• Can you deliver? Do you have a track record?
• What are you like to work with?
• Can you be trusted?

In short, a good testimonial should remove scepticism from the potential buyer. Use the guidance below to gain maximum effect.

1. How do you get customer testimonials?

The short answer is simple - ask for them. There's various ways to do that.

• Send a one off email to previous customers so you can quickly gather a few.
• Make this part of your order follow up process, with an automatic email a few days after you expect an order to arrive.
• If you have a high volume of sales, you could consider installing review software that will automatically follow up with customers a few days after each order and will include the review on the relevant product page automatically. On Shopify, the Yotpo app is a good option for this.

2. What makes a good testimonial?

A good testimonial should come from your target customer base, so that prospects can relate to it, and should include:

• The benefits your product provided, with metrics if possible.
• Any fears that your customer had before they bought from you e.g. if the product would arrive in time.
• The credibility of a testimonial is important so include a name and even a photo if possible.
• If the customer would recommend you to a friend.
• A direct comparison with a competitor - obviously in your favour! - will help set you apart, for example, "we tried X but with little benefits, using Y we were able to see our customer retention rate double".

When emailing past customers, you can ask if they'd mention some of these specific aspects so that you receive a better quality of testimonial for your website.

3. Don't limit testimonials to one page

Don't limit testimonial use to a separate page. Include it near your key Call To Actions to encourage visitor confidence.

Here are some places you can include them on an online store:

• Near your add to cart button, in your product descriptions.
• On your cart page
• On your checkout
• In your website footer

If testimonials mention specific aspects of your service, include them on the overview page for that part of your offering. If you use videos to demonstrate your offering, consider including video customer testimonials within them.

4. Do include a Testimonials page

Having said that... do include a testimonials page of some form. Some prospective customers will click on this first to see what actual past customers have said about you, preferring to read this first over your own spiel. Make sure you keep it up to date and consider removing some testimonials over time as you gather more, so you can focus on the best. Always ensure your best testimonials are the first on the page.

5. How to deal with negative feedback

Everyone makes mistakes and it happens in business sometimes. Sometimes, the problem may not have occured within your own operations but instead through a third party.

Either way the best way to deal with negative feedback is to acknowledge it and question what the problem was using a technique like the 5 Whys. This will allow you to find the root cause and take action to improve based on that. Obviously if you are getting repeated problems relating to a single root cause it's time to make a change.

In your response, avoid the temptation or argue your case. Instead, frame your response by showing that the incident was a one off, for example, "we've been in business 15 years and help 100 customers every week, we're sorry we made a mistake this time."

Offer a replacement if relevant. It may even be worth a personal call to the customer to find out exactly what went wrong and to show that you are taking it seriously.

Conclusion

We hope that helps and we'd love to hear any stories of how testimonials have worked for you!