A few weeks ago, we took my son on a college visit. Sure, we’d first visited the school’s website and got all of the data on hand to entice upcoming freshmen that this was the place for them. We could see the picturesque photos of the campus and the happy, smiling faces of the students. It was this initial, online research that convinced us to go for an in-person visit.
But we knew, although my reluctant son did not, that pictures and websites can’t and don’t tell the whole story. My son, who, bless his heart, has little patience for structured activities, did not want to sign up for a tour. “Why can’t we just look around ourselves?” he asked. But I knew why. Because although the tours are organized by the admissions office, generally, the tours themselves are conducted by the students. And that’s where prospective students often get the best, most honest information.
Sara, our tour guide, gave us the standard spiel as we walked around the campus, but in between, we got to ask a lot of questions. Questions the admissions office might give the politically correct answer to, but that a student might give a more straightforward answer to.
And because Sara is a student, the prospective students didn’t see her so much as blindly representing the university, so the insights she shared immediately had credibility– and therefore, a positive recommendation from her had even more impact in deciding to apply to this school.
In business, prospective customers feel the same sense of trust when they get insights from current, satisfied customers through testimonials and success stories, which can help decrease the decision-making time and increase the satisfaction with the final purchase.
Are you encouraging your current customers to be tour guides to draw in prospective customers?