How do you solicit feedback and testimonials from your customers without being pushy or annoying?

There is a misconception that feedback and testimonials are only useful for marketing (social proof and credibility) purposes. While testimonials can be used for marketing, their real value lies in the insights they provide into customer sentiment. First and foremost, customer feedback and testimonials provide valuable insight into customer needs, wants, and preferences. By listening to customer feedback, businesses can identify areas of improvement and develop targeted strategies to address customer needs. This could involve anything from adjusting product features to altering customer service initiatives.

In the words of LinkedIn founder, Reid Hoffman, “It’s more important to have 100 people who love your product than a million who just sort of like it.“

Ask for the feedback right away if possible and be sure to get consent to use their title and company name. It’s helpful to even prime them with the request beforehand so they know a feedback request would be coming.

I personally love to leverage LinkedIn to collect testimonials. I often wait until I am a few months into a relationship and will ask for a recommendation once we have had some success. I try to keep my LinkedIn current by asking for 1-2 recommendations per month. This keeps my profile and expertise up to date. It also centralizes all of my testimonials/referrals in one location to repurpose for other avenues (website, social, etc).

The key is to make sure the feedback and testimonials you are asking for are honest (not directly influenced by large discounts, or gift cards) meaningful, and actionable that could be used by other departments such as product, customer service, marketing, and supply chain. Instead of just asking customers to rate your product or service on a scale of 1 to 5, ask them questions that get to the heart of the issues. People are more likely to provide honest and helpful feedback if they know exactly what they are being asked to provide feedback on.

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Gamification increases engagement. For example, the LinkedIn Community Badge serves as a reciprocal testimonial and feedback loop. What badge can you give your community members?

One of the most effective, yet underutilized ways to use customer feedback is to use it in your email campaigns, and by incorporating bites of feedback into employees' business email signatures that help offers an engaging way of exhibiting the impact of your customers' voice both internally and externally. By including customer comments and reviews in your emails, you can add a personal touch and authenticity to the message. You can also add a CTA (call-to-action) button with a link to your website, encouraging your customers and business partners to read more feedback and review your products.

Videos and images of customer feedback in a quote are powerful. You can use it across social media channels as well as on your website to increase credibility of your products and services. Make sure there’s a balance across industries and companies to showcase your broad customer base.

Customers’ testimonials are the best social proof we can get. Check out “Our Wall of Love” testimonials at www.testimonial.to/wall-of-love where you can create your own wall of love.

Remember to close the feedback loop, if your client offers insight into an area for improvement, act on it. This demonstrates you’ve truly listened and value your client’s input.

Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data, the impact of feedback and testimonials can be measured in a more holistic manner. This approach involves taking into account not just the number of customer feedback and testimonials, but also analyzing their content, tone, and sentiment. It’s also important to look at who is giving the feedback (repeat customers or first-time buyers) and testimonials to get a better understanding of the overall severity and level of importance to make changes to improve the customer experience and for the future product roadmap.

Your first 100 customers are part of your story and feedback can drive higher engagement, depending on how you measure NPS, CSAT, and TCR. I’m curious—What can you do to create an 11 Star experience for your customer feedback loop?