How to ask for customer quotes

Introduction.How do you go about getting customers to provide

testimonial quotes or reviews for your product or service? This presentation offers ten tips to get started securing powerful customer quotes to accelerate your business.

1. Ask.Sounds simple, but this is step is often overlooked. Sales

people may not want to “bother” customers that have already signed on with your company. However asking for customer quotes or testimonials can be a way to build stronger relationships with your existing customers. They may be flattered and happy customers often love to talk about their experiences, and better relationships may lead to up-sell opportunities, product development and improved customer satisfaction.

2. Provide an alternate path for constructive feedback.If they have constructive feedback, give them an

alternate path to provide that information rather than letting it go into a public review. You want to be sure to capture and address specific comments or concerns to direct them to the appropriate person, email or site.

3. Get a few easy ones under your belt first.Nobody likes to be first, so when starting out ask a couple

of your most trusted and friendly customers. They may be more tolerant of a process that has not yet been tested and can help you to work out the kinks in a risk-free environment. Don’t begin with your largest customer or the one with the biggest brand name. Once you have gone through the process a few times with “easy-going” customers, you can then confidently move onto bigger or more strategically important customers

4. Do your homework before plowing ahead.Sending out an impersonal email blast to all your

customers asking for quotable comments is a mistake. Review who your most active users are, who has participated in private or public forums with your company, and who has expressed satisfaction recently. In many cases it will make sense to reach out to a customer service representative who has a good relationship with the customer. It will be much easier to get a review if you leverage existing relationships.

5. Ask more than one contact within an organization.Once you have identified your target customers make

sure you are asking the right people within those organizations. If there are multiple people using your products/services at one company, go ahead and ask as many of them for a quote as makes sense. Again, remember to check to make sure there are no open issues with any of these individuals before you make the requests.

6. Be sincere and express gratitude.You want good quotes, but you also need to make sure

that they are real and credible. Ask only active or in some cases former customers that have real experience with your products or services. And as you do receive good quotes or reviews, make sure to reach out and let those individuals know you appreciate their support. Use this as an opportunity to build a stronger business relationship.

7. Integrate requests with an existing campaign.It makes sense to check with Marketing, Billing and other

departments to see what kinds of communications campaigns are going out to customers. For example, if there is a newsletter going out to all your current customers, you may want to evaluate the opportunity to include a simple message requesting quotes that encourages happy customers to share their experiences. Remember to make it easy by providing clear instructions or a quick link to the review site.

8. Don’t be afraid to ask for more. Folks willing to review products and services may be

references in waiting. Just because they provided you with something once doesn’t mean you can’t ask for more from them. They may be willing to be a more active customer reference that speaks directly to your prospects. Or perhaps they would be willing to provide comments for an upcoming relevant news release. Use your best judgment, be respectful and ask appropriately, but remember to watch for these potentially valuable opportunities.

9. Assign an owner.If you don’t have an owner to oversee the quotes

campaign, you need to assign one. If it is left up to everyone or no one at all, you are not likely to receive the kind of results you are hoping for and you risk alienating customers. Consider assigning this important responsibility to someone in Marketing, Communications or Sales Operations as these departments are closest to customers and understand the sensitivities around caring for and servicing them.

10. Use your results.Now that you are on your way, don’t forget why you

started all this. Remember to promote the quotes on your web site and in your sales and marketing materials. Gather constructive feedback and leverage it to close support issues, to help in product development, and to develop lasting improvements in your business. Use the quotes as a launching pad to propel your business to the next level.

ConclusionDone right, a proactive program to secure customer

quotes can help add credibility, provide valuable insight, create a community around your products and services and ultimately convert prospects into sales.

Boulder Logic is a commercial software vendor specializing entirely in Customer Reference Management.

We provide a web application for managing all areas of an enterprise customer reference program.

About Boulder Logic

Phone: 800.715.1910 x1 Email: info@boulderlogic.com Website: http://www.boulderlogic.com

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