There is nothing more important for a brand than its credibility. The credibility of a brand refers to its reputation. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work and dedication to build a brand and establish its credibility in the market. All the hard work put in can come crashing down if a customer is unhappy and lets the world know about it. A review or a customer testimonial is the story of the customer’s experience using your product. If this story is positive, it can enhance your credibility.
If the story is negative, it can seriously tarnish the credibility of your organization. It may result in potential customers refusing to buy from you because of the negative testimonial from an existing customer. The very future of a brand can rest on the reviews of customers. Therefore, every organization can enhance its brand credibility by effectively managing its customer testimonials. We discuss how this can be done.
Importance of Customer Testimonials
Customers can post testimonials or reviews of their experiences using the product of an organization. They may post these reviews on Google and other websites. An organization that wishes to establish its credibility should post their testimonials on their website. This is the best way of enhancing its credibility. A potential customer or anyone who visits your website will be able to trust you more when you share testimonials of existing customers. The following explains why you need to manage customer testimonials:
- A testimonial from a real customer whose name and photo (and maybe contact details) are displayed is proof of the experience of a customer.
- Customers today do a lot of research by buying a product. One of the things they see are testimonials of customers. Displaying them on your own website is the best way of establishing credibility. Remember that nearly 92% of consumers read testimonials before they purchase any product.
- Customers believe a testimonial rather than a marketing message. 88% of people trust reviews
- they read online and believe them in the same way as they would believe a recommendation from a real person. A customer is likely to at least spend one-third more on a brand if it has good testimonials from customers.
- Unlike in marketing, you don’t have to spend money to send a message to your potential customers. All you need to do is encourage your existing customers to share their testimonials. This can be used to get more mileage than promotional messages.
How to Manage Customer Testimonials?
A brand needs to put an effort to effectively manage testimonials from their customers. The following are some guidelines that can be followed to put this into practice:
1. Make it authentic
Most reviews on Google, Amazon, are faceless reviews where there are just user names displayed. No one knows the real name and face behind these reviews. A customer researching a product may not believe whatever is said in a faceless review. If the testimonial is authentic with the name and photograph of the customer, then someone reading the review will definitely believe it more. When the authenticity of a review is established, it can play an important role in enhancing the credibility of a brand.
2. Use video testimonials
The common form of reviews is text reviews, where reviews are written in the form of text with sentences describing the experiences of the reviewer. A video testimonial will be much more authentic and effective than a boring text review. The first thing is that in a video testimonial, a customer can see an existing customer speak about a brand/product. This enhances the authenticity of the review. Secondly, a video is much more effective than text. It can help your brand communicate more effectively with customers.
3. Showcase top testimonials on the home page
The home page of your brand website must have the top testimonials of customers. Around three to four text reviews or two video testimonials can be displayed on the home page. These testimonials must effectively send a message that your brand is credible and can be trusted. The reviews must talk about how your product helped the customer and what they gained from using the product.
4. Avoid goody-goody testimonials
A testimonial that looks like a goody-goody promotion of the brand and product will look like a marketing promotional message. A potential customer may not trust such messages. The testimonials must be balanced and can even talk about the pain points of the customer and how their search for a solution led them to the product. The problems they faced and how the brand helped them can also be showcased. A highly positive testimonial singing praises of the brand should strictly be avoided.
5. Highlight quotes
Some of the interesting quotes from a customer testimonial can be highlighted on your website. When they click on this, visitors should be able to see the full review. Alternately, you can highlight quotes and show a part of the review on the home page to encourage visitors to click to read more. This is a good way to reach out to visitors to your website who are in a hurry and not interested to read the full review.
6. Convert the testimonial into a case study
A good way to manage testimonials is to convert it into a case study. This is where the entire customer testimonial is presented as a case explaining the problems faced by customers, the challenges, what all the customer did to find a solution, pain points, how the customer found your product and ending with the customer’s experiences using the product. A story should be created around the customer’s experiences to enhance the testimonial’s effectiveness.
A well-created testimonial can, without doubt enhance the credibility of a brand. Potential customers give a lot of weight from reviews and testimonials from existing customers. Managing these customer testimonials in an effective way is the secret to enhance brand credibility and generate revenue for the brand.