Visitor to Customer: Part 4

General

The best advertisement for a business is a satisfied customer. If a partner is thrilled with your service or product, they are more likely to choose your company in the future as well as recommend your company to friends and family. Word of mouth advertising is one of the most effective marketing tools for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it does not cost your company anything. Additionally, human nature makes us more inclined to trust the opinion and experience of a friend. Research by Forbes confirmed that 90% of people are more likely to purchase a product or service based upon a personal recommendation.

Word of mouth is clearly effective, but how can your company get business if a potential partner does not have a friend who has tried your product? Testimonials. Well done testimonials can achieve similar results to a friend’s recommendation. When a friend’s recommendation is not available, the testimonial by Robert C. on your website can provide the reassurance needed.

How can testimonials be most impactful?

Share unbiased and purposeful reviews.

When a customer comes to your website to check out your services, they need to be able to know within seconds why your business is a good choice. Although it is wonderful if your customer George would write a novel on why he is happy with how your company renovated his kitchen, visitors to your website are not going to read it. Visitors to your website will read a couple sentences, but they will not weed through a page long testimonial, even if the customer appears happy with your product or service. Most importantly, utilize third party reviews to ensure the testimonials are verified, authentic, and impactful. With reviews being supplied from an outside source, visitors will feel confident that your company is not just picking and choosing for your own benefit.

Keep it recent.

If your testimonials are not current, they will lose a great deal of creditability. Although a visitor might be glad Sally J. liked your company’s service back in 1998, a great deal could have changed in two decades. When testimonials are recent, a visitor can see that your company is still actively serving customers in an impressive manner.

Put them in the right place.

Visitors should not have to go on a treasure hunt to find your testimonials. If your testimonials are hard to locate, your visitors will not bother when they easily can move on to another result on their google search. Ideally, your testimonials should be featured on your homepage and near the relevant subject. Your home page is the only page you can count on visitors seeing if they launched your site. Instant exposure to satisfied customers can be very effective. Also, if your website service page provides photos of your completed custom showers, this would be a great place to show a quick testimonial or at the least, link to a testimonial. The least amount of effort for your visitors to locate the testimonials the better. According to heat mapping, a process which highlights portions of websites most utilized, pages with reviews top the chart. Clearly, your visitors want to know what your customers are saying.

Surprisingly, 88% of people trust reviews from fellow consumers online as much as personal contact’s recommendations (BrightLocal, 2014). This statistic further validates the importance of testimonials. Your current customers can be the push visitors need to take the leap of faith. When your company is ready to maximize testimonials on your website, choose Harbin Designs to help your visitors see what your satisfied customers already see.

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