Why your business needs customer testimonials [+ tips for great survey response rates!]

Whether or not you’re a GuildQuality member, you’re probably aware of how important customer testimonials are to the success of your business. Your company needs to be able to adapt and grow depending on the changing needs and wants of your customer base, but you can’t do that effectively without hearing from your clients.

How is your company excelling? Where should you focus more resources? You’ll receive answers to these questions (and more) by proactively soliciting customer feedback, but you’ll also notice other benefits that you might not expect.

Keep reading to learn more about the benefits of customer testimonials, including the less obvious perks, as well as some useful tips to help you get better response rates on your customer satisfaction surveying campaigns.

Benefits of customer feedback

The obvious

Benefit #1: Testimonials give prospective customers an idea of how your company does business.

Homeowners who are considering your company for a project or service want to know what they can expect when they hire you. In fact, the vast majority of consumers rely on online reviews to help them make a purchasing or hiring decision.

Benefit #2: Customer feedback is vital to understanding your clients’ experiences with your company, including what they appreciate and where they experienced problems.

Think of your customer satisfaction surveys as market research. The feedback you receive can help you plan additional product or service offerings or dial in on a couple of areas of improvement.

The not-so-obvious

Benefit #3: Using client testimonials in your marketing materials makes your customers feel good.

By requesting feedback from your customers, you’re showing them that their experience matters to you. And by using their review in your customer marketing materials and on your website, you’re strengthening your relationship with that client.

Be sure to ask for permission before publishing name or location data, and let your customers know when their testimonials go live on your site. They’ll likely be proud to be featured and want to share with their friends and neighbors.

Benefit #4: Customer reviews make your team members feel good.

Happy customers often mention team members they worked with by name. This is a huge confidence boost and a source of pride for your staff members, especially if you make a point to share those reviews with the rest of the company.

Benefit #5: Customer testimonials make for easy social media content.

Even the most experienced social media manager struggles to come up with engaging content from time to time. Showcase great reviews from verified customers on your company’s social media platforms for content that is short and sweet, simple to prepare, and easy to promote.

Benefit #6: Frequently updated testimonial pages help your website rank better with search engines.

When search engines analyze content, their algorithms are designed to give higher rank to content that is clearly new or that is updated or refreshed often. Asking every customer for feedback ensures that you have plenty of content to add to your website on an ongoing basis.

Will all of the reviews of your company be positive? Probably not, but as long as you address negative reviews appropriately, your company’s reputation won’t be harmed.

Tips for increasing your customer satisfaction survey response rates

If you have yet to explore customer satisfaction surveying for your business, you might be holding off out of concern that you might not receive many responses or that the responses you do receive simply won’t be helpful to you.

These are valid concerns, especially if your plan is to deploy and manage the surveys on your own. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to ensure a higher response rate and useful feedback.

Tip #1: Survey on an ongoing basis.

Send surveys as soon as possible once the job wraps up. The longer you wait, the more likely it is that customers won’t remember specific details of their experience with your company. And if there were problems with the job, your customer may resent the lack of prompt follow-up.

Tip #2: Make sure your data is clean.

If you decide to survey via email, know that too many bad email addresses (which result in bounce-backs and undeliverable messages) result in low open rates. With most email management systems, these low open rates can cause your survey emails to be marked as spam, virtually ensuring that your survey campaign won’t get off the ground.

Before you launch a round of surveys, take the time to review your recipient list and remove any obvious fake or incorrect addresses.

Tip #3: Don’t ask too many questions.

No one wants to take a long survey via phone or email. You may want to get a lot of information from your customers, but think hard about the questions you ask. Avoid asking the same questions in different ways, and don’t ask questions for which you already have the answers.

Tip #4: Be transparent.

Let your customers know that you’re beginning a customer satisfaction surveying program, and be clear about your goals. When you help your clients understand that your company is genuinely invested in their experiences and wants to grow and improve based on their feedback, you’re far more likely to see a healthy response rate.

The bottom line

Designing and launching a customer satisfaction surveying program can be intimidating at first glance. It needs to be done right the first time, after all—when it comes to customer satisfaction, there’s not much room for error.

That being said, your clients are your best resource for gathering an accurate picture of the customer experience your company provides. Surveying your customers is absolutely worth the resources involved. Use our tips to make sure your survey is successful, and let us know if you’d like some help!