Every well established brand or organization that you see around you is an organization people have perceived to be credible. No organization attains credibility in the eyes of their customers and the general public without consciously working to achieve it; as a matter of fact, they are deliberate about it. The advantage an organization gets when they are perceived to be credible cannot be over emphasized.
It would definitely grow your customer base and that will in – turn translates to more money and huge turn – over for your organization. So, any organization that has the intention of building a global brand should first of all earn credibility within the community their business is located and they can start by imbibing certain virtue in their employees via their corporate culture.
There are several ways an organization can build its credibility in the eyes of the general public and one of the ways is by collecting and publishing testimonials from their clients that portray the organization in good light. If you want to collect testimonials for your organization, you must first put structure in place that will make it easier for your customers to easily send in their testimonials. Here are some helpful tips that will help your organization build credibility by collecting testimonials from your customers;
How to Build Credibility by Collecting Testimonials from Happy Customers
1. Make the Testimonial Collection Process Easy and Seamless
The first thing to do if you want to build the credibility of your organization by collecting testimonials is to make the collection process easy and seamless. The truth is that, if you subject your customers that have testimonies to go through the process of typing and printing their testimonies and then mail them to you, you are likely not going to get many people that will respond to you when you request for their testimonies.
What is expected of you to do to encourage your customers to submit their testimonies is to provide a platform that is convenient for them. It could be via email, or online in your company’s portal or via text messages or phone call. Hence, ensure that you do all you can to encourage your customers that has testimonial to gladly share it with the public.
2. Vet the Testimonials that are sent to Your Organization
Another step that you need to take in the bid of collecting testimonial from your clients to boast your company’s credibility in the market place is to ensure that you vet all the testimonies that are submitted to your organization by your customers. The fact is that, you will have some folks that may exaggerate in the process of trying to impress your organization and the general public.
Of course, once people see such testimonials that are too good to be true, it definitely sends the wrong message to the general public. Rather than boosting your organization’s credibility, it impacts negatively on your organization and people might not take your organization seriously. So, ensure that you vet all the testimonials that are submitted to you; if need be, you can interview the customer involved and you can as well help him / she reconstruct the testimonial in such a way that it will only promote your company’s image rather than downgrade your credibility.
3. Publish Selected Testimonials In Your Company’s Official Website
Once you are able to vet all the testimonials submitted via different channels to your company, the next thing you are expected to do is to select testimonials from the bulk that you have received and then publish them on your company’s official website. Of course, it wouldn’t be nice to just go ahead and publish all the testimonials that are sent to your company; if you do, you might end up shooting yourself in the foot.
So, do not make the mistake of allowing your customers to just go ahead to post their testimonials on your official website without undergoing vetting process. In some instance it is advisable to edit testimonials before going ahead to post them.
4. Publish Some Testimonials in Your Company’s Magazine and Other Promotional Materials
As part of what you need to do to build your company’s credibility by collecting testimonials from your client is to ensure that you publish some of the testimonials in your company’s magazine and also in other promotional materials. Of course your company’s magazine mightn’t contain all the testimonials that you received especially if your company is doing pretty well and you have satisfied customers. The rule of thumb here is to select only the best testimonials that will help your organization build credibility.
5. Invite Customers to Share Their Testimonies During Your Company’s Road Show or Other Occasions
You stand the chance to boost the credibility of your organization when there is a face to the testimony. So, what you are expected to do to build the credibility of your organization is to create platform where customers with outstanding testimonials can come out to share their testimonies.
The truth is that, the credibility of your organization will grow faster when the public is able to relate with the customers sharing the testimonies especially if the customer is a celebrity, or a popular person in the community. The rule of thumb here is to ensure that you coach the customer on how to best package his or her testimonies so that they won’t go out there to say things that will be to the disadvantage of your organization or things that will help promote your competitors.
No doubt if you are able to build the credibility of your organization, you will struggles less to sell your product or services, as a matter of fact; your customers will be involved in helping you market your products or services. Consequently, ensure that you do all you can to build your company’s credibility and once you have successfully built your company’s credibility, make sure you guard it with all you have.