Dos and Don'ts of Customer Testimonials on Your App

In today's digital environment, your company needs a strong online reputation to attract customers and grow. While social media presence, your website, and digital marketing are all important components, you must also demonstrate to customers that you have satisfied customers who are enthusiastic about your brand.

You can use customer testimonials to highlight encouraging messages and experiences on your online outreach channels. Using testimonials correctly will help you improve your online reputation, build trust and credibility, and attract more customers.

What are Customer Testimonials?

A testimonial is a first-hand account of a customer's interaction with your brand or product. They may discuss the product's or service's value, the excellent customer service they received, their satisfaction with the purchase, or other aspects of positive brand interaction. Clients who had a positive experience may provide feedback on their own, but many brands seek endorsements or kind words to display online.

Testimonials help brands build trust and credibility by demonstrating to potential and current customers that you have previously provided successful services. Testimonials are essentially proof that you can deliver on your promises.

Building trust is much more critical now than ever before. Customers who interact with brands online are growing wary. According to HubSpot survey data, more than half of consumers do not trust companies they buy from as much as they used to, and 69% do not trust advertisements.

As a result, more potential customers are seeking online reviews and testimonials. They believe what other people like them have to say, and previous clients' words can have a significant impact on their decision to work with you or not. While testimonials are relatively simple, there are a few key strategies to remember, which we'll go over in the following section.

Do’s Of Clients Testimonials

There are several ways to prompt users to leave a review, but as many developers have discovered, the key is to avoid being annoying. With that in mind, let's consider how you might encourage users to rate your app without irritating them.

Engaging Clients

The most disturbing aspect of rating prompts is that they frequently appear at inconvenient times. You are either asked to rate the app immediately after installing and launching it, or a rating prompt interrupts you while you are performing a time-sensitive task. Although app stores allow you to create conditional rules to help avoid this, third-party services such as Apptentive go a step further.

Rather than targeting all users, you can target your most engaged users. Users who either love or despise an app are more likely to rate and review it. You are also more likely to get a positive response if you target users who are most likely to love your app (those who use it the most frequently).

Different Approach

Are your followers talking about you on social media? If this is the case, pull these posts and highlight them to show off your satisfied customers. Consumers enjoy discussing their favorite products and brands on their channels, so pay attention when you are tagged or mentioned.

Video is another popular method. Video testimonials can liven up your home page. Visitors will hear and see someone talking about their experience with you, which will personalize your brand. You can also share these videos through other channels, such as email newsletters or social media.

Client-Oriented Reviews

Users want to believe that app developers genuinely care about their feedback and opinions. However, displaying the prompt with a direct rating request without first connecting with the user implies that all you want is some positive press and shameless self-promotion.

Instead, try to establish rapport and a relationship. First, ask users if they are satisfied with the app; doing so demonstrates that you care about how they feel and are willing to improve it.

A conversation that begins with "Are you satisfied with our XYZ application?" is 5-10 percent more beneficial than merely asking for a rating.

Mention Business Details

When possible, include additional information with your testimonials, such as the company your client represents or their location. Prospects can then relate to that company, industry, or region. Consider your prospects' reactions: "Hey, I didn't know they provided service out here" or "Wow, they've worked with companies in our industry."

It's extremely simple to fabricate false testimonials and people might just not trust it. But Including a picture will give them sort of a guarantee that it isn’t fake and there is a real person behind it. Make sure that the photo isn't too small. Your main goal should be to reassure your prospects that "yes, these are real people who had a great experience with us."

Don'ts Of Client’s Testimonials

Following are the don’ts of the customer's testimonials

Difficult Procedure

Give your customers specific instructions on how to post reviews on various websites. If you want to promote Google My Business or another site(s) as a review option, make it simple for customers to write and post reviews. This is not as simple as you believe. Customers will be frustrated if your instructions are outdated; review sites change their processes frequently. Test your education on a quarterly or even monthly basis to ensure that anyone can follow it. Otherwise, you risk turning a good customer experience into a bad one.

Violating Site Policies

Don't break any review site policies. Most of these sites have strict guidelines for soliciting reviews. Because of all the fake reviews and other manipulations that have undermined user confidence, authenticity has become a major issue for review sites. If you break the rules, your company could be penalized or even banned from a site, which would be disastrous for business.

Less Published Testimonials

What is the perfect number? We are not sure, but it is recommended at least 5 testimonials. Anything less may lead your prospect to believe that you lack a proven track record. If you don't, you don't- but for some businesses, they've simply slacked on gathering testimonials, and putting up just one or two may do more harm than good.

Platform For Reviews

Give your customers options for where they can leave reviews. Possessing positive reviews on sites like Google My Business may benefit your SEO. However, requiring customers to use only that site will undermine your efforts. Google My Business is not used or understood by everyone. Some people are Yelp celebrities. Allow customers to post reviews where they feel most at ease, and you'll get more cooperation.

Purchasing Reviews

This is simply preparing yourself for long-term pain in exchange for short-term gain. Glowing (fake) reviews may boost your app's visibility at first, but real users will quickly figure out if your app isn't quite as good as suggested. Not to mention that both Apple and Google strictly prohibit fake reviews. And, as Dash's creator discovered, there is little recourse available if you are caught, even if you claim not to have participated in the practice of buying reviews.

Final Thoughts

Remember that customer reviews and testimonials are critical to understanding why people use your products — or why they had a less-than-stellar experience. This is yet another way to use feedback to improve your overall offerings and interactions with prospects and customers.

Businesses should encourage customers to write honest and specific reviews to obtain as much accurate feedback as possible. Companies should reinforce positive feedback and respond to negative reviews to understand how they could have done better and whether there is a way to repair the relationship.

You can better understand your audience's pain points, demonstrate your value to prospects, and create the best possible experience for all of your customers by encouraging customers to provide you with reviews and testimonials.