By:Doug Dvorak
The proper use of testimonial letters can add credibility for your company and profitability to your bottom line. Many sales organizations fail to use this simple yet cost effective method to reach new markets and clients. The formula to obtain testimonial letters is quite simple. The best time to ask for a testimonial letter is right after the sale has been made. This prevents the dreaded “Buyers Remorse” and reinforces the decision the client has just made to do business with your company.
One way to do this is to ask the client to write you a testimonial letter to include their candid comments about their experience with your product or service and even about their experiences with your sales and customer service representatives. Regardless of how you do it, the letters’ content can act as a powerful motivator and training tool for your employees. If a letter is returned with positive comments, it can be displayed at the office to highlight the exemplary behavior of that specific employee which should help to drive other employees to model these types of experiences to current and future customers. If the behavior is inappropriate or inconsistent with the image you are looking to portray, this will be an excellent time to address the behavior with the employee and provide corrective behavior coaching. In many cases, without the benefit of this type of feedback, you might not have been aware of this behavioral issue.
For a Personal Testimonial Letter
You can use your current company database to mine for customers’ contact data, which then can be used to create direct mail pieces as part of a testimonial letter campaign. Database marketing, explains business writer Mark Hendricks, aims “not to make the sale, but to keep the customer.” The underlying technique is to use database records of customers’ latest purchases and frequency and amount of past purchases, to create targeted mailers that let you stay in touch with your customers. But another type of mailer, which is fast and inexpensive to produce, often proves the most powerful of all: personal testimonial letters.
The power of a Personal Testimonial Letter
A personal testimonial letter, as advocated by Jay Levinson, is a one-page letter that recaps what a customer has just purchased and then describes their overall satisfaction with your company’s products or services the customer has just purchased – or simply provides helpful professional information. It conveys, in short, what your product or service has done for that customer in the way of service, attention and expertise.
If you want to make maximum impact on your testimonial letter campaign with your customer database, take the time to concentrate on customers individually by writing them letters personally tailored to their specific situation. Mention that you’ll phone in a week to follow up on the letters you just mailed or emailed on matters you’ve broached. For extra impact, add a handwritten P.S. recapping your main message. Statistically, if nothing else is remembered, the “PS.” will be! If you follow these tried and tested marketing methods to obtain more and better testimonial letters, you will see a dramatic increase in customer loyalty and profits to your bottom line.
About the Author:
Doug Dvorak helps companies and professionals achieve results through customized, creative and non-traditional sales training systems that are “one size fits one” and developed to the unique business needs and “sales pain points” of each client. He is available to speak on these topics.
For more information visit https://salescoach.us or call 847-359-6969 FREE
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Copyright 2008 The Sales Coaching Institute, Inc.
Sales Skills Training Strategic Sales Coaching
Doug Dvorak, CEO of DMG International, is the Author of the forthcoming book “Build Your Own Brand” (Pelican, 2009)
