What to Do when You Have No Testimonials
If you are selling anything online, testimonials and/or references go a long way into aiding a potential customer to make a choice. Great testimonials with links to the person who submitted it are better as they are more verifiable should the customer wish to do so. They probably won’t but they’ll be more confident because you gave them the option.
But when you are just starting out online it’s difficult to get testimonials as people want to see them before they trust you enough to buy – but of course without buyers, there are no testimonials, so what can you do?
Before we go on, let’s address the big ‘no-no’ and that is of course ‘The Fake Testimonial’ – makes me kinda shudder just writing it…
Please don’t ever be tempted to do this, it’s utterly wrong on so many levels and your professionalism will be called into question immediately. Rather than creating a positive vibe, you will be achieving nothing but negativity and mis-trust – but I’m sure that you would never consider something so loathsome, so how does a genuine person like you get some credibility?
The easiest and fastest method is to give away some of your stuff, so if it’s a service you offer you may have to approach some potential clients and ask if you could do some work for free. If they are happy with the results you can then ask them if they would like to put something in writing. If it’s a physical product, then you can do the same (depending on what you are selling of course).
Make sure that you have open lines of communication with any customers or clients because if someone does purchase a product or service from you it’s much easier if you can contact them and do a follow up. Try and survey some of your customers, ask them if there is anything that you could be doing better or if there is something in particular that stands out to them as excellent.
There are numerous places to ask for feedback depending on whether it’s a service or physical product that you are selling. A follow up email is great because you can word it so that you are asking the customer if they were happy with the experience they had shopping with you, you could perhaps offer an incentive of a discount if they would spend 2 minutes filling out a very short survey form. At the end of the form ask them if they mind if any of their responses are used as an on site testimonial.
You could also ask for opinions on products or services via your blog – just make sure that you have the authors permission to use their words on your site before re-publishing them.
But by far the best thing you can do is create brilliant stuff and present it in a professional way. If you do that then folks will buy without a testimonial and then will be only too happy to give one after. To have have someone email you and thank you for your brilliant service without you even asking is a great indication that you are on the way to great things!
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