Testimonials are a great tool to tell potential customers what people say about your service. Requesting for testimonials can be awkward as that customer may not have liked your service in the first place. So when our clients offer or agree to write a testimonial about our service, we value it immensely.
Now, while testimonials are a great marketing tool, I treat it like a treasure hunt where I look for themes or nuggets of gold that customers value about our business. As business owners, we sometimes think we know what we're good at but knowing and demonstrating it to your clients may be two different things. As I studied the themes about our clients' testimonials, it allowed me two tweak, emphasise, or promote those themes. For instance, several customers have pointed out our Good to Great page. Prior to labelling it "Good to Great," those pages were named "Before and After" until one day, a participant in a presentation I was making commented that what I was showing were not "Before and After" photos where the Before photos were clearly bad and not taken within the same time frame. He said that what I was showing in my photos were the process of how we make good images even better.
Another recurring theme among our testimonials was the mention of the atmosphere in the studio. Because most of our clients enter the premises a bit tense and wary of the outcome (going to us have been likened to going to the dentist), we try our best to put them at ease using various methods depending on the type of client we have. It is a spontaneous approach that feeds off the personality of the client in front of us.
The last theme I want to share is the mention of the team among the testimonials. Our process is very much a team approach, with each one knowing his or her role in the process. The client is very much a part of that team as there is a collaboration between us and the client to get to the best headshot photo that represents him or her. Our client below, Lizzie from Writesphere, used the word 'astute' in her testimonial about us. The choice of the word is relevant and specific to our process.
Testimonials will vary from business to business. If your testimonial is sounding like that of someone else, then what will make customers choose you over them? Ultimately, the value of a testimonial lies in pointing out a business' point of difference versus that of its competitors. It highlights what makes a business unique and what is working within the business. Once a business owner catches these nuggets, then it allows him to hone in on these to reach his target audience.
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