If you’re looking for a powerful way to grow your business, you need to consider testimonials.

There’s a reason testimonials work: Real buyers, raving about your products and services, is one of the most effective ways to increase your sales conversions.  

Testimonials can make all the difference between someone buying from you or your competitors, whether your business is ecommerce, retail, services – or all of the above.

Today, people want to be able to trust the brands they do business with, and testimonials (and similar forms of “social proof”) help us get past the anxiety of buying and potentially having a bad experience.

How important are customer reviews in ecommerce?

Research shows just how much of an impact of reviews and testimonials can make: 

Plus, in addition to increasing trust and sales conversions, research shows using customer testimonials can generate up to 62% more revenue.

Note that testimonials aren’t only critical at the checkout phase, but can help with getting new and repeat traffic to your website in the first place, through search engine results or social media posts. 

For instance, research found search engine results featuring product reviews increased clickthroughs by 35% in many cases, compared to listings without those features.

Bottom line: Testimonials and reviews should be a priority for your online marketing efforts. 

Now let’s look at how you can use them effectively.

Testimonial tools: 6 options to handle the heavy lifting.

We all know that getting a steady stream of glowing testimonials from customers isn’t easy.  

Sending customers to third-party review websites where they need to create an account is imperfect, and collecting reviews via email can be cumbersome as well. But several tools do make the process easier and more automated, saving you time and effort, while giving you a few options to manage the testimonial process.

1. Strong Testimonials 

Strong Testimonial is the number one WordPress testimonial plugin with over 100,000 active installations and a five star rating. 

Why is it so popular? It’s very flexible, allowing you to choose which testimonials you want to appear in which place/s on your website. It also allows you to easily import your testimonials from other sites including Facebook, Google My Business and Woo Commerce.

This plugin comes with a range of beautifully designed, customisable form templates that make getting reviews from your site super easy: customers can even upload a photo. It offers a free version, and an upgraded pro version from $29 USD.

2. Judge.me

If you’re looking for sleek design and full features for an ecommerce site, Judge.me could be for you. 

Designed for Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Squarespace sites, Judge.me has customizable widgets to match your store’s theme, as well as backend options that enhance search engine visibility for your site (using Google “rich snippets”).

You can ask custom survey questions, build out a Q&A section (very helpful for reducing returns) and even reward customers for specific types of reviews!

Collecting reviews is made easy via push notifications, emails and SMS. Buyers can review directly in email, add photos and video, then be rewarded with coupons. Free-forever version or Pro level $15 USD options.

3. Stamped.io

Stamped is a highly rated Shopify app, with 4.9 stars. 

What do users love about it? Automated review requests and a review showcase widget that’s optimised for mobile sites and search engines, plus a moderation dashboard that allows you to manually approve user generated content or use AI.

Other popular features include a shoppable Instagram feed and analytics to help identify the highest performing reviews and user-generated content, so you can see what’s helping to boost online sales. Free or pro plan upgrades from $23 USD. 

4. Video Ask

Video Ask by Typeform is all about getting customer feedback and input at scale.

For a more personal approach to customer outreach, you can record your own video asking for feedback. Customers can then record their own video response – bonus: without creating an account – which is then transcribed and organised for you.

From there, you can embed the video anywhere on your site. Example: Place videos on the relevant product pages to increase purchases, or on the About Us page to cultivate that trust factor that drives sales. Sharing videos via email is another easy, popular option.

Not a fan of using live chat or chatbots? The Video Ask widget can be embedded on your site, so you can show prospects and customers your own video instead. Free version or Pro version from $23 USD.

5. Boast.io 

Boast is a platform that helps you showcase video testimonials on your website and landing pages, using widgets.

It’s designed with responsive, mobile-friendly forms so customers can record a video from any camera-enabled device. Like the other tools, you can then embed those videos on your site or download them to use in other marketing materials.

Using a Zapier integration, Boast also makes it fairly easy to integrate its customer feedback tools into your existing workflow. While there’s no free version, Boast does have a 14-day free trial and pricing from $25 USD.

6. Loox Shopify App

With Loox, you can automate review-request emails or use delivery-based timing to ask customers for reviews after their orders have arrived. Want to make those five-star reviews even more valuable? Offer discounts to reviewers for adding a photo or video.

Easily display your shiny new reviews on your Shopify site with a selection of widgets: Grid, List, Carousel, Popup, Sidebar and Cart Page. You can even customise the widgets with simple colour pickers and sliders to fit the look and feel of your brand, no design expertise needed.

Use the social proof pop-ups and group similar products together to ensure the most relevant reviews appear in the right places on your site. Loox also includes discounts and other tools to help generate more reviews. While there’s no free version, Loox starts from $9.99 USD per month.

Satisfied customers deserve superior shipping 

Of course, once you’ve got your happy customer testimonials rolling in, you need to ensure your buyers get the best shipping experience.

The Shipping App from Transdirect lets you pass along the most competitive shipping rates possible.

With Transdirect, you get access to Australia’s largest courier and freight companies, and the app enables you to display the best shipping rate to each and every customer in real time — all with the click of a button. 

The app integrates into your checkout process seamlessly, is simple to configure, and features order sync functionality. And it’s free!

No lock-in contracts, no monthly fees, no subscriptions.

Open a free member account and start saving today.