We all like being told that we are doing a good job. Although for a company making money is great and new sales or sign ups or renewals is a good way to measure your progress, it's always nice to have someone tell you that you are having a positive effect on them.

Where do you find this information on the net?

Well, if a company has a page on their website with testimonials, or quotes from satisfied clients, then these are a useful input to a buying process. You may be quite cynical, and think that anyone could make up a page of glowing testimonials that are complete fiction. However, it's just a part of the buying process and as long as you get other indications that the company is reputable, then a read of the testimonial page might help you make the final buying decision. If you haven't got a testimonial page on your website then get adding!

For products, there are innumerable sites on the web that you can look at and see what other people think of the product, some of which are comparison sites like ciao.co.uk and some are direct sellers like Amazon. For people you can read their recommendations on LinkedIn.

Also, increasingly (and potentially more importantly from an SEO point of view) you can read company reviews on the search engines. The local versions of Google, Yahoo and MSN all allow you to enter a review of the company. Here are a couple of views of what this looks like in Google Maps:

What a fantastic addition to search functionality and how good is that for your company? At the moment there is no evidence to show that reviewed sites come higher in search engine results, but in the future when the volumes are better, it is quite likely that this will be taken into account.

So how do you get more reviews for your company?

Well you could just wait for them to come in from your customers naturally. This is a very common method and if you give fantastic service and have a lot of customers it can give you quite a good selection. 

However for companies providing a service or with a smaller number of customers, then you will need to ask. Here are some ideas of how to ask:

1. Send out a questionnaire to your customers about your service (an email is fine). Ask a few basic questions that are quick and easy to answer, perhaps multiple choice, and then ask them for a comment at the end. Some of your customers (especially the really happy ones!) will fill out a comment that you can then use. Don't forget to ask their permission to make it public if it isn't explicit in the original email. You may also get some useful feedback from the questions and the comments that you can use to improve your service.
2. Ask your customers in the course of a normal conversation on the phone or by email. Give them the reason that you want the testimonial and many of them will provide you with something. Launching a new page on your site to put them on is a good enough reason to ask!
3. Or you can simply ask your customers to write reviews and rate your business at Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Ask in your regular company newsletter or your blog. This works especially well if you have a technical audience or if they are particularly engaged with your product.

So, with that in mind if you would like to comment on Vertical Leap, then you can find us on Google Local here ;-)

Thanks!!