Do you use testimonials?

No name, First name, or Full name?

[CernyM]

I'm thinking about putting testimonials on my site on a page that my site visitors already hit.

For those of you that use testimonials, do you leave them unsigned, use just the first name and last initial, or use the full name?

(Obviously, I would get permission to use the quote from the person that said it.)

--Mike

[Herath]

We use:

Comment

First Name,
City, State or Country.

[andy_boyd]

I always put something after a testimonial, otherwise it just looks like it's been made up.

A standard testimonial for me would go like: "Just got the product in and loved it, it was presented really well!" J. Bloggs, PA

[Chndru]

>it just looks like it's been made up

Call me a skeptic, but i dont know if i ever trust any testimonial, let alone an e-com one. Even [google.com...] sounds too dramatic for my rational neurons.

[jweighell]

I always used to think it a bit cheesy to have testimonials. I thought I'd give it a go. Since I put them up on my site, I keep receiving emails from people saying how much of a wonderful service I provide! They obviously want to get their name up in lights on the site.

[jmbishop]

I do application and web development in a pretty small niche that is also geographically limited so I've listed testimonials with names as well as photos, (with permission, of course) because most of the professionals in this field know one another so it goes a long way to adding credibility to my work.

[tolachi]

We use their full name or tag (handle, nickname, whatever) + city and state. We include pictures if we can get them. To get pictures we will contact someone who submits a testimonial and offer them a gift certificate or something else small to provide us with a picture too. However, I would recommend against any appearance that testimonials are solicited or rewarded.

I would say that the best testimonial is the one where somone writes a review of your product/service and posts it on their website. You can then quote it and provide a link to their site. That's one kind of relevant outbound that doesn't hurt.

I like to rotate my best testimonials on the upper level navigation pages. Within the testimonial I link to the specific service/product referenced.

I strongly recommend at least experimenting with testimonials.

[hannamyluv]

We use either first name or first initial and last name. Sometimes we include city and state, other times we just include state.

[martyt]

I've got a "customer feedback" page where we post snippets from complimentary e-mails we receive. I use the first name and last initial, and a date. I may drop the date because it starts to look silly if you haven't updated the page in a few months.

And, most importantly, I secure the permission of the customer to use their comments publicly before they get posted. Maybe it's not really necessary, but I think it shows respect for the customer who may not want their name plastered on a web page somewhere (though nobody has ever refused to let me use their comments).

[Sunshyn]

When asking a customer for permission to post their feedback, I'll usually ask them how they'd wish it to be signed.