Testimonials – The right or wrong message?
Careful! This post is looking a little old and could be inaccurate in many, many ways
A lot of online companies add testimonials to their website as a way to improve a prospective customer’s view of them. By adding quotes from previous customers it’s expected that it will make new customers think “how can we not work with these guys, they’re great”.
But can you trust these testimonials?
Without an upload function like comments and reviews seen on most websites it means the testimonials are hard coded into the website. Between a customer submitting a testimonial and it appearing on the website it will come across the desks of the web developers and company.
A cynical person may question how much of the testimonial is completely genuine. Questions like has the company tampered with the customers view to paint them in the best possible light or has it been completely fabricated. How do you know?
You Don’t
Testimonials are just one of those things you have to try and take at face value and make them only part of your decision making process not the winning factor. Personally I think the best thing to do with testimonials is to try and back them up by actually contacting real customers of a company if possible and get their views direct.
What’s even better is if you never need the testimonials at all. In a perfect world you would have been recommended a company by someone you trust and from that you know the quality of the company.