The Importance of Customer Testimonials
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to episode number 19 of the Tennis Business Academy Podcast.
Today the topic I’d like to discuss are customer testimonials.
How important they are, how you can go about creating good testimonials for your business or club and where they should be used or displayed.
And let’s just get straight into it by making sure that we’re all on the same page about what testimonials are.
So, let me just read to you the definition of testimonial. According to the dictionary, a testimonial is a formal statement testifying to someone’s character and qualifications.
It also lists the words reference, recommendation and endorsement as similar words to testimonial.
Ok, so that’s the definition.
But so what? Why does it matter to us?
Well, because recommendations from happy customers will help us sell what we do to other people through a phenomenon called social proof.
The idea here is simple and goes beyond just the marketing realm.
If someone is unsure about how to behave in a certain situation, that person will look at what other people are doing in the same situation and will copy their behaviour.
This works in real-life physical situations, like say when you see a queue in front of you, what you do you do? You join the queue, because you assume that the right behaviour in that situation is to wait for your turn like everyone else.
But it also works when we’re trying to decide on whether we should purchase a particular product or service.
And the most common form of social proof there is to ask friends and family for recommendations.
In fact, there’s research that indicates that 82% of people seek recommendations from friends and family before making a purchase.
No surprises there, right? We like to hear opinions from the people we trust before we commit to something.
But what’s maybe a little bit more surprising is that there’s also research that suggests that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Why that is, I’m not 100% sure.
But one reason might be that when we go online we tend to see dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of reviews. And if the vast majority are positive then we tend to assume that the product or service is good.
And the logical thinking at that point is that if all these people are happy with the product then why wouldn’t I be?
If 300 people have gone to a local restaurant and gave it a 4 or 5 stars rating, then I’m confident that that restaurant is good and that i will enjoy a nice meal there.
So, all of this to say that social proof matters as it helps people make decisions one way or another.
And you already instinctively know this is true because I bet that you also look through reviews online and ask for opinions from friends and family when you’re about to spend money or something.
And I can also almost guarantee that the more money or time you need to commit to said product or service, the more research you’ll tend to do and the more social proof that this is the right product or service for you you’ll try to find.
And if you find it, you’ll probably go ahead with it, and if you don’t you might delay or give up on the idea altogether.
Ok, so far we’ve established that social proof is important as it has the power to sway more people to buy what you’re selling.
So, our job is to make sure that when people search for ‘tennis in your area’ on Google or anywhere else, they see lots of positive social proof about you and your coaching programme or club.
And when they visit your website and your social media pages the same.
You need to prominently display evidence that other people who have already spent money and time with you value and support what you do and are happy to have spent that money and time in the first place.
And typically the way that organisations display this social proof, this evidence is through the use of testimonials.
So this is the first step. To acknowledge that you should do your best to showcase as many testimonials about your coaching programme or club in as many different places as possible.
So, let’s just quickly go through some of the most common and important places where you should be sharing positive social proof.
The most obvious one is your website. This one is absolutely non-negotiable.
If people are visiting your website, it’s because they're interested in what you’re doing.
So make sure that you’re doing your best to really ‘grab’ them then and there by proving that you provide a good service.
And one of the most powerful ways to do that is to show someone else’s positive opinion about your programme or club.
People will always doubt someone saying good things about themselves. But they will feel a lot more confident it’s true when it’s a 3rd party saying it.
The second place where you should do your best to showcase positive social proof and testimonials is with reviews and ratings on Google.
You’re probably already aware that when you search for something locally on Google all these different businesses will show up and some of them will have a rating out of 5 stars and a few reviews from customers (happy or unhappy!).
So, when someone searches for ‘tennis in your area’ you not only want your club or business to show up on the Google results, you also want to make sure that positive ratings and reviews are also showing up.
Because this will mean that more people will be more likely to click on your website first, before clicking on anyone else’s.
Ideally you want a rating of 5 stars with dozens if not hundreds of reviews cast. But I would say that anything above 4.5 stars is still great.
Another place in which you should leverage positive social proof is social media.
You can share positive quotes from players on your social media posts every so often.
It’s a great way to thank the people who took the time to give you the positive feedback while also at the same time showing other people that the players who play at your coaching programme or club are happy with the service they’re receiving.
And you can take the same idea and apply it to your email newsletters.
You can easily add a little testimonial to the bottom (or the start!) of your email.
This isn’t about making the testimonial the main subject of the email, but having a little positive note somewhere on that email will help build the sense among your community that they are happy and enjoying their tennis with you.
Another idea is that you could share some testimonials about previous similar events when advertising an upcoming event via email.
So, for example if you’re sending out an email letting people know that the sign-ups to holiday camps are now open, why not include 3 or 4 testimonials from happy people who attended the holiday camps in the past?
I can almost guarantee that that will sway a few more people to sign-up for the camps.
And the last common place that I will mention where you could use testimonials are your flyers or other printed promotional materials.
1, 2 or 3 small positive quotes from happy customers might be the difference between someone taking action on your flyer or poster or not.
Ok, so those are the key places where you want to showcase your testimonials.
I’m sure there are others, but if you have social proof on all of those you’re doing well!
But the question that we have to address now is how do you actually go about getting these testimonials.
And the simple answer is that you need to ask for them!
I mean, yeah, that’s kind of it.
And the main way that you can and perhaps should use to collect testimonials is through regular customer surveys.
I’ve talked about this topic on episode 9 of the podcast so I won’t go over it in detail again, but the basic idea is that you should run a customer feedback survey at least once or twice a year.
Let’s say a summer survey and a winter survey, for example.
And at least one of the questions on the survey should be an open-ended question that encourages people to elaborate on how they feel about the coaching programme or club.
If you’ve been doing a good job, then I can guarantee you that tonnes of people will leave positive comments in response to that question.
You can then email them back to ask permission to use that quote, and ask them for a photo of themselves and voila, you got a testimonial that you can use wherever and whenever you want.
Now, at this point I must say that if you’re still not sure how exactly to run a customer survey so that you can not only collect testimonials, but also learn where you might need to improve what you’re doing, you should definitely check out the Academy.
Inside the Academy I’ve shared exactly the step-by-step process of how I run surveys for my coaching business, including sharing the questions I ask and the spreadsheet I use to collate and make sense of all customer responses.
But this is only available to the Academy members alongside a bunch of other content like the Facebook Ads course, the Website Course, video presentations on marketing, management and much, much more.
And all content has been created specifically for our industry by someone who also runs a coaching business - me.
So, if you’re interested in joining a global community of tennis professionals who are keen to learn from and support each other, while also getting access to lots of in-depth practical training and resources on all aspects of running and growing a successful tennis club or coaching programme, I invite you to check out the Academy.
Check it out at tennisbusinessacademy.com/academy
Ok, so that’s one way to collect customer testimonials: through your regular customer surveys.
Another way is to just ask people directly.
“Hey Bob-the-player, would you be willing to write a testimonial for us?”
Most people will do this for you as long as they’re happy with the club or the coaching programme.
You can ask them to go on Google and fill in a review, you can ask them to give you a testimonial and let them speak from the heart, or you can ask them some more specific questions like “what have you enjoyed the most about being a member at XYZ club?”, as an example.
It’s pretty straightforward.
Now, these 2 options to get testimonials are based on written text.
The idea is that people write what they think and you then use their quote and their name and photo and showcase it wherever you think is appropriate.
But there’s another way to create great testimonials.
Which is to actually film people giving a testimonial on camera.
This can work really, really well.
But, it probably requires that you hire a professional to do the filming the right way.
Unless, of course, you know what you’re doing when it comes to filming an interview.
There are many things to consider when filming, like the lighting, the quality of the camera and the shot, the sound and surrounding noise, how to make people feel comfortable in front of the camera, etc.
And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re almost definitely going to get a crappy piece of video that doesn’t look or sound good, which would defeat the whole purpose of getting a testimonial in the first place!
So, if you don’t know what you’re doing, my advice would be to hire a professional to do it for you.
The video testimonials only need to last about 60 seconds, so you can hire someone for the whole afternoon and have them shoot dozens of testimonials on the same day.
Get people speaking to the camera and explaining why they enjoy and value what your coaching programme or club has given them.
This is pretty powerful stuff when done right, because any doubt that the person watching the video might have had about whether the testimonial is real or not, will instantly evaporate.
You can’t argue with someone on a camera speaking, right?
They’re just there. It’s just real!
Ok, we’re coming to the end of the episode, but before we go let’s just summarise what we’ve covered.
Testimonials matter. And they matter because social proof persuades people to make decisions. This is well researched and documented.
So, if you want more people to join your club or coaching programme, make sure to show them lots of positive and happy customers.
And where can you show them these testimonials?
Anywhere really, but the most common and important places are:
Your website
Reviews and ratings on Google
On social media
On your emails
On your flyers and printed materials
I’m sure that there’s other places where you could showcase them, but if you’re hitting all of these you’re doing really well!
And the final question is, how do you go about collecting these fantastic testimonials?
And the 3 alternatives we covered are:
Through your regular customer feedback surveys
By asking people directly
By taking a day or an afternoon to film a bunch of video testimonials
And that’s it.
This stuff doesn’t need to be complicated.
It just needs to get done.
Because remember, you only need to get a testimonial once and you can then use it over and over again.
You don’t need to keep changing them on your website for example. You can, sure, but you don’t have to.
And one good testimonial has the potential to ‘grab’ dozens of people if not hundreds to your programme over the years.
Because remember, social proof matters. You know that’s true because you search for it too when you’re thinking about spending some money on something.
So make it really easy for your potential customers to find positive social proof about you and your business or club, so that they’ll want to join too.
Alright, that’s enough for today’s episode. I hope it was useful for you and as always I’ll be back next week with another instalment of the Tennis Business Academy podcast.
Until then and thanks for tuning in.