Testimonials are one of the best ways a company can let potential customers learn about the benefits of the service(s) they provide. Because they come directly from the perspective of another customer, they are invaluable in helping make buying decisions.
Not only will TDS’ new testimonial process help new customers get fast and affordable broadband—businesses who complete a testimonial are also directly supporting their community!
Charlie, senior administrator of Communications and RFP Specialist, and Nathan, senior administrator of Customer Communication and Experience, are co-leading a brand-new business testimonial process to generate sales and opportunities for community outreach.
“Strengthening our relationship with current, and potential, commercial customers has become a large focus for our customer experience team, and TDS in general,” said Charlie. “Collaborating with other departments within our organization, as well as other businesses in our communities, has been crucial as we continue to move toward this goal.”
Strengthening these relationships is no small task, and a lot must go into it across the organization. New resources—including testimonials—are always welcomed by TDS associates in sales and field marketing.
“Broadband is such a competitive space, with all sorts of internet providers trying to win over customers in our markets,” said Charlie. “Testimonials are a very useful tool because they allow businesses to hear straight from other businesses about specific issues our services helped them address. They also allow the customer to compare specific considerations, like business size and location.”
According to Charlie and Nathan, testimonials present the perfect way to highlight years of incredibly positive customer reviews. To entice satisfied customers to complete testimonials, they recognized the need for both a streamlined process and an incentive.
Compared to residential customers, the process for obtaining business testimonials is a bit more complex. One reason is that there must be a binding contract associated with these testimonials.
While stacks of paperwork may have scared off businesses from participating in the past, this new process has proven to be far less tedious and time consuming. Instead of TDS paying customers to provide testimonials, we are now giving $100 donations on their behalf to local nonprofits.
As the experts on the ground in our communities, Field Marketing has played a crucial role in identifying short lists of local nonprofit organizations.
“Our field marketers have long, established relationships with various nonprofits across the country,” said Charlie. “Once the initial paperwork is completed, which includes their choice of nonprofit, we interview the customer and make the donation to the organization they chose. The completed testimonials will then be posted on our company website. We’re expecting our first two testimonials to go live by the end of the year!”
Among others, questions the CX team will ask customers in these testimonial interviews include: “What challenges were you facing related to your broadband needs?” “How did TDS provide a solution?” and “What other benefits would you like to share with other potential business customers?” Charlie mentioned his team is also eager to expand the program to eventually include video testimonials.
The new process is already yielding great results. Of the initial 12 commercial customers Charlie and Nathan reached out to, two completed testimonial interviews are in the final stages of review prior to publication.
“We believe having these testimonials handy feeds right into the fact that we’re a responsive company, and that we address issues our customers may be having,” said Charlie. “I’m proud of our ability to get this up and running so fast. It couldn’t have been done without the incredible collaboration and hard work displayed by Legal, Sales, and Field Marketing.”
Here is the first completed testimonial on our BendBroadband website. Look for more testimonials on the TDS Telecom website throughout 2022!
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