Testimonials are great for selling your products or services by using your most powerful weapon – happy customers. 

Here is a quote from the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion: 

“We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.” 

This is why your potential customers will pay special attention to what your clients have to say about you and your products or services. A road that others already took with joy is a safe place and a way to go (figuratively and literally). And that’s why you need a testimonial page on your website.

Testimonials

So, what is a testimonial? First of all, testimonials are not reviews. Your customers write reviews on third-party platforms, apps, etc. For example, one of such tools is Google reviews, where your customers can leave their reports of how well your business performs. It’s always in your best interests to ask your satisfied customers to post a review of your business on Google reviews. 

Testimonials, on the other hand, are always shown on your website, platform, etc. This short explanation is useful:

A testimonial is a short statement, written by your customer, that describes the quality of your product, services, company, etc.

Keep reading this article to learn more about why testimonials are important and how to create a killer customer testimonial page.

Why Do You Need a Customer Testimonial Page?

There are a couple of reasons why your business needs testimonials:

1. Testimonials are powerful for building credibility. 
2. It is a good way to answer relevant questions of your future clients.
3. A testimonial can be used as a reinforcement of your product.
4. You can use them to attract your desired audience.

However, there’s an additional reason (one reason to rule them all) to solicit customer testimonials for your page: immediate feedback. 

There are many ways of getting immediate customer feedback but why is this crucial for your business? 

Why Is Immediate Feedback Crucial?

The short answer is, immediate feedback is essential to navigation and decision-making. Let me give you an example:. 

You’re driving a car. You’re informed immediately when it needs fuel. Great.

Now, let’s imagine that car without a dashboard and or any fuel signals. Or, better yet, let’s say your car informs you that you’ll run out of fuel in 5 minutes, but the nearest gas station is one hour’s drive away. That’s  a disaster, right?

You need real-time information in order to act accordingly and make the right decision. A customer testimonial page is real-time information about your business for your future customer to see.

Immediate feedback can help you in a positive way to the same degree that bad customer service can negatively ruin your reputation. 

One way to get immediate feedback is to use a customer survey on a pop-up or your feedback page. When exploring how to create a customer satisfaction survey, you may also consider sending including it in a purchase confirmation email. 

Include open-ended questions in that survey and get permission to use any positive comments on your testimonial page.

Creating a Customer Testimonial Page

1) Creating a Strategy

Think about your audience (i.e. your potential clients) and the specific clients you want to attract. Do you want professionals, other businesses, small or large companies, etc. Knowing your audience will give you clues on what kind of questions to ask.

2) The Form

You’ll need a form for your customers to leave a comment on. Make it simple and easy. Nobody wants to fill out something that seems complicated. 

There are resources that can help you create a welcoming form. Look for online tools that provide you with designed templates and drag-and-drop customization. Check out this JotForm review to learn about typical options, including free plans.  

3) Referrals

If you really want to increase your feedback, you can ask for referrals. Here, the question of how to ask for referrals is really important. You need to be genuine and award those who are willing to spread the good word.

There are many tools out there for getting more referrals. For example, this referral software from Referral Rock is easy to use and is compatible with API, SaaS, and CRM automations (also, check their testimonials while you’re there, they are quite nice).

4) Presentation

This is the most important part because your customer testimonial page needs to have all the necessary elements. For example, every good website needs to pass a Google test, so to speak, by checking all the boxes in a website launch checklist.

Similarly, your testimonial page needs to have a picture of your client. Make those quotes short. You should use the appropriate font (meaning, corresponding to the aesthetic of your website).

Now, let’s see some good examples.

Examples

My personal pick is a testimonial page from Basecamp. There are a lot of testimonials with very specific feedback. Their customers always explain how Basecamp improved their business. 

Another great example comes from Slack. Here, we see profiles of their clients with inspiring stories. What’s interesting about those stories is that they are always two-folded. Users talk about the time before and after using their product.

Don’t just make one testimonials page. Make EVERY page a testimonials page. Fill all of your pages with evidence like social proof. A page without evidence can’t do the job, as this illustration shows: 

Testimonial Tactics

Collecting testimonials can help if your business doesn’t have many reviews on popular review sites. In that case, you can use testimonials that are positioned as a review page. A reader will see these as reviews and react with confidence about becoming a customer.

Another way to generate reviews and testimonials is to offer your customers a free trial period that includes all (or nearly all) of your services and features at no risk. That way, they have the ability to appreciate the positive aspects of working with you. 

When the trial period ends, you can ask (as part of the paid account sign-up process), “Was there anything you particularly liked or loved about our service during your trial period?” Those answers can become testimonials or reviews. 

If you have a blog, don’t forget to comb through reader comments for positive observations that you can use as testimonials or customer reviews. This is especially true if your blog post helps to solve a problem or explain an opportunity that helps someone benefit or improve. 

Don’t forget, testimonials work best if they are specific. (If someone says, “You were great!” that doesn’t help other visitors understand why.) Here’s an example of a testimonial that is useful because it lets reader see exactly how the company made a difference to its customer:

I want to thank Finance Futurists for helping me understand how to leverage credit. You put all of that into focus for me and finally I “get it.” I want to buy a home in a few years, and thanks to you, now I have a strategy, I understand what I need to do, and you made it all interesting instead of boring. Thanks again!

— Anna G, Sacramento, CA

If your site and business are new and you have absolutely no sources for testimonials or reviews, consider using a survey agency that specializes in helping you find a demographically appropriate audience to take your survey. These respondents are often paid or incentivized survey takers, but they can honestly review your product or service by answering open-ended survey questions. Rely on the agency experts to help you create a survey.

And finally, if most of your positive comments come from social media, gather those posts together and transform them into a slide show of social proof that you can use as a testimonial page to boost buyer confidence. 

The Bottom Line

Before asking your clients to give you feedback, it’s important to think about your potential clients. Make it simple and ask them directly. Use your clients’ names and photos.

Keep your website fresh and up-to-date. Just as you might need a property maintenance solution for your business, you need maintenance of your UX and UI website elements.

Ready to give it a go?

Good look with creating the best customer testimonial page!