Sales enablement is all about equipping sales teams with the tools, resources, and insights they need to engage prospects effectively and close deals faster.
Trust between the lead and the salesperson is non-negotiable in the sales process. Customer review and feedback serve as powerful social proof, bridging and reinforcing this essential trust.
In this article, we will dive deep into building trust with your potential clients, enhancing sales enablement with customer reviews, and enriching your sales materials with social proof.
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A staggering 81% of consumers say they need to trust a brand before making a purchase.
But here’s the challenge: buyers are skeptical.
Marketing claims often come off as biased, and prospects crave authentic, relatable experiences from people just like them.
93% of consumers read reviews to help with the purchase decision.
This speaks volumes about how much more people trust other people’s opinions than the brand’s marketing messages, highlighting the idea that "people buy from people”.
By integrating genuine customer feedback and reviews into your sales enablement strategy, you can bridge that trust gap and empower your sales team with stories that resonate.
Before proceeding to examples, let’s clear up the terminology. While these key terms often overlap, each serves a unique purpose.
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people look to others’ actions or opinions to guide their own decisions.
Have you ever gone to a new place or event, and looked at other people to learn how you should act?
This is exactly what social proof is about.
In sales enablement, social proof refers to leveraging customer experiences (reviews, testimonials, case studies) to show that your product is trusted and valued by others.
Think of it as the foundation that builds credibility. As a sales person, social proof can be a powerful tool to overcome objections and build trust with leads by showing them that others have benefited from your product.
Testimonials are curated statements from customers who’ve had positive experiences with your product or service.
They’re often solicited by businesses, carefully crafted, and displayed on websites, brochures, or sales decks to highlight the best of what you offer.
Testimonials are polished and specific, making them great for reinforcing key selling points. You can use testimonials to align customer success stories with your lead's specific pain points, making it easier to demonstrate how your solution can work for them.
Reviews are unfiltered opinions that customers leave on third-party platforms like Google, Yelp, or Trustpilot.
They’re often spontaneous and showcase the full spectrum of experiences—from glowing praise to constructive criticism.
Unlike testimonials, reviews carry a sense of authenticity because they’re less controlled by the company. For salespeople, customer reviews are an excellent way to provide unvarnished proof of your product's value, which can resonate with leads who prioritize authenticity.
Feedback is broader and more action-oriented, encompassing any information customers share about their experience, whether it’s through surveys, support interactions, or direct communication.
In B2B sales, feedback often comes from decision-makers or end-users within client organizations, providing deeper insights into their specific needs, challenges, and expectations. While feedback isn’t always public, it’s invaluable for improving your product or service.
Salespeople can use customer feedback to tailor solutions to a prospect's unique business requirements, demonstrate responsiveness to client concerns, and highlight how feedback has driven relevant product enhancements—strengthening trust and showing alignment with their goals.
Customer reviews are a cornerstone of sales enablement, offering both the trust-building credibility buyers demand and actionable insights that sales teams can leverage.
Different surveys show that 55% - 94% of B2B buyers check review sites before making a purchase decision. As a salesperson, this means reviews are a vital tool in influencing decision-makers and guiding their choices.
The magic of reviews lies in their authenticity. People trust reviews because they come from fellow customers rather than the company itself.
A few reasons behind this trust include:
Buyer hesitation often stems from unanswered questions or doubts. As a salesperson, you can use reviews as preemptive answers, showing how others navigated similar issues.
For example:
Concerned about cost? A review highlighting return on investment can reassure them.
Wary of long implementation times? Testimonials praising quick and smooth onboarding can alleviate those fears.
You can address objections naturally and convincingly by weaving reviews into the sales conversation.
Reviews allow you to craft highly relevant and personalized pitches. We are more allured by stories told by people like us. Reviews from our peers are effective.
Let’s say a review emphasizes how a software solves a pain point for a healthcare provider. If you are targeting another healthcare company, you can reference that review to build relevance.
Similarly, reviews from small businesses can guide pitches to similar prospects.
Modern B2B buyers crave autonomy in their journey.
In fact, the majority of buyers rely on reviews and self-research before engaging with a sales rep.
You can support this self-directed process by incorporating reviews into your emails, proposals, or product demos.
Reviews reduce perceived risks and help buyers feel they’re making an informed choice.
Customer reviews are the glue that can align marketing and sales.
Marketing teams can use reviews in campaigns and on landing pages, while sales teams use the same stories to strengthen pitches.
For example, a glowing review featured in an email campaign can be referenced during a sales call, creating a seamless and unified narrative.
Despite their proven effectiveness, many companies miss out on the full potential of customer reviews in sales enablement. Here are the common roadblocks—and how to overcome them:
One of the biggest challenges for sales teams is the lack of up-to-date or industry-specific reviews. Outdated or irrelevant reviews can make your pitch feel disconnected from the prospect’s needs.
Make collecting reviews a priority by streamlining the process.
Automate review requests after key milestones, like a successful onboarding or project completion.
Encourage your customers to provide detailed feedback by asking open-ended questions about their specific challenges and how your solution helped.
This not only keeps your review pool fresh but ensures relevance for different sales scenarios.
As a salesperson, you’re juggling multiple tasks, and sifting through hundreds of reviews to find the perfect one can be time-consuming and inefficient.
You can connect all the relevant review sites to one platform and import new reviews into the system, ensuring you always have centralized access to all your online reviews.
Moreover, use one tool to create personalized review surveys and tag reviews based on your chosen parameters.
For example, organize reviews by star rating, industry, customer size, language, or specific pain points.
This way, sales reps can quickly locate the most relevant reviews for their prospects without wasting valuable time.
You might hesitate to use customer reviews because you’re unsure about legal or ethical boundaries.
Can you share a review in a presentation? Is it okay to quote a customer directly?
Prioritize authenticity, and compliance with clear consent management.
Always obtain explicit permission from customers to use their feedback, whether for public testimonials or private sales discussions.
Use review forms that explicitly ask for permission to share comments, whether for marketing purposes, presentations, or one-on-one sales conversations. This not only ensures legal compliance but builds trust with your audience by demonstrating transparency.
These challenges are true across industries. Luckily, there are tools that make review collection, display, automation, and all other aspects a breeze.
One of them is Trustmary. Collect customer feedback and reviews automatically, and use authentic customer comments in the right places in your sales enablement process.
While platforms like Trustmary provide an excellent way to gather and manage authentic customer reviews, Showell takes it a step further by enabling sales teams to seamlessly integrate these reviews into tailored presentations and proposals.
With Showell, you can easily access, personalize, and share review-rich sales content that resonates with your prospects.
⭐ Make Reviews Easy with the Right Tool ⭐These challenges are true across industries. Luckily, there are tools that make review collection, display, automation, and all other aspects a breeze. One of them is Trustmary. Collect customer feedback and reviews automatically, and use authentic customer comments in the right places in your sales enablement process. While platforms like Trustmary provide an excellent way to gather and manage authentic customer reviews, Showell takes it a step further by enabling sales teams to seamlessly integrate these reviews into tailored presentations and proposals. With Showell, you can easily access, personalize, and share review-rich sales content that resonates with your prospects. |
So, now we know the “why”.
Time to move on to tangible strategies and ways to use reviews in your sales enablement process.
In sales, you can leverage reviews to build trust, overcome objections, and strengthen your pitches at every stage of the customer journey.
When prospects first take a look at your brand online, make sure to impress them with authentic reviews on your website and social media accounts.
Dynamic, constantly updated reviews showcased online build trust and draw prospects into the sales funnel.
We have noticed that including reviews on your website increases conversions on average by 20%.
Online stores and B2B websites alike see a tangible uptick in their website performance when they implement stylish and relevant reviews.
As a salesperson, this creates a warm introduction for your conversations. Prospects who’ve seen positive reviews are more likely to trust you when you reach out.
Here are my top tips:
When customers research your business, they will come across all kinds of opinions: including discussion forums and online review sites.
Businesses often don’t actively ask for reviews, and only unhappy customers do it unprompted. As a result, review sites might misrepresent the company and its customers.
The best way to manage your online reputation is to provide great service and actively ask for reviews from all your customers. The volume of good reviews will increase, diminishing the effects of negative reviews.
The larger volume of good reviews will make your business more trustworthy for potential customers. It gives you credibility when prospects inevitably look your company up. It also provides a repository of insights you can use to tailor your messaging.
Google reviews are used by customers in most industries, and industry-specific sites like G2, Capterra, or Trusted Shops might be relevant depending on your business.
Incorporating customer reviews directly into your sales pitches can add credibility and relatability.
Use testimonials as proof to highlight key selling points.
Include real customer quotes in slides to emphasize success stories.
Personalize the reviews for your audience by showcasing feedback from similar industries, business sizes, or challenges.
For example, when Sellai, a company providing outsourced professionals for B2B sales, opened a new market in Sweden, they used customer reviews from their Norwegian customers as social proof.
These customer quotes were more relatable and built more trust in the potential clients in the new market.
Showell’s sales content management platform allows you to organize and access customer reviews alongside other sales materials.
With its content personalization features, you can quickly incorporate relevant reviews into your sales presentations or offers, ensuring they are impactful and aligned with your audience’s needs.
Use reviews to validate your sales offers and provide social proof right when the prospect is considering their decision.
This can help reduce decision-making anxiety and position you as a partner who delivers proven results.
Highlight specific testimonials related to the proposed solution.
Pair reviews with promotional offers to instill confidence in moving forward.
Customer reviews can enhance the effectiveness of various sales assets.
Include direct quotes from reviews to add authenticity to success stories and case studies.
Personalize outreach emails by embedding snippets of reviews relevant to the recipient’s industry or challenges.
Place testimonials strategically in brochures and other printed materials to reinforce your product’s benefits.
Collecting feedback and reviews is easy when you can use the usual daily tools, like a customer relationship management system.
By logging the typical activities in your CRM, you can trigger feedback surveys to be sent at the right time.
This accurate automation helps you capture customer satisfaction at the most important moments, while reducing manual work.
As mentioned a few times already, try to use reviews that are as relevant as possible for each customer.
By using reviews that reflect your prospect’s context, you make your pitch more compelling and relatable, helping them envision success with your solution.
Choose comments from previous customers who worked in the same industry or similar role, live in the same area, speak the same language, and so forth.
Recommendations from people that your prospects can identify with, look up to, or recognize are the most effective.
Lastly, let’s look at some common mistakes and pitfalls related to feedback and reviews.
Bad reviews have a negative effect on a company’s reputation, and poor star ratings can lead to clients avoiding the business.
However, prospective customers are not stupid. They will question it if your reviews look too good to be true.
Don’t be afraid of a few constructive or critical reviews. Just remember to respond to them and address the issues professionally and respectfully.
Keep in mind that you can only earn good reviews by providing great customer experiences.
If you only get bad feedback and reviews, there must be something severely wrong with the process. By fixing that you can start getting more good reviews.
Feedback is the most important step in improving customer experience. Only by asking customers directly can you figure out if they are happy and going to return.
Even if getting negative feedback stings, you need to take it seriously, listen to the customers, and communicate when you make changes based on their feedback.
Many companies trust that customers will leave reviews when they want to, and companies don’t have to actively ask for them.
However, people are only likely to leave reviews when they are extremely happy or extremely unhappy.
This idea leads to a situation where you have a disproportional number of bad reviews, and you lack all the middle-ground opinions.
By asking for reviews from all customers, you can even out the overall star rating, and represent your business accurately.
Outdated reviews and testimonials are not as effective as new ones.
With tools like Trustmary for automated review updates and Showell for centrally managing your sales materials, you can ensure that your presentations, proposals, and brochures always feature fresh and relevant customer feedback.
We have now learned why and how to use reviews in a sales enablement process. Here are the key points in summary:
Combine Trustmary’s review management platform with Showell’s content management and analytics tools to strengthen your sales enablement. Trustmary helps you collect and manage reviews, while Showell ensures you can easily personalize, share, and track sales content to build trust and close deals efficiently.
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