How to Use Testimonials to Drive Sales on your E-commerce Website

These days consumers are not only becoming more and more blind to marketing and advertising strategies but the buyer’s overall journey is also getting longer and longer with fewer people trusting companies. So, where does this leave you as an owner to an ecommerce website? Let’s find out.

Imagine a scenario

Imagine Mr X wants to buy a product you sell. Now he calls one of his friends and asks for a recommendation. His friend suggested your product and based on his referral, Mr X buys your product.

This simple scenario is a clear explanation of how customer testimonials usually work. Rather than thinking of it as communication between two or more friends, consider it more as a communication between a customer and the masses.

What is a customer testimonial?

A customer testimonial is basically a positive and unbiased review of a product, service, or business. In other words, it is a glowing statement of adoration that a customer that has bought from you in the past, post for the general public.

While creating an online store, you should keep this in mind to add a testimonial section to the website. These are generally of two types:

1. User-generated where the customer posts on social media and mentions how much he/she loves your product.
2. Solicited where you ask the customer what he/she thinks of your product and the customer responds to your request.

Whether the testimonial is user-generated or solicited, once it is posted on the website, it becomes public. And anyone interested in the product can read it and judge its value.

Why are customer testimonials important for your ecommerce website?

There have been quite a few studies that looked into the effectiveness of testimonials in relation to ROI. And all these studies indicate that they do have a major impact on conversions and sales resulting in almost 62% increase in revenue per customer. Now, who wouldn’t want to boost their revenue by that margin?

I would for sure!

So why customer testimonials are important?

Because;

• They are a highly effective form of social proof that can convince the prospects that they are making the right choice by buying from your store. After all, that’s the whole purpose behind creating an online store.
• In order to build trust in your brand, you need others to recommend your products. And this type of trust and likability for your brand can only be established by displaying customer testimonials on your website.
• One of the most powerful marketing tools you can own is a brand story. And how do you craft a unique and persuasive brand story? By weaving together compelling customer testimonials.
• Your business like everybody else’s has unique value propositions or qualities which help your ecommerce website stand apart from the competition. Testimonials help you highlight those key benefits besides putting on your best face (controlling what reviews to post and what not to).
• Consumers don’t prefer hearing from a faceless brand and you cannot blame them. Who knows what emotional state they might be in while purchasing. That’s why testimonials are important as they help make a personal connection to the customers by being convincing and relatable.

Types of Appreciations:

Primarily there are two factors at play here.

1. Be it creating an online store or trying a new product for the first time, nobody likes to be first.

It’s like trying out new medication, you sure want to know how many have tried it before and whether it worked.

Same goes with appreciations if a customer cannot know about others’ experiences, his/her frame of reference will only be limited to what the company says about its products.

And what company has ever told its customers that the products are of low quality, faulty in nature, inaccurate or ineffective in use? None!

2. The second factor in favour of having customer appreciations on your ecommerce website revolves around FOMO (yes, it’s a real thing) i.e. the fear of missing out.

It’s like a small window of opportunity to take advantage of an offer that nobody likes to miss out on.

Same goes with appreciations, whenever a prospect sees glowing reviews for a product on your online store, he’s like, “why should others have all the fun?”, I can also benefit from the product.

I know it sounds more like taking advantage of human psychology and behaviour for your business but as long as you solicit legitimate customer appreciations, who cares? Isn’t this why you create an online store in the first place?

Now that we have learned about the appreciations and their types along with how important they are for your online store, let’s move on to some other important questions that matter.

Where to place the customer testimonials section on a website?

One excellent strategy is to include testimonials section on the homepage. It works well because most people use search engines such as Google to find businesses which automatically lands them on homepages. But you can also consider including them on the landing page, sales page, contact page, underneath blog posts, and in the sidebar of your ecommerce website.

How many testimonials should you consider including?

Another important question but there’s no magic number here if that’s what you are asking. To be honest, it’s entirely up to you, you can either fill it with dozens of testimonials or can have only one from a recognized source. Ideally, you should aim for collecting as many customer testimonials as possible. Businesses with more testimonials are generally assumed as having more customers.

How to get customers to write perfect reviews?

As I said before, creating an online store and getting those perfect reviews from the customers is no child’s play, you have no idea if a long-lost unsatisfied customer might come up and damage your reputation.

And that’s exactly why you should only ask customers to review who have rated your business fairly well. Now I am not undermining negative reviews here, they also play an important part in helping you identify your weaknesses besides making your testimonial page look genuine.

So, be it positive or negative, you should always play your part right by asking for reviews on your ecommerce website in a professional manner. Below is a list of such factors to consider.

• Start by asking the right questions so as to have reviews structured the way you want them to. Here you can ask them about any doubts they have or any changes they would suggest before making the purchase.
• The best time to get user feedback is right after the sale. Email them immediately after they make the purchase and if you feel like you have done justice to them, you can then ask for a review.
• Keep in mind that your customers are taking out time to write for you on your ecommerce website, so you should at least try to make the entire process hassle-free.
• Nothing beats social media when it comes to making things social. You should ask your satisfied customers to write reviews of the products and encourage them to share around on social media as well.
• Lastly but entirely optional, you could offer incentives for writing reviews. We mentioned optional as this is a grey area which, if not handled with care, can backfire just as easily.

Conclusion

And that’s everything you need to know about customer satisfaction. After you create an online store, this is an area that needs utmost care but if you follow all the rules and pointers mentioned in this article, there is no reason why you shouldn’t start receiving testimonials on all your sales channels. Your time to show testimonials start now, even at places where you don’t sell.

Need some more help with your testimonial page? Keep checking the StoreHippo blog section where we publish articles on marketing and sales tips, tricks, and industry leading knowledge to help build the brand of your dreams. Join us today and be part of this thriving community!