By Ed Avis
In today’s social media-driven world, everyone understands the power of comments from customers. A few good reviews on Yelp or nice comments on Facebook can help drive business. But in many cases those comments are anonymous, and in nearly all cases they are unsolicited and difficult to control. Testimonials that you personally develop, which you can then post on your website or use in advertising, can be more effective and easier to control.
Here are nine tips to creating useful testimonials for your reprographics shop:
1) Ask. This is the obvious first step. Don’t wait for customers to randomly say nice things about you. You need to ask them. You can do this in person during a sales call, via email, or over the phone.
2) Ask at the right time. Don’t ask for a testimonial after the first job you do for a client. Wait until the relationship has been developed, and you feel the client is happy and will be with you for the long haul.
3) Be personal. Make a personal request to a specific person. In general, your customers will be flattered to be asked for a testimonial, and many will agree. On the other hand, if just send out a mass email asking for nice comments, you’ll probably get minimal response. Mass emails don’t make people feel special.
4) Be choosy. Ask for testimonials from customers who you believe are respected in your community and who you believe are happy with your service. A testimonial from the managing partner of a large architecture firm that uses your repro services regularly carries more weight than a testimonial from a junior marketing person who ordered two banners from you. In either case, when you publish the testimonial, use the person’s full name, title, and company.
5) Make it easy. For example, if you ask for a testimonial via email, tell the person that two or three short sentences via reply email is fine. Or, if you ask in person or over the phone, be prepared to write down a testimonial on the spot. Then read it back to the person to make sure it’s accurate. Finally, believe it or not, many testimonials are actually written by the recipient and approved by the testimonial giver. If you sense that your client simply does not have time to write something for you, ask her if you can draft a quick comment and get her approval.
6) Make it specific. When you are asking for the testimonial, ask the client what specifically he likes about your repro shop, and/or what kind of work he feels you do particularly well for him. Then ask him to include those specific items in the testimonial. Specifics are more interesting to readers than generalities.
7) Use them wisely. A crisp, flattering testimonial posted at the top of your website, at the bottom of an email, or within a newspaper ad is effective. A testimonial buried deep within your website is ineffective. Also consider using testimonials in sales pitches – when you write a proposal for a major document management project, include a testimonial from a current client who uses that service.
8) Keep them fresh. New testimonials provide new opportunities for marketing. Make a point of seeking fresh testimonials every year or so.
9) Do unto others. Now that you have a nice collection of effective testimonials ready to deploy on your marketing materials, be prepared to provide testimonials for your own suppliers, should they ask.
Here are three questions you might be asking right now:
1) What if the person says no? It’s very rare that someone says no – much more commonly they just don’t respond at all. But if someone does say no, consider it an opportunity to probe. Is there a problem? Can we make it right? But don’t nag – if someone fails to respond to your request, move on to the next prospect.
2) What if the testimonial is lukewarm? Don’t post a comment that says, “Frank’s Repro does a pretty good job most of the time….” Yikes! That would be worse than no testimonial. If you get a lukewarm testimonial, you have a couple of options. First, you can just thank the person and file it away. Second, you can ask if the lukewarm comment was the result of a problem – in which case you can try to make good – or whether the person just is not effusive. If it’s the latter, you can either file the comment away, or, depending on your relationship with the person, you can ask him to write something nicer.
3) Can I edit? Yes, a little bit. If your shop name is misspelled, obviously you can fix it. If the testimonial is six sentences and you only need three, you can excerpt the three you want. But no matter what, you can’t change the meaning! If you think something really needs to be edited that might change the meaning, make the change but show your client and get his approval before you post the comment.
To read some effective testimonials on reprographics firm websites, check these out:
Accu-Copy: http://www.accu-copy.com/testimonials.html
A.T. Johnson: http://andrewtjohnson.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=92
Horizon Reprographics: http://horizonrepro.com/index.php/about-us/testimonials/
Dynamic Reprographics: http://www.dynamicreprographics.com/companyinfo/testimonials.html
United Reprographic Supply: http://www.unitedreprographic.com/testimonials/