The Complete Guide to Customer Testimonials for Home Contractors

Why use customer testimonials when promoting your home contracting services? The answer is linked to the question of how to get more clients in construction. Potential customers need to know they can trust you, and testimonials are one of the quickest and most effective ways to demonstrate your reliability.  Here’s a closer look at how to solicit great testimonials and then use them to take your business to a whole new level.

Importance of Customer Testimonials

Testimonials have three major benefits:

• Showcase your business to new customers.
• Help improve your company’s position in search engine results.
• Foster a sense of trust between you and potential new clients.

Current customers of a business are often considered highly credible by potential customers. In fact, in a survey conducted by The Bright Local, 91% of consumers said they trusted online reviews and consider them personal recommendations. After all, if many different people all had a pleasant experience with a business, it stands to reason new customers will too. Hence, the trust begins.

Search engines consider the number of positive reviews your business has across major review sites, such as Google and Yelp. The more positive reviews you have, the higher search engines will rank you, especially in local results.

What to Include in a Customer Testimonials

The best testimonials are relatable. They should feature people with similar needs as your potential customers. Provide plenty of details, as well as photographs of completed work, so new customers understand exactly what services you perform.

Emphasize your specialty. Do most of your clients praise your reliability, low prices, or creative design work? Your testimonials should highlight whatever makes you stand out from the competition.

How to Ask for a Customer Testimonials

Ask your customers for a testimonial within a few days of completing the project. The best option is sending an email with a link to a form they can fill out.

You can increase your response rate by providing brief, clear directions. What impressed them about your service? How was the experience from start to finish? Guidance will help your clients create full, detailed testimonials.

Check out 4 Tips to Help You Get a Client Testimonial to learn more.

How to Use Customer Testimonials in Marketing

You’ll want to create a testimonial section on your website. You can sprinkle testimonials throughout your service pages, too. Testimonials are also effective when incorporated into your advertising and marketing materials.

Always get written permission from everyone before publishing their testimonial.

Offer Incentives and Benefits

A great testimonial requires some effort but offering an incentive can help encourage customers to take the time. Offer a percentage off a current or future purchase if the customer leaves a review.

Note that you never want to directly solicit a positive testimonial, as review sites can potentially block your account if they think you’re rewarding people for good reviews. Instead, ask for honest feedback. If you provide excellent service, an honest testimonial is likely to also be a positive one.

How Do New Contractors Get Clients?

One way is to make the customer experience as easy as possible by working with a home improvement lender such as EnerBank USA. We provide flexible loan programs so potential customers can use your services right away.

Final Thoughts

Why use customer testimonials? They’re an effective and affordable way to boost customer confidence in your business while increasing your search results position.

If you make it easy for customers to find and buy your services and then provide a simple way of gathering testimonials, you’ll gain feedback that can become invaluable to your marketing efforts. Join a loan program today to help improve the level of service you can give, and watch the great reviews roll in!