Testimonials and feedback are gold because prospects trust your customers’ honest opinions far more than your marketing material or sales reps: 85% of people trust online reviews as much as personal advice, and 91% check online reviews occasionally or regularly before making a purchase.

If you’ve started reaching and exceeding your customers’ standards, you can start asking them for advice in the form of ratings, case studies, and testimonials.

If you want to learn how to leverage customer testimonials for lead generation purposes, keep reading.

However, the sole purpose of testimonials should not be to convert leads. If you put conversion above customer experience, you’ll have a hard time getting positive feedback. You still don’t have any material to draw new leads if you don’t have any good feedback.

Instead, the customer support team should concentrate on smaller objectives that will contribute to the production of leads. A few examples are given below.

1. Establish Genuine Customer Relationships

You should have a prior relationship with a customer before asking for a testimonial. They may be a long-term customer or someone who is always bragging about your business. However, before approaching them for a review, make an effort to contact them and establish a rapport.

While delivering excellent goods and services may have won their confidence, asking for something in return is a little different. It can be uncomfortable to contact someone out of the blue and request a testimonial if you don’t already have a relationship with them. Instead, if you’re regularly interacting with consumers who show an interest in your company, you’ll have plenty of chances to ask for feedback.

2. Enhance Customer Experience

This objective is quite simple. You’ll delight more buyers and create more testimonials if you boost the customer experience.

But, since only 28% of positive consumer encounters end with a review, consistent commitment is critical. And it’s frustrating because, regardless of their experience, 50% of people would leave a review only if you ask them to.

If you’re struggling to improve your customer experience, try to provide feedback features that highlight positive customer stories. This is also a great approach to initiate a dialogue and ask for a testimonial.

3. Highlight Every Customer Success Story

Customer testimonials are an excellent way to demonstrate that the company respects its customers’ needs. That’s because the customer’s tale demonstrates how the organization aided them in achieving their objectives. Leads with similar issues would be more confident in the ability to assist them.

If at all possible, choose a customer story that reflects your target demographic. This will enable you to address a larger audience with similar needs.

4. Have a Better Understanding Of the Customer Journey

Although marketing and customer service departments always concentrate on negative feedback, positive reviews can teach you a lot. They tell you what your business is doing well and what practices you should avoid. 

Customer success stories are examined in detail in testimonials. They show you how to build an ideal customer journey and what tactics you can use for new customers.

5. Create Brand Awareness

Even though this is a marketing target, customer service representatives should be mindful of the effect testimonials have on your brand’s credibility. As a result, make sure to inform your reps of the value of feedback and why your support team should be tracking them.

For instance, if a sales team member has established a strong relationship with a trustworthy client, keep the marketing team in the loop to reach out and come up with a valuable review. This keeps your processes running seamlessly by combining your customer service and marketing teams.

How To Use Testimonials for Lead Generation

Now that we’ve discussed the purpose of testimonials, let’s look at how you can use them to generate leads.

1. Leverage social proof

Social proof can have a powerful impact, and if you don’t already leverage it for every customer, you should create a strategy around it.

Determine your ten most profitable clients, cultivate your relationship with them, and inquire about what they’ve gained from working with you. Then find out how to turn those stories into testimonials or case studies that you can present to potential new clients.

The audience is the core of social proof, so gather plenty of cases of happy customers to post on social media, your website, and show at events.

2. Leverage visual content

What’s more impressive than messages from your happy customers? There is video material.

Invest in creating a testimonial video with some of the most passionate clients to bring the story to life. Whether you film a video yourself with your equipment or hire a production company, the video can tell your story in various ways. From your website to YouTube and social media, storytelling can present your content uniquely and engagingly.

3. Concentrate on the real impact

Third-party recognition of your business is an excellent way to demonstrate to others that you know what you’re doing — just make sure the testimonials aren’t ambiguous and fluffy. Ask consumers specific questions to get the exact responses you want. The most powerful testimonials are precise and describe the actual influence the product or service has on the consumer’s life.

4. Emphasize content anytime possible

Point to your case studies on your blog or social media accounts if you have especially impressive case studies. The more prospects can see your work’s impact through various platforms, the better.

5. Create genuine testimonials

One issue with testimonials is that, even though they sound fantastic, there is no way to verify their validity since there is no connection to the reviewer’s website or social profile.

Make sure that the testimonials can be linked to a genuine customer to boost confidence. While few people would contact the reviewer, they believe they can significantly affect purchasing decisions.

6. Assign testimonials to various personas

Since testimonials are intended to show performance, many of your future customers will search for testimonials from other customers that have had similar experiences.

With this in mind, create case studies with consumers who have the same demographics as the personas you’re hoping to attract, as well as the goals they’re attempting to accomplish.

7. Leverage public speaking

You can transform a  customer’s success story into a case study ready to be showcased.

If your company is present at trade shows, conferences, and events, ensure you have prepared an exciting customer story to reveal that’s greater than a sales pitch. Show the cases of your happy customers in various instances, for relevant audiences. 

8. Highlight your best-suited customers

If you have consumers among celebrities or high-profile influencers, emphasize their testimonials so that prospects will realize that they know them, and trust their opinion.

You may also highlight content customers who are part of the same demographic as your most valuable customers. You’ll be able to increase the leads and total sales by using testimonies as long as they’re relatable.

Bottom Line

The main purpose of customer service is to support the customers’ development to the extent where their enthusiasm for your brand makes them tell their friends and family about it. In this way, they become brand ambassadors to lots of prospects searching for trustworthy feedback.

If the new audiences come across reviews and find out more about your business, they will become free of charge leads. Furthermore, they will be more inclined to give your business a try since they follow the integrity of your current, happy customers.
Are you ready to tell customer story successes the right way and reap the rewards of lead generation efforts? If you are unsure where to start, we are here to help. Reach out to us today!