What is the best way to gather testimonials?

Good question!

This is one of the topics I handle in the Social Proof Handbook.

The answer depends on the kind of customer you have, the size of your company, and the kind of testimonial you need. But I'll put down a few of the important points for indie hackers/very small teams. below:

• The first thing to consider is when to get the testimonial. It varies for each product, but should be just after your customer experiences a "wow" moment (eg when they make their first $ due to using your product).

• The second thing to consider is what do you need from the customer? Just a short sentence? A sentence and a photo? Or something more like a case study? Either way, you want to do the bulk of the work and send that to the customer to approve/adapt, not make them create it from scratch. After all, when you get the testimonial, you should already have a goal/cta/customer-objection in mind for it.

• If you're working with big companies and you're worried they won't want you to display their logo/testimonial, it's possible to include a short sentence in your terms and conditions which allows you to. That way, they don't have to go get extra permission from their boss.

• Another important tip is to focus on making the testimonial mutually beneficial. If not for the customer, then at least personally for the employee you're asking for the testimonial from. It feels good (and looks good on your CV) to see a testimonial saying "after I found and implemented product X at COMPANY, our sales increased 10%!" --> That's the kind of testimonial that gets approved and shared with other potential customers...

There's a lot more that goes into putting together good testimonials - that's why I've put together the structured framework I use when consulting with startups on how to use social proof.

As an indie hacker, you probably don't need that level of depth yet (eg if you're doing <$10k MRR) but one thing is worth bearing in mind...

Testimonials might be the wrong form of social proof for your goals

Remember - there are other forms of social proof which can be more effective depending on what objection you're trying to help the customer overcome. From just showing logos to full-blown case studies, each form of social proof performs better (or worse) in different situations.

Testimonials can be great, but they aren't everything. Check out my Social Proof Gallery for a few curated examples of different kinds of social proof done well.

Good luck!

I think most people get testimonials wrong and they end up with celebrity endorsements from "celebrities" no one knows.

You'll see things like "This product is great!" or "I grew my business by Y".

First off, everyone knows that testimonials are cherry picked and your results may vary. How can you trust this person's endorsement?

If they are a celebrity, to you at least, you trust them by their reputation or the reputation of the company they work for.

If neither of those apply, then you kinda just ignore the endorsement. (Endorsements have their place though and can be valuable!)

The best actual testimonials are ones written by your peers and counter an objection you have with the product. You don't trust something that sounds like marketing.

Think about when you read reviews in Amazon, which reviews actually carry weight with you? It's not the ones that say this product is great or this product sucks.

It's the ones that talk about why the potential problem you are worried about is a big deal or not. Or they raise objections you didn't think about.

So you read more reviews and see if there's a consensus on the concerns you have, good or bad.

Good testimonials work in the same way.

The way I have found that works for me (I have a small SaaS business though so I have to be efficient) is to try to increase the number of conversations with my customers at various points in their lifecycle.

• I have follow up emails that go out when they complete my email course and after they activate to a paid account.
• I ask them why they signed up for my product when they sign up
• I ask why they canceled when they cancel
• I keep notes when I talk to them on phone or by email
• I follow up when doing customer support
• When they say something that could lead to a testimonial I ask them to tell me more

So long as you know your customers' objections pretty well then you'll recognize a lot of times you can get testimonial-like responses from them.

When you recognize them, thank them for what they said and ask if you can use it as a testimonial on your site.

You can reword what they said or write it up in a better package and ask for their approval.

@louisswiss has some more tactical advice as well as advice for other types of social proof

You can ask your customers via survey. You can try surveymonkey.com for that. If you want to publish your startup story then connect us on https://www.theproche.com/

For my testimonials, I have an Airtable form that contains some prompts and open-ended questions. I then send out a link to this in an email to users that perform specific actions in the app. For example, installed a widget or signed up for a paid plan.

You can check my user testimonial gallery here: https://snapwidget.com/customer-testimonials-reviews. I also display a banner on the homepage linking to this and prompting for testimonials. It took about 4 months, but I now have a constant stream of new testimonials that I can add. And these are all from real customers using the tool on their websites.

None of the answers here address the reality of how good testimonials in the field actually come to be, and it may be that this is just an open secret. Every good testimonial you have read was written by the vendor, sent to the customer for approval, and rubber stamped.

Hi there,

Great question!

You might want to look into Feedier. We have built an engagement feature whereby you can automate the process of getting your users to leave you feedback directly from your app (through a widget for instance), and then, based on their answer, you can automate the request of a testimonial.

Let me know! :)

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