How to ask customers to share their stories for a review
Customer testimonials are one of the best ways to spread the word about your business and boost your conversion rates. In addition, customer reviews are a powerful marketing tool as other customers rely on them before making a purchasing decision.
Unfortunately, asking a customer to share their journey with a business is not an easy feat. You need to be proactive about asking them without sounding too pushy.
If you are confused about how to approach your customers and encourage them to share their experience, take a look at the following tips:
- Make use of targeted emails
Asking your customers to share their experiences via email is an effective way. Instead of keeping the messaging open-ended, include specific questions that nudge the customers to share their journey with your brand.
For example, ask about the pain points the customer was facing before they started using your product/service. You can also request them to share details about the improvements they have noticed since they started using your product/service. Finally, make it a point to specifically ask about the best feature of your product/service that sets it apart from the competition.
Once a customer responds, you can use the email itself as a testimonial and showcase it on the landing page or create a dedicated section for testimonials on your website. A word of caution — make sure to ask the customer if they would be okay with you sharing their email in public.
- Harness the power of video testimonials
A single video testimonial of satisfied customers sharing their experience is far more potent than crowding your website with dozens of text-based reviews. Videos are easy to consume and come across as more genuine than other forms of testimonials. Besides, video testimonials also get better engagement from your prospects. You can also create a playlist of such testimonials and upload it to the company’s YouTube channel.
Unfortunately, video testimonials are harder to obtain. Many customers think that they need to have a complete set up including a high-quality phone camera or DSLR, to record their thoughts, which requires a significant amount of time and effort. Luckily, Clipchamp makes it easy for your customers to share reviews, thanks to the fantastic lineup of video recording services.
You can create a testimonial video using an online video editor that makes it super easy for your customer to record their thoughts — simply invite them to use Clipchamp’s webcam recorder, hit the record button to capture their testimonial, and send it to you. Once you receive the raw file, you can use Clipchamp’s online video editor to add a more professional touch to the video by adding catchy background music, captions, logos, etc., and upload it on your website.
Alternatively, you can ask your customers to check out the corporate video maker by Clipchamp that lets them record and upload their video testimonials. They can experiment with various templates, transitions, and filters.
Remember to give the customers an option to send a written testimonial or a video testimonial. Ultimately, they should get to choose depending on their comfort level. Forcing camera-shy customers to share their journey on video can completely backfire.
- Conduct surveys
While a customer survey is not the traditional way of approaching a customer for their testimonial, there’s no harm in experimenting. If your post-sales follow-up protocol includes annual surveys, be sure to add a field for testimonials.
You can ask the customers to share why your product/service is better than the ones they have tried before. You can ask if they were to recommend it to someone else, what would they highlight. Finally, you can request them to share if there was anything your product or your team could have done differently to make their lives easier.
You can either use dedicated online survey creation tools or a Google Form to key in the questions. Regardless of what you choose, the bottom line remains simple — if you allow your customers to speak freely, you will get a genuine account of how satisfied and happy they are.
- Use social media to discover what customers are sharing
A lot of customers are extremely prompt about sharing their feedback about products or services on their social media accounts. Do a quick search for your company’s name on Twitter or Instagram and check out the results.
If you find a positive review shared by a customer, send them a direct message to enquire whether they will be comfortable sharing a detailed experience. You can also directly embed the testimonials from social media accounts on your website.
Get ready to receive the best customer testimonials
The easier you make it for a customer to share their experiences, the quicker you will receive the testimonials. We hope these tips inspire you to build your own game plan!
