There’s one fact you need to face right now before it gets too late: if your e-commerce website is pretty new to the market, you need to have a proof that the products you are selling are high-quality goods users need in their lives. You need customer testimonials.
Here’s what we mean.
Imagine this: you run an e-commerce site that sells indie brand shoes, and only a handful of people have heard of you. Knowing that there are over a dozen indie brands that sell their shoes, as well, you put in the effort, and created a website that will separate your company from your competitors. You took care of the website design and the content of your website. You made sure that your website visitors get the best user experience.
But, you are not quite done.
Having in mind that you are new on the market, you also want to do something that will custconvince website visitors that they can trust you and that you are not just another scamming site that is trying to get the money out of your visitors’ pockets. You need some kind of social proof that your products are legitimate and worthy of your visitors’ time and money.
Shortly put, you need testimonials on your homepage, and you probably know what we are talking about. It’s the section that contains customers’ quotes, that say how good a product/a company is, and comes with cropped icon-styled images of happy, smiling people. That section.
If you are not sure how to get customer testimonials, allow us to help you. In the following text, we wrote down the three most popular ways you can use to reach out to your buyers, and ask them for a quote. We also made sure to give you some tricks in the end that will help increase your chance of getting responses.
Here are those tips:
How to get customer testimonials tip #1: Send separate emails to satisfied customers
If you are not new to the market and have been around for a couple of months, you can send emails to the customers you feel were the most satisfied with the purchase 一 the ones that have a potential turning into loyal ones.
So, once buyers make purchases and have no complaints regarding the products, you can reach to them, by sending them an email, and asking whether they would like to say something about the product. Or the company.
When you are trying to get customer testimonials by reaching out to satisfied customers, the most important thing is timing. We would advise you to ask almost immediately after the customers made their purchases. By doing so, they will still remember how their shopping experience was 一 whether they struggled how to find the product they needed, whether the shopping on a website was intuitive, whether they are satisfied with the shipping (and shipping costs), etc.
Before we move onto another tip, there is just one suggestion we feel like you should take into consideration. Since you are sending the email so soon after the purchase, it matters how you are going to write it. It needs to sound sincere, and polite like you are asking for a customer for help. If you need help with writing the perfect emails, you can check out the post on Boast.io.
How to get customer testimonials tip #2: Send emails to all customers
Sometimes, sending emails to specific customers doesn’t quite work. In some cases, your emails can wind up in Spam, or, if they don’t, consumers simply have no interest in communicating with you after they have made their purchases 一 it’s too much hassle for them.
In that case, you should move on to plan B.
We would advise you to send emails to all the registered customers, using an email marketing tool of your choice. All you need to do is send them an email, asking for a testimonial and explaining why you need it, when and where you’ll put the quote, etc.
When it comes to the email you should send, try to write it like you would speak to a customer in real life. After all, you want to get people to trust you, so they can feel comfortable leaving reviews. They need to know that you are not going to use and abuse their honest reviews.
How to get customer testimonials tip #3: Check reviews on your site, Google, and company’s social media handles
Ha, this one is so quick and easy!
As we mentioned in the beginning, in the fast-paced digital age we live in, online reviews have a significant impact on a number of purchases, and your revenue, for that matter.
93% of consumers mentioned that the reviews impacted on their purchase to buy.
82% of site visitors read a product review before purchasing it online.
That all being said, customers write reviews when they are compelled by the shopping experience. To be precise, one-third of customers leave a review when the experience was either excellent or horrible. Customers leave their thoughts on Google, on social media (in comments and messages), on your site, etc.
Instead of going through the trouble of reaching out to consumers, you can use customer reviews they already wrote on several different channels, and include them on your website. However (it’s a huge HOWEVER!), when you find the review that would fit perfectly on your site, be sure to reach out to the consumer that left the review, asking if you could include it on the homepage. This step is essential 一 just because a customer left the review, and his/her thoughts are publicly displayed, doesn’t mean you can use them however you want.
When reaching out to these consumers, be sure to explain why you want to use their reviews specifically, where the testimonials would be placed, etc.
How to get customer testimonials tip #4: Raise your chance of getting customers’ responses
Getting customer testimonials is not something you want to leave to fate, no matter how troubling the process can be.
When trying to get quotes out of customers, you need to know that you are putting a lot of pressure on them. When you send them an email and catch them off guard like that, they are not sure what they should write, no matter how much they like your shop or the products you are selling. Besides that, if you are asking them to do something and not getting something in return, you are lowering your chances of getting responses.
Here are the two tricks can do to lower the pressure consumers feel when they open your emails:
- You could give them a discount.
- You can make a form customer can fill in just a couple of minutes.
When it comes to discounts, we would advise you to offer customer discounts on the products they have recently checked. Trust us; they’ll love this move and won’t be able to resist it.
When it comes to making a form for customers to fill in, we have one piece of advice to give you: make the process of getting customer testimonials as quick as possible. Here are some questions you can include in the form:
- How would you explain the product you purchased (and what it does) to a friend?
- What specific feature did you like most about the product?/What was the one benefit that made you buy the product?
- Would you recommend the product? If so, why?
Bonus tip: While you are waiting to get responses from customers to boost social proof, you can mention how many people bought your products (on the homepage or the About page) if the number is worth mentioning, or what the most popular products are.
Now, get those customer testimonials!
What are you waiting for? It’s time to get customer testimonials!
We are positive that using the previously mentioned tips can help you get them almost in no-time and trouble-free.
Once you get them, let us know how the process went and whether you had difficulties collecting them.
Good luck!
