A positive sounding testimonial goes a long way when you have an online business. Unlike the physical store where buyers are aware that you have goods to sell, that you are for real and that it is safe to pay you, the online website needs a lot of reassurance in the form of customer experiences with the store. It bodes well to display testimonials from your customers stating that you really do deliver what you promise. Display these reviews, testimonials and customer experiences in the home page of your site, where your potential customers can see it, read it and then proceed to shop with confidence.
How to get testimonials from customers
Strike a relationship with your customer. Once you make a sale, get in touch over email/phone and ask them if the purchase went fine at their end. Ask for feedback. And when you have asked about their experience, request for a testimonial and tell them that you would be grateful if they could give you one. Do not push them or nag them about it; just ask them for a favor, word it that way. Practice this with every customer you have and you will find a number of testimonials.
What goes into a testimonial?
While asking for testimonials, guide the customer a little. Be specific about what you want in the testimonial. Generally, it makes sense to get the customer talk about the quality of the product, consistency between what they see on the site and what they get, price points, safety in payments, convenience of cash on delivery schemes and prompt delivery. These are the keywords that would make a new customer trust your site and proceed to the checkout counter.
Reward customers who give you good testimonials
A simple request for a testimonial might not bring in much. But if you run a site wide contest and promise a coupon to be used in your site again, the benefit is twofold. One, you get several testimonials from which you can choose a few that read well. These are genuine and people would put in their best efforts because they are out to win the contest. Two, with the coupon you promise, you get further sales in your site.
Customers love it if you make them feel that their opinions matter and that they are important to you. So, feature chosen testimonials along with pictures of the customer and their purchase on the website. You can update these frequently. You can also have a dedicated page in your site for customer testimonials. Customers would love being part of the site.
Make your customers market for you
Getting a new customer is quite a task. So, enlist the help of your existing customers. Request them to refer their friends and family to buy from your website. As always, the key to getting this done is to reward your customer. You could promise the existing customer that they would get discounts if they refer their friends and if the friends make a purchase. You could also come up with an interesting referral program for your customers.
