61 questions, 12 trades
“How was your experience?” is why your testimonials all say “great”
A vague question gets a compliment. A specific one gets a sentence somebody deciding whether to hire you would actually read. Here are the ones worth asking, by trade, ready to copy into your form.
Three rules run through all of these. Ask about the situation before the result, because a situation ages well and a feature does not. Ask one question that invites a criticism, because a page with no reservation anywhere on it reads as untrue. And ask what they would say to somebody else deciding — which is the sentence you are actually collecting.
Agencies
Agency testimonials fail in two directions at once: a client who can say nothing specific gives you “great to work with”, and a client who can say something specific gives you a figure their legal team will later ask you to remove.
- What were you trying to fix when you came to us?
- What had you already tried?
- What was the first thing that changed?
- What is it like working with us week to week?
- What would you say to somebody weighing us up against another agency?
- Is there anything you would want us to do differently?
SaaS
Most SaaS testimonials are about features, and features are the part of a product with the shortest life. The ones that keep working are about the problem the customer had — which does not change when you redesign the settings page.
- What were you using before, and what made you stop?
- What was the moment you knew this was going to work?
- What does your week look like now that it did not before?
- Who else on your team uses it, and for what?
- What nearly stopped you signing up?
- What would you tell somebody comparing us with the obvious alternative?
Ecommerce
A shop collects hundreds of four-word reviews and then puts all of them at the bottom of the home page, where nobody deciding anything will read them.
- What did you buy, and who was it for?
- What made you choose this one?
- How was it when it arrived?
- What would you tell somebody who is hesitating?
- Would you buy from us again — and what would you buy?
Coaches
Coaching testimonials tend towards the miraculous, and a page of miracles reads as untrue even when every word of it is true. The specific and modest ones convert better and survive scrutiny.
- Where were you when we started?
- What can you do now that you could not do then?
- What surprised you about the process?
- What was hard about it?
- Who would this not be right for?
- What would you say to somebody deciding whether to start?
Course creators
Asking everybody on the last day means asking the ten per cent who got to the last day, months after they enrolled, when the feeling has cooled.
- What made you enrol?
- What did you think this course would be, and what was it actually?
- Which part changed how you work?
- What have you made or done since?
- Who should take this, and who should not?
Freelancers
Freelancers ask late, apologetically, and in a message so long the client puts it off. Then the project recedes and the sentence never comes.
- What did you need done, and what was the state of it when we started?
- What was it like to work together?
- What did I do that somebody else might not have?
- Was there anything you were unsure about beforehand?
- Would you recommend me, and what for?
Newsletters
Newsletter operators try to embed a widget in an email, discover it does not work, and end up pasting a grey screenshot of a tweet.
- What made you subscribe?
- Which issue do you still think about?
- What have you done differently because of something you read here?
- Who do you forward it to?
- How would you describe it to them?
Communities
Community operators either never ask, or quietly screenshot a member's message and publish it. The second one is the reason members stop speaking freely.
- What made you join?
- What has this community given you that you did not expect?
- Who have you met here?
- What would you tell somebody deciding whether to join?
- What is it not?
Real estate agents
Property testimonials are almost all outcome claims. Publishing them as written is normal in the trade and is exactly what an advertising regulator, or a disappointed seller, would point at later.
- What were you most worried about when you decided to sell?
- What did we do that you were not expecting?
- How did the process feel at the difficult moments?
- What would you tell somebody choosing an agent?
- Is there anything you would want us to do differently?
Sales teams
Most testimonial tools give a team one wall. A rep on a call needs one testimonial, from a company in the prospect's own trade, as a link they can paste.
- What were you evaluating us against?
- What did your team need to be convinced of?
- What did the rollout actually look like?
- What would have happened if you had done nothing?
- What would you tell a peer at another company who asked?
Creators
Creators have more genuine praise than any other trade on this list and the least of it published, because it arrives as comments, replies and DMs and never goes anywhere.
- How did you find my work?
- What did it change for you?
- Which piece do you come back to?
- What would you say to somebody who has not seen it?
Trades and home services
Home-services reviews are collected weeks later by text, from a customer who has moved on, and the answer is “all good, thanks”.
- What was the problem when you called us?
- How quickly did we get to you?
- How did we leave the place?
- What would you tell a neighbour who needed the same job?
Put them in a form and send it
One link, a customer who writes for a minute, and their words arrive with the permission attached.
Start collecting