Testimonials can be a powerful force in your cleaning business if you take the time to ask for them. Lets think for a moment why that is.
When you talk about your product or service you are decidedly one sided. Of course this is because you have a vested interest in promoting the positives of your company. That interest is your bottom line. Which when boiled down is nothing more than cold hard cash.
When others speak highly of your product or service however, it carries much more weight with the consumer (they have nothing to gain from endorsing you). This is especially true if you can accumulate many testimonials from a cross section of your clients.
This is because the consumer expects you to be your biggest cheerleader. But when you can produce other people just like them making the case for your company, it makes your service much more appealing.
Consider the example of two restaurants that are side by side on the same street. Same type of food is served and they look basically the same. One is crowded and a line has formed to get in and the other is near empty.
Which one would you enter?
Conventional wisdom says most go the the crowded restaurant. The argument goes like this. When something is too easily available, it must not be that good. The busy restaurant must have good food and service. Why would everyone be there if that was not the case?
A 2002 study performed in Hong Kong confirmed this very basic human trait. To summarize the study, which mirrored conventional wisdom, they found that a crowded restaurant indicated to the consumer that the food was high quality, they possessed a good reputation and the prices must be acceptable for such a crowd to form.
In essence all the people who were already eating or in line to eat were nothing more than a living breathing testimonial to those who were hungry, and they acted on that testimonial and decided to make the busy restaurant their choice for eating.
Testimonials influence us in our decision making every single day.
This is a powerful force to understand and implement because the pack mentality rules not only in the food business but also in the cleaning business. When you possess testimonials you encourage others to join the pack. The more the merrier as the saying goes. This creates the environment for even more to join as people want to jump on the bandwagon to see what makes you so appealing.
Use this to your advantage in your cleaning business.
Make use of testimonials in all your marketing materials. Make them a key component of all things printed. Place them on your web site and everywhere you can think of. Remember, people go to where others are going.