If you sell to health systems, you need testimonials from health systems. That’s the best way to calm their nerves about hiring you. And, if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that your prospects are scared. They’re nervous you won’t deliver. And they dread the thought of having to start over from scratch if you don’t work out. That’s why testimonials are so important – they provide reassurance just when your prospect needs it. So here are five steps to getting great testimonials from health systems.
1) Write the testimonial for them.
Most vendors simply leave it to the customer to offer a testimonial. But to get the best testimonials, you want to take control of the situation. That means you need to write the testimonial for them – but you don’t want to put words in their mouth.
What you want to do is gather feedback from them when you finish implementation or close out the project. If you can, record your conversation or write it down without paraphrasing them. This is how you collect the information you will use to write the testimonial.
2) Ask them what their concerns were.
You want to give an idea of what problems your customer was having and how serious it was. So ask your customer what led them to reach out to you, and what they were hoping for. All too often, people skip this step and wind up with a lame testimonial, despite providing excellent service.
3) Ask them what they are happy about.
Of course, you also want to hear how happy they are with your solution. So ask your customer directly what they are happy about. If they give you something vague like “you did a great job,” press for more information. Ask them what they really liked. Ask them what little touches made the experience easier on them. These are the details that will make the testimonial ring true.
4) Ask them to review and tweak the testimonial.
At this point, draft the testimonial. Try not to paraphrase; you want it to sound like them. If you took good notes or made a recording you can often lift entire sentences out to build the testimonial.
Once you have it, email it to them for approval. Tell them you put it together based on your conversation, and you want to make sure they are comfortable with it. The beauty of this approach is that you take the pressure off your customer by doing the writing yourself.
5) Include an attribution.
Health systems want to hear from other health systems. That means you have to give an attribution for your testimonial. Ideally, it should include your customer’s name, title, and organization name. But if your customer’s policy prevents them from lending their name to a testimonial, you can still make an attribution. Just use their title and an organization descriptor. For instance, “CFO, Ambulatory Care Center” or “CNO, 175-Bed Hospital.”
Help reassure prospective clients.
Your prospects want to know you have helped health systems similar to theirs, and that you got great reviews from someone in their role. So use these steps to make sure you get great testimonials from your health system customers.
Photo by Vianney CAHEN on Unsplash.