Quick guide to getting testimonials

Testimonials are one of the strongest tools we have for educating patients about treatment. In fact, what someone else says about you is 3x more impactful than what you say about yourself. Testimonials move you from saying, in effect, "I'm great and you'd better believe it!" to "I'm great and here are real people who say so." They also help you convey elusive qualities about yourself and your practice that don't easily come across on paper otherwise. Remember when you were a child and learned about the world around you through stories? That is exactly what using effective testimonial usage does for your patients!

The most credible testimonials typically include the following:

1. Emotional link to treatment that has been done or proposed.

Ex: Before I had my wisdom teeth removed w/Dr. Nelson, my gums were infected and I had so much pain!

2. Something specific about the experience that we provided.

3. For maximum impact, testimonials end with a person's full name, his or her title where that's applicable, and either a company name, preferably recognizable, or a city and state

Ex: - Sarah Nelson (or S. Nelson), President, Npress, Portland, Maine


How to start collecting testimonials today:

Many people are under the impression that a testimonial should take the form of a complete, signed letter on a company letterhead. But because you're asking a lot of someone when you request one of these, you'll get many more usable quotes if you simply go after two sentences from each testimonial giver. Here are a few ways to get a testimonial quickly and easily:

1. If you happen to receive a wonderful letter of thanks, find the strongest two sentences to excerpt for your promotional materials. Feel free to combine several phrases and condense the wording, so long as you don't change the essential meaning. Many times the context is missing, and you need to supply it so an outsider understands the praise. If you do much more than change the punctuation, and add or omit little connecting words, get the writer's permission for the changes.

2. Over the telephone or face to face, whenever someone spontaneously utters quotable praise, grab a pencil or tape recorder, ask, "May I quote you on that?" and scribble it down.

3. One approach that I've seen work well is to say you're collecting success stories from clients and would they like to be included? Putting it that way flatters clients and presents the blurb to them as a compliment rather than a burdensome request.

- Sarah Nelson