Walt Kania   :Writer
Testimonials 101
What works.  What doesn’t.
 
I am convinced that the concept of the 'testimonial' can be one of the sharpest arrows in your arsenal.
 
But it's not as simple as serving up happy comments from happy users.  I suspect that most buyers read such testimonials with a grain of salt, if they read them at all.  As with anything else, it's all in the implementation.
 
How do you use rave reviews to best advantage?  I have worked with testimonials for more than a decade now, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.   Here's what I suggest.
 
Call them something else
 
To me, the word 'testimonial' evokes images of shills and hucksters.  In B2B, financial, and technology marketing it's smarter to call them:
 
  1. - Client comments
  2. - Current deployments
  3. - Customer references
  4. - Reference installations
  5. - User feedback
  6. - Customer reactions
  7. - Client experiences
  8. - Customer evaluations
  9. - What customers say
 
And don't lump all your user reviews together.  Embed them in relevant content or attach them in sidebars.  More readers will see them.
 
One of my clients posted all his customer comments behind a link on labeled Testimonials.  To his dismay, the page received fewer hits than his Legal Disclaimer.
 
Mimic the customer reviews on Amazon.com
 
Go to Amazon.com and study the Customer Reviews they present for books and products.  Pick out a few business books, or MBA texts, or some high-tech volumes and see what everyday readers have to say about them.
 
Those real-world reviews do more to sell (or un-sell) books than the blurbs that publishers dream up.  Sure, some reviews may be ham-fisted and unpolished.  But they influence people.  Those testimonials work.
 
Pay special attention to the reviews Amazon customers rate as the most helpful.  You'll notice that:
 
  1. - Substance beats fluff or exclamation points.  Reviews that offer specifics and examples always rate higher than those that merely gush praise.  (And those that merely bash.)
  2.  
  3. - Readers don't find short, sound-bite reviews all that helpful -- no matter how snappy and clever they are.  So feel free to use longer comments.
  4.  
  5. - Reviews that are signed by real people, with real names, seem to be rated higher than those submitted by anonymous readers.
  6.  
  7. - Even the most favorable and highly rated reviews aren't entirely positive every time.  Which leads us to the next critical point.  And it's a big one:
 
A few negatives work wonders
 
Don’t insist that all your customer comments sound 110% rosy and happy.  You'll lose an important edge that way.
 
A few less-than-perfect references can make your testimonials far more credible, and therefore more persuasive.  You may think this is heresy, but if your comments occasionally touch on minor drawbacks or concerns, your readers are more likely to believe the good things, too.
 
What do I mean by a less-than-perfect reference?
 
How about:
 
  1. "You might do better on price with other software packages, but the ABC solution is a lot easier to integrate with your other apps.  There's a pretty simple interface that lets you take feeds from inventory or A/P systems if you want.  We did both very easily.  Nobody else came close on that score."
 
Or:
 
  1. "We have three XYZ units on our production floor right now.  At first, we wondered about the longer set-up times, but we made it all up -- and more -- in production speed. The output is probably two to three times what we could manage before.  We took anywhere from 24 to 72 hours off our turnaround intervals."
 
If you delete the 'negatives' in these comments they go limp and bland.  Your superiors may like the sanitized versions better, but they will carry less weight with customers.  Go with the realism.
 
Be honest
 
Along these very lines, I once suggested to a client -- who was an aggressive number two in their industry -- that she include a section on her web site called Customer Complaints, where she could  post actual beefs and criticisms from current customers.
 
I figured at the very least, no one could resist clicking that link.  And that would work to our advantage in two ways.
 
First, by being so disarmingly open and candid, no one could ever doubt the good things the company claimed about its products.
 
Second, by posting relatively trivial complaints ("The LEDs flicker too much.") we could show, in a back-handed way, that customers actually loved this hardware.  And I imagined we would have gotten good press for the move.
 
Naturally, of course, there was no way she could sell such an idea to her VPs.  
 
Favor stories over bullet points
 
Let customers simply tell their stories,   rather than prompt them to tick off features and benefits like a PowerPoint slide.
 
Stories are inherently more interesting, they're more persuasive, and they're more natural.  When IT managers share their experiences with a particular brand of server, they don't recite specs and product attributes.  They swap stories.
 
How to get good comments
 
Some of my clients simply go around and ask customers if they're willing to provide testimonials.  It works, but I'm not sure they uncover the best material this way.
 
Other marcom managers capture a rich stream of comments by continually asking customers for off-the-cuff, no-holds-barred evaluations of their experiences.  
 
  1. "We were curious about your experience with XXX now, six months after deployment.  Is there something we could be doing better? What works and what doesn't, as far as you're concerned?  What are we doing right?  What doubts did you have before, and how did they pan out in practice?"  
 
Sure, you'll hear some pet peeves and gripes and nitpicking.   But you will get plenty of compliments, too.  All suitably balanced and credible.
 
And, your customer's lawyers may be more willing to let you use their comments, since they won't sound like blatant endorsements.
 
Go with the flow, not with strategy
 
If you obtain a testimonial that doesn't jibe with your official positioning, use it anyway.  Go with what customers like, not with the party line.
 
One of my Fortune 500 clients was disappointed to see transcripts of the interviews we had conducted with customers.  He rejected them all complaining that "they all talked about X, when our big push is to talk about Y."
 
If customers are all talking about X, that's what they're interested in.   You've found a vein to mine.  Follow it and never mind the memos on strategy.
 
Think confirmation
 
Oddly enough, client comments have the most effect on the buyer who already wants what you're selling.  He likes your solution, and truly wants to believe it will fix his problem, save on operations costs, improve reliability, or whatever.  But he's a bit leery.  He's wondering what you're not saying, or if things are just a little too pat. Credible comments from other users can quiet those cynical voices, and help him believe what he already wants to believe.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Walt Kania is a freelance writer specializing in marketing communications for B2B and technology companies.  He works out of New Jersey.  Contact him here.
 
 
“Comments that are 110% rosy and happy aren’t nearly as powerful as those with a negative or two.”
 
 
“Oddly enough, testimonials have the most effect on the buyers who already want your stuff.
 
“Not on the skeptics.”