No matter how you look at it, customer references are your best PR tool. Here are some hints and tips for running a successful customer reference campaign of your own.
Who is your best possible salesperson? We all know the answer. It's a happy customer who tells other people how great you are. He or she has the credibility that no professional salesperson can equal--IF your prospects are exposed to this enthusiasm. And that's the problem. Every company knows it has happy customers with great testimonials. But they are quite useless if they are never used. A customer success story can be used in so many ways: It can be highlighted on your website. It serves as a handout at conventions. It is a perfect direct mail piece. It is sales collateral for in person visits. It is the basis for trade articles and publicity releases. It can be the basis for videos and flash presentations. It is a way to honor your customers and grow your relationship with them. No matter how you look at it, customer references are your best Public Relations tool. They are so much better than traditional advertising because they provide a critical third party endorsement that gives your prospective customers peace of mind about choosing to work with you. Why not give your happy customers a chance to express themselves? Here are some hints and tips for a successful customer reference campaign. Canvass your staff to identify the best customers to contact. Obviously it's the people who interface with your customers who will know which ones are likely to be willing to help. When approaching a customer to participate in a reference story, emphasize that it is a "win-win" situation since it demonstrates how well your customer runs his or her business. Your customer can also use the story for marketing purposes since it puts him or her in such a good light. Some companies offer customers a small incentive to participate. Always try to obtain a picture of the customer for your reference story. Readers are more likely to be drawn into the story when they see what the subject looks like. Always assure your customers they will have first opportunity to edit your copy and to make changes. Make your story conversational and interesting. Your readers will be turned off by typical "corporate-speak." Find something unusual about your customer that will draw readers into the story. Try to learn a bit about his or her hobbies and personal life. Adding these tidbits to the copy makes the story more appealing and interesting. When you interview your customer for a success story always try, with the permission of your customer, to record the interview. That way you won't make any technical mistakes. You can provide the transcription to your customer and ask him or her to highlight the areas he or she would particularly like to be included the story. Make sure you use a professional interviewer and writer. You would not want an intern dealing with your best clients. Here are a few key questions to ask in a customer reference interview: Please tell us your title and a bit about your background and what you do in your job. How did you initially come to be working with us? How would you differentiate our product or service from that of the competition? How are our people to work with? Are there any anecdotes that come to mind in your dealings with us that might make this story more colorful or interesting? What would you like to see us add to our products and/or services in the future? Are there any questions you came prepared to answer that we have failed to ask? Do you have any additional thoughts or comments? Once you have developed a series of customer success stories you can extract quotes from these stories to create brochures and other advertising pieces. When you reuse these quotes always get the permission of your customer. Invite your happy customer to join you in your booth at conferences and conventions--then offer the press attending the opportunity to interview your customer. This can generate many positive articles. There are also some less obvious benefits to marketing your customer success stories. Once you set the process in place of identifying your happiest customers you now know who to use as references in the future. And, as you are interviewing customers for stories, you are generating a wealth of information which may help you offer add-on products or services. You will learn, as well, if there is something the customer is unhappy about, of if there is something the competition is offering that you should be offering as well. This is also an opportunity to ask the customer if he or she can refer you to other companies that may benefit from your services. "Solution Selling" is a much overused term in business today, but it does make the point that it's important to approach customers with clear solutions to their needs. A customer success program helps you identify those needs and tailor you sales and marketing approaches based on what you learn. Customer references and case studies also help you identify the key customer contacts for you to be in touch with in the future. This is invaluable for creating user groups, company newsletters, surveys, convention notices and so on. A word of caution, don't overuse your references or you will overuse your good will. Be judicious about how many times your contact the customer for references and about how many times you give their name out as a reference to others. Don't forget also to consider instituting a program of internal success stories to motivate your staff. These stories help share best practices across the organization and they make the point that good work is recognized.
Please remember, in business communications, you are what you write. Thus, if your written material communicates effectively, and grabs the reader's attention, your message will be positively received. Customer Success Stories are one of the most effective tools to get those messages across.
Learn more about the author, Richard Berman.
Hi Richard,
Great advice. The value of testimonials cannot be over estimated. They resonate more with potential customers than just about anything else you're going to write and they're a whole lot easier to write than raw copy.
I regularly interview my client's clients for testimonials and I really like your approach to the interview process. I will definitely be adding some of your questions to my standard protocol.
Elge
This article came at the perfect time for me, Richard. We just published our first two customer success stories (case studies) for Biznik members. And this article gives me all sorts of ideas for improving them.
Dear Richard,
You are right on the mark with your post. A small business can never have too many satisfied clients. It is my personal opinion that professionals - especially financial professionals don’t do enough to educate their clients. They wrongly assume that the final product that they produce is the propose or point of their jobs.
I do not think that is true. I have always said that the end-result of what I do is just the dirty by-product of what I do and that the education that the client receives during the process is where the real value lies.
It has always been my contention that anyone can, clean a house, install a dishwasher, do a mortgage or sell a house but, it is that extra bit of service that creates the value for the client.
A client that feels that they have received some value tangible or intangible over what the next guy or gal would have provided is the one that will become your advocate.
Good luck Mike Carpenter Mike the Money Man www.mikethemoneyman.com (206) 465-5528 - Cell
This is a great article and this idea is the basis for a new style of blogging I am developing for my clients. The goal is to get your top customers to come together in a joint blog to tell their stories under your banner.
So far, it is getting good reviews. Keep watching I will be posting regularly on this topic on Biznik this fall.
Thanks
Russell Cox
The Author's Village - Blog - Community
Web 2.0 Community & Business - Blog - Community
Excellent article! Promoting customer service, and the telling of it has been at the top of the list in all our businesses, and we've often said it seems to be a 'lost art'.. so I welcome your perspective. I commend you on all the specifics included in your writings...detailed, to the point, and very informative. Only suggestion might be to perhaps integrate a few personal stories, and highlight some of the content with outline titles for easier tracking.
Other than that, your content from the first sentence made me want to go on...and explore...and you do not disappoint!
Great Article! Thank you!!
Kind Regards, Jane Bakken
Great information. I am in the process of re-writing marketing collateral and will be sure to include some customer success stories - along with a photo. I had not thought to use a photo before.
Thank you.
Richard, fantastic insight, and I really appreciated the advice to storycraft, rather then simply toot-the-horn. I was actively working on a testimonial, when the update came through from Dan via email:, synchronicity!
Thanks for some great new tips. While I use testimonials for clients whenever and wherever possible, I never thought to use headshots. For newsletters, blog posts, websites, press releases, ads and any other marketing material, feedback from a happy client is the best sales tool you can find. Especially in a tough economic market when you need all the advantages you can get.
Thank you for your article..great tips. I will work on inserting some testimonials on my website. Thank you again!
Thanks for the article Richard. I have gotten a few customers to volunteer their beneficial experience for use on my website. Some are a little hesitant though, because what I do can get very personal. Do you have any suggestions on how best to approach my customers to share more of thier experience with the world. A photo may not be appropriate in my line of work as they don't want thier families to know the details of thier mind, etc. Thanks for any tips you may have.
I agree with all of the above praise. I found your article to be both complete, compelling, simplifying, and thorough.
Admittedly, I jumped a bit at the interview questions, because I like to think that I'm not "solution-selling", and that none of us has to see ourselves that way. I don't believe in problems, and I prefer to believe that noone need have a problem to be interested in hiring or purchasing something.
I see all of us as enabling one another to do what we do naturally, by lending our attention, expertise, and commitment. This is how we enable one another and lend leverage to each others' dreams-coming-true. Because of this 'enabling from already great' attitude, my clients are eager to share their experience. I look forward to interviewing them for testimonial purposes!
I will most certainly use all of your advice, and simply adapt my interview process when I get to that step. I'll let you know what I make of it!
Thanks again for writing - like many have said - at the exact right time! Stimulating.
~Bree Know Thyself - Know Thy Creative Process
Thanks for bunches of great tips, Richard! It reinforces what I've been doing for the past few years -- using testimonials in press releases, ads, blogs and just about anywhere else I can.
It's especially rewarding when I interview a client's client and they say exactly what we've been saying about a product. If you hear this more than a few times, you know you've pretty much nailed the positioning.
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