Want some great testimonials?

Want some great testimonials?

(c) Copyright 2002, Kenneth A. McArthur

Testimonials are a great way to give your potential customers
the confidence to know that they are working with someone that
they can trust.

If you haven't put some great testimonials on your site, you
need to do it now. Unless you are a Fortune 5,000 company,
chances are that first time visitors to your site have no way
of knowing how well you will respond to their needs.

I can tell you my service is great, that my customers love my
products and services, that people will be talking about MBS
for years to come. But coming from me, most anything that I say
will sound like arrogance.

In order to be effective, testimonials need to be good. Here's
an example of a poor testimonial:

"I love your product!" - Anonymous

What's wrong with loving my product? Nothing! But, notice that
it doesn't really tell you why my product is so great and it
doesn't tell you who thinks it's great either!

In order to be effective testimonials need to be specific and
we need to have the confidence that a real person made those
comments.

How about this example?

"I am an amateur artist who recently ordered your Artist's
Best easel. I just had to write and let you know how satisfied
I am with your product! The wood, finish and craftsmanship
on my easel was superb. It was shipped sooner than I
expected and putting it together was not really difficult.
I honestly thought that I would never be able to afford my
own easel. It is always a little scary ordering over the
Internet from companies that are not known to you, but I
am so glad that I took a chance on you!"

Jackie Conte Vero Beach, FL

This person is only "satisfied" but, notice how much
more personal this testimonial is. The customer talks
about the fears that we all have and the way that it worked
out for her.

The good news is, that if you know how to do it, getting
quality testimonials isn't anywhere near as hard as most
would think.

The hidden secret that somehow seems to allude most business
owners when getting testimonials is really very simple,
just ask.

Send your existing customers an email and let them know
that their opinions are important to you. Ask them to give
specific examples of ways that your company has helped them
in their business.

One more thing! Offer to post links to their site
directly from their testimonial. They will get extra
traffic to their site just for telling the truth about
their experience with your company!

Here's a sample email for generating some testimonials:

"Just a quick note to ask your help. We are currently
looking for some great "specific" testimonials to put
up on our various web sites from customers like yourself.

It would be great if you could take just a second to
hit the reply button and type in a few lines to tell us
about something that we did for you as a customer that
was helpful or something that you like about our
products and services that we could share with the
visitors to our web sites.

If you are willing to share your experience with us, we
will post the best ones to our web sites along with a
link to your web site. Hopefully, that will generate
extra traffic to your site and help us give our potential
customers the confidence that they need to become part
of the MBS family of customers."

You might even want to send them a link to this article
as an example of how to write a good testimonial.

To top it all off, you will get a lot of very comments
about you that just may make your day!


Mr. McArthur is the editor of the of the MBS Internet
Business Newsletter http://www.mbsinternet.com/smallbiz.htm
and has developed many systems for the Internet, including
The MBS Internet Resource Center, http://www.mbsinternet.com
His commercial product is PortalCube, a complete system
of building blocks for creating powerful portal sites.
http://portalcube.com and he offers complete portal service
packages at http://MyInstantPortal.com and runs a
75,000+ member Research Center at http://mbsinternet.net