Testimonials are one of greatest forms of practice promotion, hands down! I would much rather seek out the care of another practitioner that came highly recommended than to find a random practitioner on a google search. But, there are a few things that have changed when it comes to using testimonials that I think are important.
Honestly, I am still wrapping my head around this one and have a call into our lawyer to help clarify this for me. Once I get in touch with him, I’ll post his response. In the meantime, I have included the link to the FTC’s new rulings. Have a look for yourself and PLEASE let me know what you think and understand about their new guidelines.
Thanks!
It seems that the best we can do is prominently display ““These testimonials are based on the experiences of a few people and you are not likely to have similar results.” – or something similar. But they sure did leave it vague… in the end, they would have to prove that we were trying to be deceptive. While we aren’t likely (at all!) to conduct “reliable empirical testing demonstrating that the net impression of its advertisement”, if we are providing reasonable efforts to tell consumers that they are not likely to have similar results – seems like we have met the intent of the legislation. But having said that, I eagerly await hearing what your lawyer has to say as I am not a lawyer… and
DISCLAIMER: I don’t deliver the typical results that you would obtain with a lawyer!
Thanks for keeping us informed!