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Bad Testimonials Ruined The Sale
January 8, 2008
After a long bicycle ride, I collapsed into a mesh zero gravity chair that one of the bike mechanics had set up near his tent. I fell in love with the chair, and shortly before I zoned out listening to whatever music was playing on the radio, I decided I had to buy one of those awesome, comfortable pieces of furniture.
When I got home, I did what most women today do, I hopped online to price shop. My heart broke when I read
negative comments about the chair of my dreams; especially the one that said, in capital letters, HUGE WASTE OF MONEY. Ouch. The next five reviews were just as flattering as that one, but two people did say they were recommend it out of the nine commenters. If I wanted to be swayed--and I wanted to keep the chair indoors and have it hog much space inside my little bungalow--I would have bought it. But the testimonials that told me about the rusted grommets and the bad meshing that frays too easily made me realize I'd be wasting my money if I kept it on my back deck. I was crushed and did not purchase it after all.
I've preached it before in my blog: testimonials make or break a sale, whether it's a product, store or person. People tend to trust each other more than they trust the marketing or media. How can you make this work in your favor? Here are 4 steps:
- Encourage your best customers to write reviews about your store on your website.
- Give them something in return for their effort (discount, open house sale with refreshments, etc.)
- Search for your store or products online to see what others are saying about them.
- Write positive reviews with links back to your online store, or have others write them for you. Be truthful in your reviews or you will lose your credibility.
I know of an author whose first customer review on Amazon.com slammed his book. He hopped on Facebook and shot an email to his audience asking people to please write a great comment to shove the negative one off the first page. It worked. Eleven people immediately hopped online and
wrote glowing reviews. I'm sure it helped his sales.
Product Review sites & customer testimonials on retail sites (the last two were found when I performed a search on "customer testimonials"on Google - speaks highly of their search engine optimization):
Posted by Suze Bragg on January 8, 2008 | Comments (0)
