When and how to ask for a Testimonial

Small business coach Hannah McNamara from SME Academy (http://www.smeacademy.co.uk) explains how to go about gathering testimonials and references about your business.

Ask most successful small businesses how they get clients and customers, and the chances are they will tell you it’s through word of mouth and recommendation.

It’s said that ‘word of mouth marketing’ is the most powerful form of marketing if used correctly. The trouble is that it seems like a very passive activity. But it doesn’t have to be that way and I’ll show you how to take back control.

But first, what is it that makes word of mouth so effective? It’s because a third party is telling your prospective clients how good your company is. When you say it, they take it with a pinch of salt, but it’s a whole different ball game when someone else is singing your praises.

In reality a happy client or customer is going to be even more complimentary about what you do than you would be – unless you’ve got a horrendously large ego. The other advantage is that they can talk in your customers’ terms because well they ARE your customer.

You may already be convinced that having positive testimonials about what your company does is a good thing – but how do you get people to give them to you.

A simple solution is to ask for them.

If you’ve done a good job, your customers will be more than willing to give you a testimonial. In most cases they’re happy to do this because they know what it’s like when you’re searching for a supplier and don’t know who’s good and who’s not. They want to help other people to find someone good.

Here’s what you should do.

Firstly, start sending out feedback forms or customer surveys when you deal with customers. Ask them to rate your company and ask if they would be willing to write down some comments which you could use in your future marketing. Give them the option to do it as a named testimonial or anonymously.

Then if you’re on LinkedIn, ask clients to endorse you. If you don’t feel comfortable about this, endorse them first and they’ll probably reciprocate.

Email your best customers and say you’re putting together some new content for your website and you’d love to use them as a case study. Would they mind writing a few lines to say how your product or service has helped them? Remember to tell them you’ll include a link back to their website with the testimonial and this will increase the response rate.

Finally, there are two main reasons that people won’t give you a testimonial. 1. They weren’t impressed. If that’s the case better to find out now and have a chance to put things right. 2. They don’t know what to say. In this situation they imagine you’ll want a clever, eloquent letter and this seems like a lot of work so they put it off. Why not send them examples of what other people have written or even offer to have a quick chat and write down what they say so they don’t need to write it.

In my experience the only reason that businesses don’t have more customer testimonials is that they never asked for them, so don’t be coy.

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