12 Questions To Ask Your Clients For Better Video Testimonials

Your new customers will not help you grow your business.

As controversial as that may sound, the truth is that growing your business involves your existing customers. In fact, your existing customers hold the key to close new customers.

Confused? 

Don’t worry, keep reading. 

Customer acquisition has become more difficult than ever before. Having been exposed to different marketing strategies and tactics for their entire lives, modern customers have become smarter. 

As compared to a few decades ago, it takes more time and effort to get prospects to believe your marketing. In some cases, no matter how much effort you put in, some of them never get around to trusting your marketing communication.

We won’t get into the reasons behind this behaviour (that’s content for an entirely different blog post) but this article is dedicated to the solution of this problem- customer testimonials. More specifically, video testimonials.

Video testimonials, when executed right, can be an extremely potent addition to your marketing arsenal. 

However, before we get into what kind of questions you should be asking your customers during their video testimonial interviews, let’s understand why testimonials are so important. 

After all, you can just ask your customers to record a video on their own and talk about how they liked your service. Why go through all this trouble?

Let’s find out:

Customer Reviews: The Internet’s Equivalent Of Gold

As our prospects become more and more tech-savvy, the perceived value of reviews is increasing. Would you buy something suggested to you by a random person you met at the supermarket parking lot? 

While it may not happen in real life, it is surely happening on the web. Here are a few data points that you may want to consider:

• 91% of millennials trust online reviews as much as their trust recommendations from their friends and family.
• On the other hand, in a different survey, it was found that 83% of online customers do not trust advertising.
• 89% of customers will not make a purchase decision without reading a review. 
• 70% of online buyers say they need to read a minimum of four reviews before they can trust a brand.

The point is, positive reviews can deliver incredible benefits to your business. With video testimonials, you can expect even better results. Here are a few reasons why:

• According to a Wyzowl survey, 79% of respondents claim to have watched a video testimonial to learn more about a company, or a product, or a service.
• In the same survey, 47% of respondents claimed they find video testimonials to be more effective because they help them visualize how the product or service works and can benefit them.
• Two-third of the respondents also claimed that they are more likely to make a purchase after watching a positive video testimonial.

After looking at these stats, it must be clear that testimonials are important and video testimonials can deliver even better results than regular text-only testimonials. 

Why is that? Why are video testimonials more effective? Let’s find out:

Video Testimonials Are Amazing

Video testimonials are great. This blog post is asking you to create them and we’ve already established that customers love them. Here are a few reasons that make video testimonials so great:

• As mentioned in the stats earlier, video testimonials allow viewers to better visualize how the product or service would benefit them. Some products can even be shown in action within the testimonial video.

• Video testimonials are difficult to fake. Unfortunately, the web is littered with fake reviews and over time, fake review writers have become good at their jobs. Nowadays, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify genuine and fake reviews. While video testimonials can be faked as well, the task is exponentially more difficult than writing a fake 50-word review.

• Video testimonials are a testament that one of your customers liked your service or product so much that they were willing to take out time and sit in front of a camera to talk about it.  

Video testimonials work incredibly well when they are done right. That’s perhaps why even established brands like Adidas, Amazon, Dropbox, and Google AdWords also invest in them. I personally use short video testimonials for my blogger outreach service.

Now, let’s get into the meat of this article- getting video testimonials right. There are many steps involved in the process of creating a video testimonial. 

However, having the right questions to ask your clients is the most important aspect of this process. The set of questions your customers answer during your testimonial video can make or break the effect you are hoping it will have on your conversions.

With that in mind, here are the 12 questions that you must absolutely ask your customers that are appearing in a video testimonial:

Question 1: What was life like before you started using our service/purchased our product?

One of the most effective ways to conduct sales is to help prospects realize that your product or service will help them move from their current situation into their desired situation. The viewers of your video will (probably) be able in the same situation as the customers appearing in the video were before they became your customers.

This question will help the viewer realise that they have a problem that needs solving. The viewers that were already aware about their problem, on the other hand, will be able to better relate with the video.

Question 2: What problem were you hoping to solve when you found out about us/got in touch with us?

If you have researched your customers and audience and come up with a set of buyer personas, then there is a good chance that you have identified different segments of prospects that are facing similar problems that can be solved with your product or service.

This question is aimed at making the video more relatable for the viewers that may be facing a similar problem as the person appearing in the video.

This question will also establish that your product or service has been able to solve a problem that the viewer finds relatable. 

Question 3: How did you find out about our product/service?

The purpose of this question is to help your customers identify the right process of making the purchase decision. As your customer talks about the way they conducted research and finally came across your product, they are also subconsciously instructing the same to the viewers that identify with them.

If a prospect follows the exact same process to research their problem and its possible solutions as the customer featured in your video, they are also likely to come to the same decision. In other words, they are also more likely to purchase your product or sign up for your service.

Question 4: What made you purchase our product?

A lot of videos produced by brands, regardless of their format, try to avoid talking about the competition in the market. They try to avoid making comparisons. While it may be a good strategy in certain cases, making comparisons in a video testimonial can deliver great results. However, that doesn’t mean that it cannot be done subtly.

When you ask your customer what made them select your product, most will talk about specific features or the specific way a common feature is used within your product. Some will also go on to talk about how these specific features work incredibly well when it comes to solving specific problems. 

Such answers will make the viewers curious about the features you are offering, prompting them to research more about your product and how it outperforms the competition. In some cases, viewers may also find that the person in the video is talking about the exact problem that they are facing, and may start viewing your product as a short-cut solution to their pressing problem.

Question 5: Was there something that was preventing you from purchasing our product/service?

This question adds value to your business and your testimonial video in three ways:

• It establishes credibility for your testimonial video. Most fake testimonials only talk about the positive aspects of using a product or service, and never about the associated issues or apprehensions that a customer may face. 

• It prompts the customer in the video to talk about apprehensions that they may have faced before purchasing your product. In a lot of cases, customers are apprehensive before making a purchase because of their own personal reasons, like budget constraints. When a customer talks about such a challenge in their video, and how they overcame the challenge, it may also inspire the viewers facing a similar problem to do what the customer in the video did.

• It helps you improve your business by collecting honest feedback about your product or service. This question may even reveal apprehensions that you didn’t even know about. Once you do know about them, you can start addressing them in your marketing communication.

Question 6: How has life changed since you have purchased our product/service?

This question is where things start getting good in your testimonial video. Now, you are asking your clients to outline how your product has made their lives easier. Make sure you encourage them to quote specific numbers within their claims. For instance, if a client claims they have experienced a boost in their revenue after using your product, make sure you ask them to mention a percentage point while talking about the same. 

When the viewers watch your customers talk about the benefits that they have experienced after they started using your product, they will want to achieve similar results. 

In other words, this question helps you establish that your product or service is centered around ensuring success for your customers.

Bonus Tip: We’ve spoken about customers talking about specific things in an earlier section of this article as well. The reason I am putting so much stress on introducing specificity to your video is because specificity leads to building of trust, it leads to more sales.

Question 7: Which features do you like the best?

The purpose of this question is pretty obvious. When a customer talks about all the features that they love, and why they love them, it tells viewers that your product offers several great features that actually solve real-life problems.

This will also enable the viewers to reconsider their own priorities related to your product. There’s a chance that after watching the video, they may find themselves interested in a feature of your product or service that they didn’t even know existed.

Finally, the answer of this question will also help your marketing and sales teams identify the most desirable features of your product or service. At the same time, even your product development team can find incredibly useful insights in the answer of this question. 

Question 8: What has worked better than you expected?

Every once in a while, your business will be presented with the opportunity to go the extra mile for a client and whenever possible, you must comply. This is because customers usually remember when a business provides them with delightful service by going out of their way.

When your leads watching the video learn about these instances, it will create a positive image of your brand in their minds. Some may feel like they can expect the same quality of service and may be prompted to purchase from you.

Question 9: What features did you find out about after making the purchase?

In most cases, customers purchase products or services in order to solve a specific problem or achieve a specific goal. However, most products or services also offer a number of ‘delighters’ that all customers may or may not know about at the time of making the purchase.

I’m talking about things ranging from awesome hidden features and functionalities to loyalty and referral programs. In some cases, these features simply make a customer happy with monetary savings, and in others, extra features may even help them overachieve their goals.

Whatever the case may be for you, mentioning these delightful extras can make your product or service more enticing to the prospects watching your video testimonial.

Question 10: Would you recommend our product? Which features will you recommend the most?

If a customer has agreed to appear in a video testimonial, it is obvious that their answer to the first question will be positive. 

The follow-up question will again ask the customer to talk about the features of your product or service that they love. This will help you reinforce the positive notion around your best features and put extra emphasis on them during the video.

Question 11: What would you like to tell our prospective customers watching this video?

This is where the customer in your video will get to truly review your service for the viewers. Besides talking about your product, some customers may also share some advice that will help the viewers with the buying process and decision.

This will not only help your prospects easily arrive at the purchase decision, it will also help you identify the bottlenecks in your customer journey and address them in order to improve conversions. Doing this should be especially easy because if the customer shares advice about challenges they faced during the purchase process, they will also share the solutions they utilised to overcome said challenges.

Question 12: What could we have done better or differently?

Whether or not you want to include this question and its answer in your testimonial video is completely your choice. While it may add more authenticity to your video, if the answer given by your client mentions serious problems, it may do more harm than good.

The real point of asking this question is to give honest feedback to your own team. This way, you can find out about the most pressing issues your customers are facing with your product or service and get rid of them to further delight your existing and future customers.

Conclusion

Before wrapping up, I would just like to tell you that this list isn’t exhaustive or written in stone. You can omit or add questions that may be more relevant to the specific service or product that you offer. Similarly, you may also edit the questions to make them more relevant to your business. 

With that said, I hope that these questions will point you in the right direction for producing impactful video testimonials. 

Did I forget to mention a question that you love including in your video testimonials questionnaire? Tell me (and everyone reading this article) about it in the comment section below.