Just returned from a break and the first task is to produce a new ad for a life-style magazine.

A quick conference establishes that we will go with lots of images of fitted furniture to establish the fantastic breadth of the range, three shots of bedroom wardrobes (including sliding doors), two study/offices and a home cinema wall unit, roughly proportionate to our sales mix. Include a flash about our current “buy now, pay later” promotion and a few testimonials.

What about testimonials? Do they work? Do people believe them? Snake-oil salesmen always had a long list of “unsolicited testimonials”; can this make us look like a snake-oil salesman?

We do have hundreds, possibly thousands, of testimonials if you include the comments on our customer satisfaction questionnaires (are they by definition ’solicited’ rather than unsolicited?).  The vast majority are positive, the runaway favourite multiple choice questions are “Very Good” and “Excellent”, but it’s the “Any Other Comments” section that produces the real glow.

Yes, we do get some negative response (any company that tells you that they never have a dissatisfied client is telling porkies) and no, we don’t use those in our advertising.  However, as they happy customers outnumber the less than contented ones by about 100 to 1, we would need to show over a hundred testimonials to include one negative one in fair proportion.

We are certainly more honest than theatre and cinema promoters who often take the one or two positive words in a generally bad review and plaster them all over the bill boards.

All  the mix of testimonials, unsolicited letters and customer satisfaction questionnaires, unedited, are available in our offices for viewing.  And, I will include four or five of the best in my advert.  Will prospective customers comparing us with our competitors, like Hammonds and Neville Johnson, believe them? We all sell basically the same product, fitted furniture, and although we believe that ours is the only product that is truly bespoke; how is the client to judge who is likely to give them the highest level of satisfaction?

We all use testimonials and none of us cries “stinking fish” but how can I establish that our feedback is more reliable than others’? I guess that an invitation for anybody to come and see the originals is the only option.  Will any other fitted furniture manufacturer do the same?