The best sales rep in your business isn’t an employee or internal shareholder. It’s your clients and customers. 

We all know that trust sells, and the more of it you can build between you and your audience, the more likely someone is to turn into a paying client or customer. To build that trust, it helps to understand the concept of social proof.

Social proof essentially means that people copy the actions of others. While we’re not trying to turn all our clients or customers into lemmings, we do want to show them that others have taken action and had great results.

Testimonials and reviews are the strongest forms of social proof for a business — and one could argue a non-negotiable element of running a business. 49% of people have reported that they trust reviews as much as personal recommendations, which means you want to be sharing accounts of happy customers/clients wherever you can.

But that means you have to ask for testimonials. *Gulp*

I get it. You don’t want to come across as “pushy” and risk losing the human connection you’ve built with your audience. You also don’t want to open a can of worms and get some unwanted negative feedback either. 

However, avoiding people completely after you’ve closed the sale or offboarded their project isn’t the way to build a happy client base with strong social proof. Here’s my advice for confidently asking for testimonials, so you can show other people just how awesome it is to work with you.

 Create surveys

Surveys are a great way to gather feedback in a way that feels constructive to the client. Making people feel like what they have to say is valuable gives them a reason to respond. Surveys can be sent out to your email list and can be hosted in a program like Google Forms, which is free to use. 

Worried nobody will submit a response? Incentive your surveys by offering a giveaway for a randomly selected survey respondent, or even offering a $5 Starbucks gift card for the first 10 people who reply to the survey.

Here are a few examples of what you could include. 

Questions for a service-based business survey:

• Before we worked together, what challenges were you experiencing?
• What have you been able to accomplish since we started working together? What outcomes could you attribute to our work together?
• What did you like best about working together?
• What could we have done differently?
• May we share some of what you’ve said as a testimonial for future marketing materials?
• Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Group programs survey questions:

• How did you feel about __(your business)__ before starting the program?
• What specific challenges were you facing?
• How do you feel now?
• What doors has this program opened? What possibilities have you uncovered by participating in this program?
• What was your favorite part of the experience?
• Did you enjoy ___(specific program feature)___?
• What could we have improved on?

Product seller survey questions:

• What problems were you experiencing before discovering our product?
• How long were you searching for a solution? 
• How did you discover our product?
• What stood out to you about our product over other options?
• Did our product perform as expected?
• Would you recommend this product to a friend? Why or why not?
• Was there anything we could have done better?

Ask a client/customer directly 

While surveys are great for a large customer base or when using automated testimonial requests via email, there are times you may want a more personal quote response. 

Giving a past customer or client space for an open-ended response helps you get closer to the root reason they did or did not enjoy working with you. (I know it can be scary to get negative feedback, but sometimes it’s actually very helpful to hear what you can improve.) Future clients are better able to picture themselves in the speaker’s shoes, which helps lead them closer to action. 

Here’s the swipe copy I’ve used when asking for a quote-style testimonial:

Hey _(first name)_, We’re gearing up for a new ___(product launch / restock)___ and would love to feature you as one of our case studies. Would you be willing to provide a brief quote about what you loved about our product and working with us? It will help us out a lot! Thanks!

Post online reviews

Online reviews aren’t just for restaurants anymore. People often turn to these reviews to see what people, unprompted by the company they’re talking about, have to say. 

In your online advertising efforts, whether that be on social media, email, or your website, let your customers know you appreciate their feedback and provide links to the review section of Google, Facebook, Yelp, Houzz, and others. 

You can also reach out to anyone who has already left a review on these platforms and ask them to copy/paste it to another!

Here’s an example of the swipe copy we use when asking for online reviews: 

Hey _(first name)_, we really loved working with you and making your vision come to life! As a small business, reviews really help us get in front of more potential clients. It’d mean the world to us if you could leave us a Google review or Facebook review [link to your page] about why you chose to work with us and how we helped you.

Request social media shares

Receiving testimonials on social media gets you organic feedback that doesn’t require much effort on your end. It’s a quick and easy method to continue to connect with your audience and allow the feedback to speak for itself!

Asking customers to pump up your product on social media can be a valuable marketing tool. It can be as simple as posting a photo of your product and asking customers to caption it with what they loved, or by asking for a positive review on your Stories. If you’re a service-based business owner, ask clients to share the end result of your work together on Stories, in a post, etc.

Host interviews

If you have a customer who had a particularly fantastic transformation, you may want to request a video testimonial. 

A quick 30-second video can be quite impactful for helping future customers visualize working with you. My favorite tool is boast.io, which allows customers to record right from their phone or schedule a Zoom meeting. 

You can also host a 1:1 meeting where you ask questions and record everything. I’ve seen people ask for this as part of their offboarding process, and I’ve also seen people incentivize this by offering a free 30-minute strategy session in exchange for the client’s time. Whatever works for you!

Here are some questions we like to ask during your 1:1 interview or video testimonial request:

• What made you decide to buy __(your product/service)__? 
• How has purchasing __(your product/service)__ improved your life/business/etc.? 
• What was the best part of __(your product/service)__?
• Who would you recommend this program/product to? 
• What impressed you the most?

Timing is everything for testimonials

Testimonials are a powerful tool for helping potential clients or customers decide to work with you. Whether written or used as a video, you want to make sure you’re collecting them the right way.

Ask during your off-boarding process.

Timing is key when asking for testimonials. Your offboarding process is a great opportunity to ask for feedback.

Hey _(first name)_,

First of all, thank you so much for trusting us with _____ and helping you get _____ out into the world. We’re so excited about how it all came together and turned out, and I know there’s so much more room for growth!

It’s officially time to wrap up our project. 🙌

We _____ (details about how you’ve wrapped up your side, any outstanding items that need to be addressed). If you need any support with ___ or ____ in the future, we’d be so happy to work together again! 🙂 

Lastly, can we ask you for a favor?

Can you answer these 4 questions about your experience working with us?

It helps us improve for the future and create testimonials to share on our website. 🙂 

Thank you again, and can’t wait to see where it all goes!

It’s OK to edit testimonials you receive

Generally, it’s OK to edit any testimonials you receive for superficial purposes (fixing spelling errors or clarifying, like replacing “she” with your business name). However, if you want to make more significant edits, we recommend you make the corrections and then email them to your customer for approval before going live with it. 

Ask for a photo

The more personal and visual the better. Adding a photo to testimonials gives an extra personal touch to the words they read. They make testimonials more impactful because there is a face to the name behind the screen. If you’re working with business owners, you can even incentivize them with a link back to their website. The more proof, the better!

Grab organic feedback 

Sometimes a testimonial organically happens when a customer sends you a direct message (DM), an email, or tags you in a comment on social media. Screenshot them and save them in a folder for later! Just make sure to get their permission to use it and ask if you can include their name and photo as well.

Automate, automate, automate! 

Whether you set a recurring reminder task in Asana to ask for testimonials every quarter or set up a review funnel in your email management system—the name of the game is automation! You want testimonials at the ready when you need them, with less work on your end. 

Need a system to get you started with testimonials?

If you couldn’t tell, I’m a big fan of automations. Automations are necessary to run an efficient business, from your social media content all the way down to how you ask for testimonials. 

But getting those systems set up? Easier said than done.

Leaving these processes to chance is like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what will stick — messy and inefficient. You don’t have to figure it out as you go like you’ve always done (and I’m willing to bet it’s become a little tiresome, hasn’t it?)

Whenever we work this way, no matter what type of project or system it may be, we leave the door open for mistakes and let those small, but important, details slip through the cracks. 

Knowing how to use your project management tools to set up automation is crucial — that’s why I’ve created a resource just for you that can help you set up those automation and task lists with ease. 

The Getting Started in Asana Kit gives you everything you need to get started in the best project management tool out there. Inside, you’ll get tutorials to show you how to use the tried and true templates that I use with my own team every single day, which includes templates for keeping track of notes, tasks, ideas, meetings, resources, leads, and inquiries, and more!

If automation is your thing but you need a little push to make it happen in your own business, snag The Getting Started in Asana Kit here!