Guest Post: How to Encourage Clients to Give You a Great Testimonial

This week, we feature an article by Rupert Jones, a financial independence geek who believes in the power of networking. He shares tips to help you encourage your customers to give you excellent reviews.

As a business owner or freelancer, your clients are your lifeline. You want to do the best job possible, leaving clients raving about you. Some customers will willingly leave positive reviews on your website or other sites, but you may have to encourage other customers to do the same.  

There are many reasons why you should facilitate clients to give you glowing testimonials, for example, social proof, higher conversion rates, and SEO. Despite the benefits of great online reviews, it can still be challenging to have clients do it.  

The following are tips to help you encourage clients to give you excellent reviews:  

 Ask Them 

It may sound obvious, but it is not. Many businesses do not ask customers to leave reviews after purchasing a product or service. Therefore, you should ask them to leave a testimonial on your site. The key is to know when to ask them by identifying the right moment during the buyer’s journey.  

For example, you can ask customers for a review after referring you to a friend or after they re-order a product. You should also find the best way to invite customers to review you. You can do so via emails, social media, or a blog post. The best way is through your site, as clients can post testimonials directly. If you do not get a response the first time, be persistent and ask them multiple times but do not bombard them.  

Have A Review Asking Process 

If you want to receive more testimonials from clients, you should create a review asking process. That way, you don’t have to come up with a request for a testimonial for every client every time you need one. The process should make it easy for customers to leave a testimonial and appealing too.  

For example, you could have a cheerful cartoon character ask clients for testimonials. You can turn a picture into a cartoon with BeFunky for this purpose. The testimonial request should be as organic a part of the buyer’s journey as possible, so it does not seem intrusive. 

It would be better if you were to automate the review asking process. Consider various customer actions and figure out a way to automate the review process. Asking for reviews manually is tiresome and not realistic for scaling. Automating the review asking process will result in more consistency when asking clients for testimonials.  

Leverage Social Media 

A great feature of social media is its interactiveness. Therefore, you should leverage social media’s interactivity to ask customers to leave positive reviews. You can invite customers to leave reviews while interacting with them on your social media pages by leaving a link to a testimonial form.  

They can easily see the link and access your site’s form with a single click. You may also pose a challenge on social media with rewards based on who leaves the best reviews. Moreover, customers on social media can help you tell your story by asking them to leave positive reviews about their experience with your business.  

Make It Personal 

Having a review asking process and automating it will help you get more reviews. On the other hand, personalizing the questions will help you gain more excellent testimonials. Try and have a process that sends personal messages to every client. Begin by asking them open-ended questions that can lead to more personal questions based on their responses.  

Thanking them personally after leaving a fantastic testimonial is also a great idea. If you could call customers, it would be even more personal. However, if you cannot thank customers in person, do your best to personalize it. Personalization is crucial to building rapport with customers, especially in the digital age.  

Make It Simple 

The last thing customers want is to undergo a complicated and lengthy process while trying to leave a review that barely benefits them. If you’re going to encourage clients to leave great testimonials on your site, you should make it as simple as possible.  

For example, you should have a link directing customers back to your site after an order delivery email. A simple testimonial page with a few possible fields would be ideal. A star ranking system is also great. The easier it is to leave a review, the higher the chances of it being positive.   

Every business should get customers to leave great reviews on their site. You can encourage clients to leave great reviews by asking them, making the review process simple and personal, leveraging social media, and automating the review asking process. Positive reviews have a significant impact on a business, especially online. 

Rupert Jones is a financial independence geek who strongly believes in the power of networking. He spends his time helping people leverage secrets of financial wealth and processes to achieve financial freedom.