Gaining Client Testimonials to Grow Your Firm
When it comes to growing your accounting firm here in Pennsylvania, nothing tops direct referrals. But the second most important component to growing your business is client testimonials. If you are an accountant or CPA in Pennsylvania, you should have client testimonials on your website.
Your website is how you reach out to a broader audience. Without client testimonials, you will look like just one of hundreds of other accountants and there will be no reason to choose YOU. Give your prospective clients that reason with a robust testimonial section on your website.
When deciding who to ask for testimonials, choose from your ideal clients:
- Those clients who provide you with the best revenue and the fewest problems
- Clients who are in a niche that you like and want to grow
- And clients with whom you have a positive rapport
These are the types of clients you would like to have more of, so those are the clients you should contact for testimonials.
You may want to choose a variety: women, men, people with different ethnic backgrounds, etc. If you have an unusual niche, say, serving attorneys, try to include several different attorney specialties, such as corporate law, personal injury, and defense attorneys.
If your niche is high-income clients, choose people with different challenges: multiple residences, international investments, substantial inheritances, and the like.
By demonstrating the breadth of your client base, within the niche that you wish to highlight, you will be more likely to catch the attention of a diverse range of potential clients.
The best time to ask for a testimonial is when you’ve solved your client’s problem and your client expresses happiness regarding your work. However, if you’re starting to gather testimonials and it’s not your busy season, don’t wait. Think back on which clients you helped the most this past year. Look through your emails and social media comments to find any clients who expressed their pleasure in the past to help you target the people most likely to help you.
Clients won’t give you testimonials unless you ask. But for many accountants, this can be uncomfortable, even difficult. Once you’ve developed a method and you’ve done it a few times, it will become second nature, and you can even expand from just having written testimonials on your website to doing short videos.
If your client expresses satisfaction with your work in a face-to-face meeting, phone call, or email, ask if he or she would be willing to give a customer testimonial. You can be honest and tell your client that you’re trying to build a testimonial page on your website and that you are asking your best clients to help you out. This way you are complimenting your client who has just complimented you, and you are showing your client that you appreciate his or her opinion. Very few people will say no to that request.
To get the best testimonials, provide your clients with a framework. Ask yourself first what services or qualities of your firm you would like to highlight. These are the kinds of statements you’ll want to draw from your clients. You can create a questionnaire on an online platform like Survey Monkey, or you can just list a few questions or suggest a few items for your client to include in the testimonial. It should be three to four sentences long. Ask your client ahead of time for permission to tweak it a little if necessary, promising to send the client a final version for approval.
In addition, look through your list of clients. Create your “ideal client list” and reach out to them. A good, old-fashioned phone call is much more personal than an email. Sending a note in the mail may also be a great option because it’s more formal and shows more effort than an email, which takes little effort to send and can get lost in the inbox. Letters get opened. Include in the letter that you are reaching out to your best clients, that you are trying to develop a testimonial page on your website, and that you will call within the week to see if he or she would be willing to help you out.
The benefit of calling, whether it is a cold call or preceded by a letter, is that you can have a much more impactful conversation and may even be able to find out particular needs that you can fill, giving you additional revenue. While talking, you could also ask if your client knows anyone who could use your services. Getting a testimonial, a direct referral, and more work in one call makes for a great day!
To get some testimonials on the website quickly, reach out to people who have said kind words in emails and social media and ask if they would mind if you used their comments on your website. Do not publicize them without first getting permission. Remind your clients of what they said and when, and most people will agree. This will get your testimonial page started quickly.
Next, reach out to your best clients, as described above. These will be the clients you’ll want to highlight on your website.
For the future, make a plan to ask clients for testimonials when you have solved an important problem, saved them a lot of money, or given them service above and beyond their expectations. Have a clear sense of what the main points are that you’d like highlighted in the testimonial.