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Are testimonials a cliché?

Thread title: Are testimonials a cliché?
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06-05-2012, 11:30 PM
#1
Mauro.Casas is offline Mauro.Casas
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  Old  Are testimonials a cliché?

I was wondering..

It's really common to see websites, mostly designers/developers who share testimonials from their clients.

Do you really need them? I mean, your work must speak for you, the testimonial is like a pointless addition to your work.


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06-06-2012, 12:26 AM
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Village Genius is offline Village Genius
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Testimonials can speak to how you do business. A former member here who went by the name Anthony Bullock was an excellent designer, one of the best I've ever seen. However, he never met deadlines and we eventually banned him for running with a client's money. A google search for that name will render multiple bad references.

However, it is obvious that any testimonials you put on your site are ones in your favor. They are cliche but make you look better. Testimonials on independent third party like our iTrader system help a lot though as they are unfiltered.

06-06-2012, 02:47 AM
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Ok, good point.

But how can you tell if they're not fake? I'm pretty sure people does that!

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06-06-2012, 03:17 AM
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By investigating it yourself, if no source is given there's really no way to validate it. It would not surprise me in the least if people make crap up and put it on a testimonials page.

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06-07-2012, 01:40 AM
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I have to agree with Village Genius here. Investigation is the key to discovering whether a business is worth the pixels it is written in.

However if you have your own business offering a service, testimonials from genuine customers who are satisfied with your product does add weight.

People looking at your product will feel more inclined to use it if they know there is a bond of trust between the provider and the client.

06-26-2012, 09:13 AM
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Hey I'm new here but I thought I'd give my 2 cents. I just recently put up my site finally after doing web development business for a couple years not having time to put one of my own up and one of the first few tasks I did what put up a testimonials section because if you treat clients well and make sure they get what they want, they will have good things to say about you other than the typical "Well, they do pretty work" reaction you'll get from just looking at recent works. It's kind of cliche like anything else, but as Village Genius said, a good testimonial will provide "who" wrote it and potential customers can investigate themselves if they feel the need. Testimonials are just one more tool of reassurance that future customers will get to know they will be treated well!

12-02-2012, 05:48 AM
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I tend to find testimonials are often fake. Call me cynical or what. I rather not put any up and let the potential customer decide for themselves.

However, maybe I should be putting some up just to follow the trend. It is an interesting topic as discussed.

How do you verify it as being a legit review anyway by a real customer?

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12-03-2012, 03:22 PM
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Originally Posted by Village Genius View Post
Testimonials can speak to how you do business.
this is why you use them. period. clients don't care about design.

they care about as far as "as long as it's not ugly". clients are business people. it's all about costs and ROI. they want stuff that's easy and makes them a profit. as far as design goes as long as it doesn't look fugly or severely dated (meaning they'll have to redo this process next year), you're good enough for them - look at the amount of shitty sites still floating around the web.

only employers (creative directors) will care about the actual design techniques of your portfolio. everyone else wants to hear about how they didn't have to babysit you - or about how you actually care about design and some innovative idea you had they never thought of ended up making them money so it was worth the "risk".

04-25-2013, 06:48 AM
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A lot of companies write fake testimonials, given by fictitious people in a random location, thinking that the more of these on show, the more people will believe their product or service is worth buying. Fake endorsements of your product or service can be very easy to spot, and there are few faster ways to turn-off a potential customer.

So if you include Client Website URL plus display a picture of the homepage, it would give a better idea to a potential client...

Portfolio/Work, of course, speaks for itself... But Client Testimonials are also important...

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