.
You can also check out our reviews and testimonials here
Get in touch with us if you want further help as to how testimonials help your business
