Why mining existing reviews comes first
Your customers may have already given you dozens of testimonials without being asked. They wrote reviews on G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, Google, the App Store and Google Play, praised you in Reddit threads and on LinkedIn, and left comments in NPS surveys and support tickets. These reviews were written for other buyers, so they often contain exactly what a testimonial needs: a problem, a result and a reason to choose you.
Starting with existing reviews has three benefits. You get usable quotes immediately. You learn which themes are already well covered. And you see the gaps, for example no quotes about setup time or nothing from engineering leads, which tells you precisely whom to ask and what to ask about.
Our review aggregator pulls those public reviews into one register so you can read and score them in one place. For a broader view on sources, see our customer testimonials guide.
When to ask for a testimonial
Timing matters more than wording. Ask right after the customer has felt the value, while the feeling is fresh.
- Right after a measurable win, such as a goal reached, a report delivered or a project shipped
- After a support ticket closes with a thank you
- When a customer renews or upgrades, which is a clear signal of satisfaction
- After a positive NPS score, typically 9 or 10
- At the end of onboarding, if the customer reached their first result quickly
- After a customer mentions you positively in public, when a short follow up can turn a post into a testimonial
Avoid asking during an open issue, right after a price change or in the middle of a busy season for the customer.
Channels for requesting testimonials
| Channel | Best for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Most requests | Short, personal, sent by the person the customer knows | |
| In app prompt | Product led tools | Trigger after a success moment, keep it skippable |
| NPS follow up | Promoters | Ask permission to use their comment, or invite a public review |
| Support follow up | Thankful customers | Sent by the agent who helped |
| Account review call | Larger accounts | Ask at the end, then follow up in writing |
| Review site invitation | Public proof | Link directly to your profile on G2, Capterra, Trustpilot or Google |
Email templates for requesting testimonials
Adapt these to your voice. Brackets show what to fill in. Keep the email short and personal, and send it from a person, not a no reply address.
After a win
Subject: [First name], quick favor about [result]
Hi [First name], congratulations on [specific result]. Would you be willing to share two or three sentences about what changed for [company] since you started using [product]? A good answer usually covers what you were doing before, what is different now and how long it took. If you prefer, you can post it as a review on [review site] here: [link]. Thanks, [Your name]
After a support case
Subject: Glad we could help with [issue]
Hi [First name], thanks for your kind words about [agent or team]. Would you mind if we shared your comment, "[their exact words]", on our site with your name and role? If you would rather we used only your first name, just say so. Thanks, [Your name]
For NPS promoters
Subject: Thank you for the [score]
Hi [First name], thank you for rating us [score]. You mentioned "[their exact comment]". Could we quote that on our website, with your name, role and company? And if you have a minute, a review on [review site] helps other teams like yours: [link]. Thanks, [Your name]
Gentle reminder
Subject: Re [original subject]
Hi [First name], just bringing this back up in case it got buried. No pressure at all. [Your name]
Send one reminder at most, a few working days later. If there is no answer, let it go.
Questions that produce specific answers
Open requests like "Could you write a testimonial" produce polite, generic text. Specific questions produce specific quotes.
- What were you doing before you used [product], and what was frustrating about it
- What made you choose [product] over other options
- What result have you seen, and how long did it take
- What would you tell someone in your role who is considering it
- Was there anything you were worried about before you started, and how did it turn out
Ask two or three of these, not all five. Our customer testimonial examples article shows the 25 shapes strong answers usually take.
Make it easy to say yes
- Keep the request under 100 words
- Offer a choice: reply by email, fill a short form or post a public review
- Ask for permission before publishing, and confirm how their name and role will appear
- Never edit their words beyond trimming, and mark any trim with an ellipsis
- Send them the final version before it goes live if you shortened it
- Thank them afterwards, and show them where the quote appears
What to do with the answers
Every reply is raw material, not a finished testimonial. Read it, find the strongest sentence and check that it still makes sense on its own. If the customer wrote a long paragraph, you may shorten it, but mark the cut with an ellipsis and keep the meaning. If a reply is vague, a short follow up question such as "What changed for you after the first month" often turns it into something specific.
Store every answer with the date, the permission the customer gave and how they want to be named. When someone leaves the company or asks you to remove their quote, you need to find it quickly and take it down everywhere it appears. Tag each quote by the job it does, such as setup, results, support or value, so you can match it to the right page later.
- Keep the exact words and the permission in one place
- Tag by use case and persona
- Know where each quote is published
Incentives and disclosures
Incentives are a sensitive area. Offering something in exchange for a review creates a material connection, and in the United States the FTC expects such connections to be clearly disclosed. Offering a reward only for positive reviews is prohibited under the FTC rule on consumer reviews and testimonials. Many review sites also ban or restrict incentives in their own terms. The safest approach is to ask without rewards, or, if you offer a thank you, offer it for any honest review and disclose it. Our article on using online reviews as testimonials explains the rules in more detail.
Turn requesting testimonials into a habit
The teams with the best proof do not run testimonial campaigns. They ask a little, all the time. Add a request to your success playbooks, to your NPS follow up and to your support closing message. Review incoming answers and new public reviews weekly, and route the best ones to the pages that need them. Our guide on website testimonials shows where each kind of quote belongs.
Start from what customers already said
TestimonialScraper reads public reviews from 12+ sources and the imports you are entitled to use, such as your NPS exports, support ticket exports and form answers. It removes duplicates, scores every quote and tags it by use case and persona, so you see at a glance which themes are strong and which gaps are worth a request. You can also collect testimonials with your own form and keep them in the same register.