About Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials are often an important part of making a sale. For online retail and service-related businesses, building customer confidence through testimonials can help counter the Web consumer's mistrust of the many unknown profit-based companies populating the Internet. Customer testimonials help encourage trust and garner excitement for a product.

Significance

Before e-commerce became a force in the late 1990s, two main kinds of endorsement were used to market a product, service or business: advertisement and word of mouth. Advertising copy sometimes included testimonials to boost customer faith in the efficacy of the product. For the online business, customer testimonials do much more. Building trust has been difficult in Internet-based commerce. Word of mouth doesn't get the job done; no longer is it possible to ask members of your family, friends and professional networks for informed advice on whether a business or product is sound and trustworthy. There are too many Internet businesses and products, many with questionable credentials. Businesses use customer testimonials on websites now to "prove" to prospective customers that the business is legitimate.

Identification

Customer testimonials come in various forms. Feedback, customer reviews, product reviews, letters, casual mentions, blogs, celebrity quotes--whatever the form, you can recognize a customer testimonial by the use of the first person pronoun. Search-engine searches for "I tried," "I love," "I used," "I bought," and "I recommend" will often yield a customer testimonial of some product.

Features

Customer testimonials may be anything from a single selection of multiple-choice options or one-line feedback entry to a long, multi-paragraph review--or even multi-page review. Whatever form, all testimonials evaluate a product, service or business entity. In addition to voting "yea," "nay" or "undecided," a customer testimonial may also give information about the product and list pros and cons. The more accurate and honest information included in a customer testimonial, the more helpful it is to the consumer who must choose whether or not to invest in a product or service.

Types

Some customer testimonials are unsolicited. Others are requested by the business but included regardless of their bias. Be aware, however, that some customer testimonials are written for pay, and their honesty is in question. Others that have a negative slant may be weeded out of inclusion in the site.

Benefits

Creating a page on your website or spot on your product pages for customer feedback or endorsements can help you build consumer confidence in your new website, create a resource for your customers to help them select products and keep your Web visitors returning again and again.

Considerations

Savvy consumers are aware that some product reviews are legitimate and genuine, but that many aren't. Therefore, the overuse of endorsements, plugs and reviews by inauthentic customers can decrease their power. Avoid paying for testimonials and encouraging the cynical consumer sentiment that "you can't believe everything you read on shopping websites."