Hi,
As we haven't yet launched our hosting company yet, we do not have any testimonials. What do you think is the best way to encourage clients to submit testimonials. Surely offering clients discounts and free hosting would be unethical and biased.

Thanks
Nish

Having a testimonials page on your website helps, where they can submit their reviews as they feel. But you can't really force anyone to submit reviews, you just have to go with what you have and eventually the word will spread.

Invite customers to add a 'management' msn account, then if you become friendly with some clients ask if they would be interested in submitting a testimonial, don't force anyone too though.

If your support is good the client will not hesitate to give testimonial.

Install a customer satisfaction survey onto your site (there are lots of free ones out there). In your support dept signature, add a link so that your customers can click through to fill it out. In the survey, add a text box an invite them to create a testimonial based on their past experience with you. This should get the ball rolling.

Vito

There is a lot you can do. Here are just a couple of ideas:

Start a newsletter and encourage customers to sign up for updates (allow customers to opt in and opt out). On you're newsletter you can say something like:

"If your happy with the services we have provided, feel free to submit a testimonial. With your consent we wish to display this testimonial on our website"

If you use WHMCS as your billing system it's a good idea to add the above notice in you're mail signature.

We also like to use the WHM news to promote new blog posts and updates. You could always use this to ask for testimonials.

Naturally, those inclined will contact you to give you a testimonial anyway, but you're obviously wanting to squeeze testimonials out of people that wouldn't normally provide one, even if they think you are brilliant. I completely understand.

sequencehosting's suggestion is a good one, but building a rapport between clients during support tickets I find works very well. Just look after them, then once they pass kind comments, mention that you're actively seeking client testimonials and offer them the chance to get their website linked on your website along with their written testimonial, most will bite your hand off at the chance to have their site linked to, especially by their web host.

I would say that the most important thing that you better to do is to concentrate special attention on service quality. Making your customers happy due to providing them with a high quality service you will get a lot of good reviews from them in the end.

We use a WHMCS plugin that sends an e-mail template out to a customer once 30 days of service has passed.

This template thanks the customer for being with us, reminds them that they can find us on twitter and whatnot, and finally suggests that they might be interested in submitting a testimonial directly through WHMCS (another plugin). We are sure to remind the customer that we appreciate their feedback whether it be negative or positive.

But perhaps even more importantly, we also suggest that they can email us feedback privately if they do not want their words being public.

This has worked pretty well for us.

What do you think is the best way to encourage clients to submit testimonials.

Submit them where? If you want them to spread the word on other sites, their tweeter page etc. just remind them to do so each chance you've got. Vito had a great suggestion with the signature in your ticket system.

Careful how you word it, as some places may have all sorts of rules surrounding reviews, like we do here on WHT.

"If your happy with the services we have provided, feel free to submit a testimonial. "

How about a more politically correct "We welcome all feedback, positive and negative, so let us know what were doing great, and where things can be improved." :)

With your consent we wish to display this testimonial on our website

I don't think that's really necessary to be said upfront. Just contact each customer who's review you feel like publishing.

Don't push for such reviews. If people are genuinely happy with the services they will write a review without hesitation.

If you want to encourage reviews why not add a line to your email signature (like someone above has suggested).

I wouldn't expect clients to give feedback for at least the first 6 months.

I don't think customers will write reviews without hesitation, even if they are happy. As a quote for you:
You guys are doing an excellent job please never change :)
That was from a ticket of ours, but the user hasn't submitted a review for us, even after we asked for it :(.

I don't think customers will write reviews without hesitation, even if they are happy. As a quote for you:

That was from a ticket of ours, but the user hasn't submitted a review for us, even after we asked for it :(.

we have plenty of that but we never really asked for it...might try it out the next time and see where it leads. Just don't want to sound like a nag to them.

Let your clients understand that with their honest testimonials, it will allow you to perform better as a webhost and improve where necessary for them to be happier. It doesn't mean that every testimonial must be a positive one. There are negative ones, just webhosts usually don't show the negative ones on their webpage.

Just be sure not to force people as this will only push them away. Let them write one when they want.

Just be sure not to force people as this will only push them away. Let them write one when they want.

Whatever happened to the PayPal screenshots about your stolen website?

Touching on what Vito said, I've always found the best way to gather testimonials in an ethical way is to send your customers a satisfaction survey every three or six months.

Keep the survey short and sweet. Three or four multiple choice questions. How happy are you with our service? Would you recommend us to a friend if the opportunity arose? How happy are you with our support response times?

Ask simple questions like that just to give you a brief indication of customer satisfaction, then leave room for "Other Comments". You could even hint at a testimonial with something like this: "Please write any other comments, questions, testimonials etc here"

By using the questions above, even if you don't get a testimonial in the "Other comments" box, you can still use the responses to the questions in your marketing effort. Example: "Based on bi-annual customer surveys, 99 out of every 100 customers would recommend us to a friend if the opportunity arose"

When using this survey method, always give the customer the opportunity to opt out of the survey next time with a multiple choice question at the end ("Are you happy for us to send you this survey every six months?").

We concentrate on heavily on customer service.
Most of our testimonials are unsolicited. Customers just call or email us with their experiences.

We did send a monthly newsletter that asked our customers for testimonials and we received a few.

__________________
Kevin
Canadian Web Hosting
http://www.canadianwebhosting.com