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Amazon style testimonials for accountants
Posted by FirstTab on Mon, 26/07/2010 - 19:29
Just wanted views of Amazon style testimonials for accountants. This means ranking clinet satifaction from 1 to 5 stars. Understandably potentail clients are savvy and cynical of testimoninals saying how great I am without any ranking of my services. I do not think these type of testimonials hold much water these days. I have learnt not to under estimate clients.
Any views on area?
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Not to my taste
I don't trust them. I always wonder if it is the accountant blowing his/her own trumpet, or someone given a freebie in exchange for a nice comment.
Let's face it, anyone can say anything and who will question it? I have a few clients who are willing to take calls from prospective clients, but so far the only call they have received was from Business Link!
100% open
@FirstTab – are you talking of real-time client scoring?
If you are then I suggest you have a form on your Website and get clients to fill it in. Then visitors to you Website will see the questions.
But, I’d suggest developing detailed case studies with clients about how you’ve supported and assisted.
Bob Harper
Marketing for Accountants
Great -
- then I come along and Im in competition with you, so I give you a rubbish review.
Too open to abuse by owners giving themselves false testimonials, and, competitors sabotaging them.
Simple
CD – the client’s name can be one of the fields and the scores can be updated monthly. But, there is nothing to stop someone lying about their practice.
Bob Harper
Portfolio Marketing
Read again more carefully
@CD You were the one to raise the possibility of a business owner providing false testimonials for themselves. Bob Harper was just reflecting that comment.
Any system is going to have risks like this. Taking Amazon itself as an example, there was a recent scandal in which historian Orlando Figes admitted to posting false reviews praising his work and rubbishing others. Any non-moderated review system would need to address this problem. You would also need to consider whether you would let less than glowing reviews stand to demonstrate the integrity of the service. Depending on the content of the reviews this might actually prove a positive thing from your point of view. On those ocassions when I've purchased from e-Bay I've always sought out the negative comments about a user. If these seem like pointless griping or nit-picking then they actually give more confidence in the seller (even those people inclined to say bad things can't come up with anything terrible) Worth considering if you plan to implement such a scheme.
Give potential clients the full picture
Personally, I think that the traditional testimonial is becoming a dead duck. The way forward is to expose a fuller picture of your firm, as this is what the next generation of clients will expect. My full thoughts on this are here.
Adrian Pearson
Top Accountants
Amazon style testimonials
I think there are limitations to testimonials but they do have value still as an overall part of research that anyone will do on your firm. Most people will not take them at face value as a stand alone item. However, they do have value if people want a better idea of similar companies / clients of their size or sector that you may deal with. We have had occasions where prospective clients have known someone that we have a testimonial from and have then gone on to ring the contact, had a chat and it has sealed the deal.
I am an avid reader of reviews on products, holidays etc and it will form 'one part' of my research. If you don't include them you may alienate those people that want to read them.
I do think social media will have a much greater impact ongoing with this sort of thing as online word of mouth will be much more powerful than a tradtional testimonial, but most accountants are frightened to open their eyes to this for fear of something bad being written. They will catch on eventually!
Testimonials can be valuable
Clients choose a specific accountant for a variety of reasons. If referred to them or the website was found during a web search then the prospect wants some comfort. Effective online testimonials will often provide that comfort.
When I introduced the facility for users to post testimonials of the independent tax advisers on Tax Advice Network I chose to avoid any form of star ratings. I was advised (rightly I think) that this could cause problems. Assume an adviser has been getting 5 stars from clients and then has a falling aout with one person who is an idiot. He then posts just one star and this reduces the adviser's average score. The adviser is upset because the idiot has spoiled his average. Can we remove that one star score?
Instead we simply encourage users to rate the adviser as 'good' if they choose to do so. They are also then encouraged to add a testimonial. These only go 'live' after the adviser has approved them. I check them all and would question why any were not posted. To date there hasn't been an issue. Equally, it's fair to say that relatively few users have rated the advisers or popsted testimonials. I tend to think this is because we don't have an effective system to ask them to come back to the site to do so. Writing this thread reminds me that I should look into that....
Mark