Actually it depends.. I will have to try it one of these days. If most people are like me, and understand that companies are not perfect, and can read an "OK" review about something and have it entice them some more. Then yes I would put them up. Here's a perfect example.

I was searching for Digital Cameras before, so I went review hunting. I went to multiple 3rd party sites to check reviews on 2 cameras that I had my search narrowed down to. Since they were both fairly new cameras at the time they didn't have many reviews.. Camera A had like 10-15 reviews total, all amazing reviews talking how good the product was.. Camera B had about 20-25 reviews.. about 15+ were amazing reviews the other ones weren't bad but I would consider them "average/OK" reviews.. Camera B was about $50 more, and the specs were exactly the same.

I went with Camera B, Why because it stated the drawbacks and the faults. I knew what to expect or what I was in for. Camera A came off as a "Perfect" choice which scared me into thinking of a bunch of "What If's" It can't be perfect, there has to be something somewhere that isn't going to work or what not..

But thats just how my mind works.. lol

Exactly. Camera A sounded a little TOO perfect to be true. I can relate to that, as I do much the same when looking at reviews for PDAs, cameras, etc. :)

My opinion is that testimonials work well if you site the source of the testimonial. A generic testimonial with the first name of a person and no other information isn't very effective.

Our problem is that customers don't *want* to be known as our customers even though they use us. Goes with our industry I suppose. :)

Roj

That can definitely be true. When I had a hosting company we had the same problem with big clients (dedicated solutions in which were often reselling the service) because they did not want people to know that we were actually the backend managing their servers.

As a business, if we get feedback that we feel potential users could relate to (their situation, how our product solved it), we'll ask permission to post the quotes on our site with their name and company.

When done tactfully I think they can be a big help. Though there's obviously a lot of room for abuse -- many times they're almost impossible to verify.

In my opinion, a forum is a lot better tool for a company to use. Harder to tamper with, and more balanced. A forum allows potential users to read reviews and comments about a longer period of the company's existence and know what they're getting into.

:) We also use Testimonials on our site and have found them to be extremely useful in re-assuring a possible client that we do what we claim to do.

The Testimonials we use are actual customers and we provide all relevant contact and URL details with them so the potential client can contact them for further clarification.

We have 2 unmoderated testimonial forums that get a fair few views, so they seem to help. They are especially effective on the Voxtreme brand as the reseller forums are locked for resellers only, unlike the completly open HTTPme brand.

I do see some testimonials on sites and wonder which business owner thought those up, though.

I think they help users, but some are too cheesy

It's funny...ever since starting this thread, I now notice them much more on sites and see just how many people use bogus ones. It is pretty amazing how many their are.