The complete guide to client testimonials: What, why, how
Why you should read: See how conversational intelligence can unearth the right insights to save countless hours and provide premium client experience at scale.
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Head of product, Caleb & Brown
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95% of people say that client testimonials affect their purchasing decisions.
Since social proof has such an impact on conversion rates, it seems foolish to overlook this tactic as a means to get more customers.
However, not all testimonials will sell your product. If your client testimonials aren’t worded correctly, they won’t pack the punch you’re aiming for.
Read on to learn everything about producing the perfect client testimonials: The what, the why, and the how.
What are client testimonials?
A testimonial is a short quote or personal anecdote from a client that describes the positive experience they’ve had with your company.
While you’ll often see a brand display testimonials on their website, a customer testimonial may be less formal, such as a customer review on a third-party website.
Customer testimonials usually consist of positive feedback from a happy customer and a personal recommendation to use your brand’s services.
If you’re looking to add a testimonial to your new website or testimonials page, you want to make sure you’re picking well-structured client testimonials that serve as social proof of your services.
A great testimonial talks about how you solved a problem for the customer while highlighting the benefits of your customer service.
The purpose of an effective testimonial is to leverage your existing customers as social proof to convince prospective customers to pick you.
Not only can you add a good testimonial to the testimonial page on your website, but you can also use them within your content marketing strategy.
Adding testimonials to a blog post or social media post can boost your marketing campaign by showing off the great experience that a potential client can expect to receive by choosing you.
Why are client testimonials so important?
If you want to convince a prospective client to pick you over the competition, you need to show them exactly how you’ll solve their problems.
While product demos can show your product in action, a top-notch customer testimonial shows your solution in action.
Prospective customers will often look for testimonials during the research phase of buying a product or service. In fact, 79% of people have watched a video testimonial to find out more about a company, product, or service.
47% of buyers say testimonial videos are effective in these early stages because they help them visualize how a product or service actually works.
One of the main reasons testimonials are more useful than a product video is because your target audience wants to see how well you might solve their problems by looking at how you've solved similar issues.
This is why 2 out of 3 people say they’d be more likely to make a purchase after watching a testimonial video demonstrating how a solution had helped another person like them.
A lot of this comes down to trust.
9 out of 10 buyers say they trust what a real person says about a company over what that company says about themselves.
This is because a satisfied client is giving a personal recommendation, whereas a company’s positive review of itself is merely part of its marketing material.
What’s more, client testimonials are great sales tools. 36% of sales enablement teams are using customer testimonials to help their sales teams build cases.
And they work. Testimonials can have a serious impact on conversions.
Just look at Wikijobs. By putting testimonials above the fold of their new website design, they boosted conversions by 34%.
What makes good client testimonials?
An effective testimonial can help push your conversion rates and net new customers. However, not every testimonial makes the grade.
First, your testimonial should be brief and to the point. Customer feedback should explain exactly how you helped them and how this impacted the company.
Whether you’re creating a written testimonial or a testimonial video, it should outline the customer’s problem and explain how you solved that specific issue. Numerical data is helpful here as it shows quantifiable results.
Make sure that your testimonials come from real customers that are verifiable. If a potential customer can’t trace the source of the testimonial, they may think it’s a fake.
Try to get a prominent decision-maker to present the testimonial.
An authoritative role, such as a senior manager, is far more convincing than an intern. Make sure you include the names and roles to boost credibility and to help similar clients find testimonials that align with their professional roles.
Lastly, make sure you have a diverse customer range on your testimonial page.
Pick happy clients that represent all facets of your target audience. Choose existing customers that illustrate how your solution solves problems for different industries, company types, and roles.
Look at this excellent example of a written testimonial for Work The System.
It includes the name of the happy customer and their role, along with their business’ name. This makes it easy to look up the establishment to check it's not a fake testimonial. The photo also adds an extra dimension of credibility.
Notice how the customer feedback explains the problem they were having and how Work the System solved it. There’s also numerical data showing the quantifiable impact of the service.
Now, check out this B2B video testimonial for Content Allies.
The testimonial is given by the founder of the company, which boosts its credibility.
The testimonial runs through the issue, solution, and impact of the solution in under two minutes.
How to create effective client testimonials to win over prospects: Best practices
When done right, a testimonial can convince prospective clients that your services are a cut above the rest.
To create effective testimonials that lead to more conversions, follow these best practices:
1. Reach out to all your recent clients
Start by reaching out to your existing customers to ask them for a testimonial.
While it’s easiest to ask a client directly after you’ve worked with them, there’s no harm in sending an email out to your list of past customers.
To make this process easier, you can always send it out as a quick survey, where you ask customers to comment on particular aspects of your product or service. You can use these responses as short quote testimonials to add to your website.
2. Pick your best customers
If you get a lot of response from your existing customers, you're in a position to choose your best clients to represent your brand.
For the most effective testimonials, you want to select customers that show off your greatest achievements.
Try to pick happy clients that seem overly satisfied with your work. These clients will be eager to write a glowing personal recommendation.
You should also look to include customers who had the most interesting and unique problems.
By showing your target audience that you can solve out-the-box problems, you demonstrate that you’re more experienced than your competition. This also helps you net other clients who may be having the same unusual problems.
3. Cover all your buyer personas
Select an array of clients that represent all the buyer personas in your target audience.
Look at the buyer personas you’ve created for your marketing campaign and choose a satisfied customer that can provide a use case for each of these personas.
Make sure you select for each different role, industry, and company type.
4. Provide your clients with a testimonial outline
There’s nothing worse than a vague testimonial that just alludes to you delivering a great experience.
You want testimonials that specifically outline what you did and how it helped solve a problem.
Don’t be afraid to give your customer a script or outline to work from — something like this:
- Give a brief overview of your company and its purpose
- Outline your business problem
- Explain the solution
- List the positive impacts of that solution
- Give a clear recommendation for the brand
Not only does this help clients to structure written testimonials, but it also helps them feel more confident when filming a customer testimonial video.
5. Keep testimonials solutions-focused
Customers are looking to employ your product or service to solve a problem. Make sure your testimonials are solutions-focused to show the kinds of issues you’re good at solving and how you go about it.
Try to avoid vague language like you see in this example:
While this customer explains what they’re using Reply.io’s service for, they don’t explain how the solution is ‘pretty great.’
If you’re a customer who is having a specific issue with their sales campaigns, you can’t be sure that this solution will solve your particular problem.
6. Give quantifiable, tangible results
With specificity in mind, make sure your testimonials show exactly how you benefit the company.
Using exact numbers helps prospective clients quantify your solution so that they understand the return on investment (ROI) of your product.
For example, check out this testimonial that shows the quantifiable value of Ring Logix.
Propel Technologies explains how Ring Logix helps them handle 95% of their support tickets in minutes and beat large competitor pricing by 30%.
7. Include verifiable facts about the clients
A prospective client won’t trust a testimonial from ‘Jess B.’ They want real names, job roles, company profiles, and photos.
All these aspects help create a credible profile of the person giving the recommendation so that it doesn't look like a fake testimonial.
While 37% of people believe testimonials are effective because they’re more authentic than a business’s own pitch, one without real credentials is completely untrustworthy.
8. Attach it to a case study
Sometimes a few lines aren’t enough to get the message across.
This is where a case study testimonial can add value.
Customers can read a quick one-liner and then delve deeper into the case studies that resonate with their particular situation.
This is an especially effective tactic for B2B buyers since 54% of B2B buyers say they looked at case studies when making their last purchase, and 29% say that case studies are their most important buying resource.
9. Choose to make video testimonials
42% of people say video testimonials work because they help viewers understand the story behind a real person. Not only that, but 77% of consumers who have watched a brand's video testimonial say it had a part in persuading them to buy.
This is why 43% of companies now produce social proof videos.
But it’s not just that videos are more authentic and engaging — they’re also highly shareable.
This makes a video testimonial the ideal marketing material for social media marketing and paid advertising campaigns.
If you’re planning to add a video testimonial to your marketing campaign, keep it brief.
Look at this testimonial example for Robin.
By keeping it as short as 30 seconds, it’s ideal to use as a YouTube ad or to put up as a post on Twitter or Facebook.
3 examples of client testimonials to copy
Are you looking for client testimonial examples to base your testimonials on?
Here are some examples of customer feedback that would work on your website or in your social media campaigns:
1. Asana
This testimonial is on Asana’s homepage.
It’s a short written testimonial that alludes to the customer’s problem and explains how Asana solves it. It also gives a clear benefit of the solution.
Not only is there a photo with full credentials, but you can also click the play button to watch a longer case study testimonial.
2. Botkeeper
This Botkeeper testimonial is given by the owner of One8 in a video that’s less than 30 seconds long.
Not only does the testimonial manage to outline all the tangible benefits, but it also does it in a highly authentic way.
3. Threat Stack
In this 30-second testimonial video for Threat Stack, more than one important figure gives a positive review. This helps to show how the solution benefits different roles in one company.
Notice how this client testimonials is front-loaded with a benefit to hook prospective customers at the outset.
Conclusion
Client testimonials are your main source of authentic social proof.
Not only are they a great tool to help your sales team convince buyers, but they can also be used as an advertising tool, as social media content, and to assist buyers in the research stage.
Make sure that you’re guiding clients on how to produce a testimonial that shows prospects how you solve problems for your different buyer personas.
Remember, video testimonials are one of the most engaging and versatile forms of social proof out there, and Testimonial Hero is the expert at creating video client testimonials.
Contact the team today to find out more about creating your own highly effective client testimonial videos.
Dan shares on:
Brokers no longer need to spend hours each week tagging conversations manually and adding notes after each call—ZRA does all that for them.
During customer calls, brokers, salespeople, and customer success agents can easily see AI-generated notes from previous interactions and continue the conversation, whether it involves offering the customer more information about a particular token or solving a simple troubleshooting issue like two-factor authentication.
Using ZRA has streamlined customer processes, from sales to customer service calls to onboarding. “When we go through a customer onboarding process, we need a lot of information from the customer to remain compliant,” Dan explains. “With Zoom Revenue Accelerator, our onboarding team can easily see what’s been collected and what’s missing.”
After each call, ZRA will automatically create a summary and generate a list of the next steps to complete the onboarding. “Our onboarding team can now save time. When engaging with a customer, they can focus and prioritize that customer conversation.”
With automatic, AI-enabled insights into customer calls, Caleb & Brown now uses the intelligence gathered from conversations to guide business decisions. “When we want to start a new customer acquisition campaign or explore a new business line, we have insights into what matters most to our customers,” Dan says. “We can adjust our acquisition strategy and the key messages we use in our comms to match what we see.”
ZRA makes data sharing between teams easier, so brokers can share customer feedback with product and engineering teams—something they couldn’t do easily before. “In the past, it was quite clunky to pull a clip or audio file to share with other teams. Now, they can easily search through transcripts and provide those snippets as text snippets. It’s been a huge improvement to our workflow,” Dan says.
The enhanced collaboration—furthered by the adoption of Zoom Chat and Zoom Meetings—has also improved security. Teams can communicate faster and use ZRA to share data and call recordings to identify bad actors and confirm client identities quickly.
"Our teams can look at the data and make sure the voice and conversation style matches previous conversations. The auto-generated transcript that ZRA provides makes it much easier to search previous conversations." — Dan Johnson, Head of product, Caleb & Brown
In addition to tightening security, ZRA has made it easier for Caleb & Brown to track potential compliance issues and conduct quality assurance.
Along with ZRA, Caleb & Brown adopted Zoom Phone.
As a distributed company with global teams, it was important to ensure that distance didn’t impact customer experience. According to Dan, their previous provider “had significant latency issues and delays in the conversation. It made conversations quite disjointed and felt very unnatural.”
Switching to Zoom Phone solved those issues, and with the seamless integration of ZRA, they’ve gained data analysis capabilities they didn’t have before.
Since they’ve started working with Zoom Phone and ZRA, Caleb & Brown has gathered valuable data from every single customer call. “Previously, only a fraction of those calls were analyzed and reviewed. Now it’s 100%, and our team doesn’t have to do anything—the software does it for us. It’s quite magical,” Dan says.
This analysis has led to significant time savings and given the team a deeper understanding of their customers.
“Understanding those conversations and what topics matter most to our customers at scale has been absolutely phenomenal. We can’t put an exact number on it, but days, months, years of work have been saved.” —Dan Johnson, Head of product, Caleb & Brown
Caleb & Brown have gotten so much value from Zoom Phone and ZRA that they’ve expanded their Zoom ecosystem.
One such integration involves Salesforce. ZRA integrates directly with Salesforce, which means agents no longer have to spend time searching for the information they need. When a customer calls, their profile pops on the screen, allowing agents and brokers to swiftly navigate through that customer's data for additional context for a particular request. “If a customer wants to update their address, for example, the agent can click see and change that information directly in Salesforce. The useability is phenomenal,” Dan says.
Another addition is Zoom Contact Center, which provides a better way for the global support team to service customers. Rather than having support team members to have unique phone numbers, they leverage intelligent routing to streamline call volume through a single phone number. This capability makes reporting much clearer, as it's easier for leadership to understand the types of conversations being had and who is having those conversations.
With so many solutions to offer, Zoom enables Caleb & Brown to improve productivity, know their customers better, and get deeper deal insights to drive more revenue.
“One of the biggest benefits of working with Zoom is their complete product line. Having one provider that you can go to for many solutions makes things quite easy.” —Dan Johnson, Head of product, Caleb & Brown
