The commercial power of customer testimonials

With so many businesses vying for attention with often similar-sounding and compelling arguments, customers have difficulty deciding which one to choose and which one they’ll trust.

This is why customer testimonials are so important.

It is often a challenge for businesses to gather useful, customer quotes and recommendations. Randomly contacting customers to request a testimonial can work, but only to a certain extent; this certainly doesn’t guarantee the quality and volume that businesses need to support their content and sales strategies.

The WOW! Awards help clients by providing a system that allows them to capture high quality, customer testimonials at scale.

But how can testimonials be utilised and leveraged to make a brand impact and even bring in more sales?

A website that drives conversions

A visitor that lands on your website via an external source or through a link on your website is a potential customer. Including brief testimonials within your pages can help attract the attention and interest of visitors who have landed on your website by chance. They can also serve to build trust around your brand.

Your website plays a key role in creating leads and driving conversions. In fact, the regular use of customer testimonials can help you generate roughly sixty-two percent more revenue.  If you’re not including testimonials on your website, you are missing out! Any page that could realistically play a part in driving conversions should be enhanced with a testimonial.

Yorkshire Water use WOW testimonials on their website

SafeMove use WOW nominations alongside their news feed

CTAs and buttons that people want to click

Having testimonials next to buttons makes a huge impact. Whether a business enquiry, a content download or an email sign-up – including short testimonials next to your calls to action can be enough to reassure customers, triggering them to hit the button and purchase.

Case studies with a customer perspective

Whether these are offline or online, case studies which are written from the perspective of the customer are always more impactful. Quotes and testimonials serve to give case studies credibility and clout. With WOW! Award nominations being so detailed, clients have often been inspired to develop entire case studies off the back of them.

Social media that grows in reach

Sharing customer reviews on social media provides a form of “proof” of your business being credible, successful and trusted. They can help give you an edge; making you stand out from your competitors. By using testimonials across your social, you also benefit from growing your reach because the followers of those who left you reviews are likely to start following you too.

Sales collateral with credibility

According to bigcommerce.com, 92% of consumers use online reviews before buying a product and 88% trust online customer testimonials as much as recommendations from friends and family. 72% said that positive reviews and testimonials helped them trust a business significantly more. So clearly, peppering your testimonials across your sales collateral is a good way to go.

Most sales collateral leads with the challenge and how the business offering is the solution.  Use testimonials to further illustrate the point that you are the solution to the problem. This way potential customers will gain trust in your business; they are also more likely to make a purchase.

Conclusion - happy customers = more happy customers

In a nutshell, customer testimonials create something of a self-fulfilling prophecy regarding your connection with your target audience. Someone enjoys your product or service, so you encourage them to leave a positive testimonial. Consumers naturally trust each other more than they trust marketing messages pushed out by businesses; a testimonial legitimises the offering, making it easier for a customer to buy. Those initial happy customers, therefore, are encouraging more purchases and increasing the number of happy customers.