The rise of social media has turned us into “hey, check this out” consumers. Every click produces an invitation to check out this video, this photo gallery, this group.
One Melbourne company is combining that dynamic with customer databases to create a business service it describes as an Australian first.
My Customer Testimonals (www.mycustomertestimonials.com.au) interviews people chosen from a business’ clientele, and turns those interviews into audio clips and transcripts that the business can use for marketing and advertising.
My Customer Testimonials will simply hand over the clips and transcripts to the client business or, for a higher fee, package the testimonials on an MCT-hosted web page customised with the client’s business information.
Darren Bourke, the company’s founder and director, said in his launch media release that testimonials offer a quicker conversion of prospects to customers.
“While print advertising is a one-off form of marketing, testimonials can be used as many times as you like in many forms of marketing collateral,” Bourke said.
The interviews are conducted by phone. The MCT interviewer asks for the customer’s consent to record, then rolls through a set of questions. The result is a set of responses that feel honest and unvarnished, even if the audio can’t avoid but sound low-tech because of the phone connection.
“Potential customers are more likely to trust the word of a third party — similar to editorial in the media — than a pure, traditional form of advertising,” Bourke said.
My Customer Testimonials’ package start at $595 for three interviews — audio in MP3 form and transcripts in PDF and Microsoft Word. For $895, MCT will conduct and package six interviews, and host them on a customized website. For $1,245, the client gets nine interviews and the hosted website.
Image by Rachael Voorhees
