Testimonials for transformative services should describe the customer’s thoughts and feelings about achieving personally important benefits from using the services. Researchers at Boise State University and The University of Sydney note that customer testimonials generally don’t include this. Their studies indicate such descriptions significantly increase a testimonial’s persuasiveness. In my email exchange about the study with Prof. Anne Hamby—one of the researchers—she added that specific comments from customers about the customers’ reasons or motivations are key.
The research findings also argue for asking that there be an emphasis on direct personal pleasure from use of the transformative service, since this is important for optimal influence. The researchers acknowledge this is easier with travel activities, let’s say, than with academic tutoring, for instance. Still, almost all transformative services do yield direct personal benefits. This is, after all, what characterizes them as transformative.
Taking the researchers’ recommendation would change testimonials from bullet points into stories. This, in itself, augments the persuasiveness. Stories involve the reader with the hero and the setting. Readers are transported from their own world into the world of the tale, generating in the reader emotions reported by the story’s protagonist. When those emotions have been clearly reported and are positive, an emotional rationale for being persuaded develops.
But the researchers also see importance in descriptions of negative emotions. These reduce unintended consequences from misuse of the service. Tales in which an error’s been committed and then a recovery made, with the wave from fear to relief, serve as educational cautions. Understanding the report about the unintended consequences from the transformative service becomes an additional transformative service.
Remedy marketing has abundant unintended consequences. The availability of smoking cessation programs can lead to people smoking more, since the people get the impression they can stop anytime they choose to. And once a consumer has gone through a debt consolidation program, that consumer may become more likely to spend irresponsibly, since the consumer figures he can go through a debt consolidation program again
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