The Definitive Testimonial Template and Step-by-Step Guide

Testimonials have been a cornerstone of marketing since… before it was even called marketing! Having an individual or organisation evangelising about your product or service can be the very thing some customers need in order to convert. Think about how you go about your internet shopping – how often do you head straight for the reviews when eyeing up something completely new?

A genuine and well-presented testimonial can be the missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to converting. Customers want to know that you can deliver on your promises and come up with the goods. For many of us, it doesn’t always matter how fancy a website is or how good someone’s product videos are – we need some evidence that someone just like us has taken the plunge and is happier for it.

The good news is, you’ve already got that resource in your locker! Even if you’re in the early stages of your business, you should have a few clients that have had a good experience (if not, maybe go back a few steps and leave testimonials for the future!).

Let your customers tell the story of your past successes for you and avoid missing out on new clients… that just needed to hear from your old ones! Demonstrate your credibility and win new business with our testimonial template.

What would testimonials like these do for your business?

Follow our Step-by-Step Testimonial Guide:

 

Step 1. Collect as much information as possible. 

If a client has already offered to give you a testimonial, this is a great place to start! Any client that has shown themselves to be happy with your work should be happy to give you a testimonial, it’s up to you to make the most of it.

Start by listing all of the relevant client details at the top of the template so you can easily identify your targets and tick them off as you go.

Arrange a call with your client (calls are always better than emails) and keep the script to hand. You’ll probably want to personalise the beginning of the call before going into the script, so that it flows naturally for you – try not to sound like an automated PPI call!

Be sure to check if the client is happy to talk, if not you can arrange another time. Better to wait for a testimonial than receive a half-hearted one from a customer in a rush. Your client is offering up their time to give this to you, so try to make everything as convenient for them as possible.

These questions have been carefully compiled in order to collect the correct information from your clients. We want to hear about the challenges your customers may have been facing and how you helped them overcome those challenges. That’s what makes a glowing testimonial.

Now you have all the information, it’s time to think about formatting it into a concise and interesting testimonial.

 

Step 2. Create a Grabbing Headline

The headline is perhaps the most essential ingredient of your testimonial soufflé. It needs to grab attention and draw new customers in. Think about the killer sentence, the standout fact. What do your potential clients need to know at a glance?

Numbers don’t lie.

Compare the testimonials below:

“When we met Alasdair, our turnover was approximately £214,000. After working with Grow, our turnover was around £608,000.”

“They are reliable and consistently excellent performers and were a joy to work with. They’re methodical, concise and imaginative.“

Which one will win more new business? The numbers win every time. It’s conclusive proof of effectiveness. Descriptive statements, however flattering, just don’t deliver the same punch.

 

Step 3: Make your Achievements Shine

Key achievements should be compiled like a modern CV, with clear bullet points.

• • Grew our list of leads by 120% resulting in £130,000 of revenue
  • Upgraded 20% of existing customers to VIP memberships (worth £25,000)
  • Lowered churn-rate by 17% month-after-month

Remember to use verbs and action phrases when composing key achievements.

Writing achievements in this way adds clarity to your testimonial and helps the reader to imagine themselves achieving all those juicy milestones too.

To add further credibility, use a quote from your customer which highlights how you’ve changed their business or why they chose you over a competitor.

“We enjoyed working with Grow because Alasdair is very good at what he does. He really understands small businesses. He is practical, he practices what he preaches. He’s very clear, very supportive and he is a very nice guy. I also liked that the fact that we could go to him and bounce ideas. Alasdair understands the big picture and his advice goes beyond marketing.”

 

Step 4: Highlight Customer Pain Points

It’s good practice to outline the key challenges clients faced before they found you. It helps to strike a chord with potential customers. If they see that you’ve already solved their problem for somebody else, half the battle is won.

Remember to follow the general-to-specific approach when writing up your case studies.

Presenting the facts generally, before following up with specifics, makes the information easier to digest. For your testimonials, start by outlining the business challenge in a general sense before going into more detail about what actually caused a problem for your customer.

For example:

Many businesses struggle to identify actionable metrics in their data, which leads to making unverified assumptions about their new product and target market.

Follow with specifics:

“Company A was using basic analytics software which told them nothing about who was coming to their site and whether they were a good fit for their product. They suffered by investing a lot of money into pop-ups, tracking pixels and retargeting to capture visitors who left their website before viewing even 2 pages.

 

Step 5: Time to Show Off

This is where you can really strut your stuff.

Talk about the specific actions you took whilst working with your customer.

Did you create a 30-point action plan? A marketing strategy? Did you use and implement new tools? Bring in new staff or introduce new processes?

Specify exactly what you did and close out with how your approach and actions could help businesses with the same problems.

 

Grow’s Testimonial Template

This is the testimonial template we use to get testimonials like the ones above. The recommendations we’ve received have helped hundreds more find us and do business with us.

Don’t be surprised if you amass a lot of information. To speed up the process, follow our step-by-step guide when collecting & writing up your testimonials.

About the client
Company:
Contact name:
Job Title:
Best telephone number to call:
Email:
Website:
Date called:
What is the nature of the work you have done with this company?

Script – Introduction
Hello, my name is (NAME) and I work at (COMPANY NAME) I know you worked with us on/used our (WORK/PROJECT/PROGRAMME/SOFTWARE) I’d love to get some feedback about our work together/our product and services. Can I ask you a few questions over the phone? It’ll just take about 10 minutes of your time.
A. Yes. Continue to the question below	B. No Ask your client when would be a good time to arrange a new date to talk NEW DATE:

Script – Questions
1. What were the key challenges you were facing that led to us working together/you choosing our solution
Answer: Notes: *Make sure that your client clearly explains how these problems were holding them back from achieving their business goals *Ask how long they faced the challenges for and find out what other solutions they tried

2. In what ways did these challenges impact your business?

Answer:

3. Was there any particular reason you choose to work with us?

Answer:

4. How did our work together/product or service address your business challenges?

Answer:

5. What did you most enjoy about working with us/using our product or service?

Answer:

6. What are the measurable or tangible results in your business after our work together/after using our product/service?

Answer: Notes: *Refer back to the original challenges they had in question 1 if relevant *Ask them to share any tangible figure or percentage increase to illustrate the results achieved such us; increase in sales, increase in profits, money saved, increase in market share, more enquiries, reduced costs, improved productivity, reduction in a specific challenge, etc *Ask for approximate figures if the person cannot give you exact figures. In the case study, you can say that the figures are approximate.

7. Are there any areas where we could improve?

Answer:

8. Thanks for taking the time to talk and for your feedback, it’s been really helpful. We sometimes feature customer’s feedback in our marketing materials and our website. Would you be okay with that – we’ll obviously share what we’ve written with you before.
Yes Date:	No Date:
If Yes to allowing feedback to be used in marketing:	If No to allowing feedback to be used in marketing:
Thank for your time. Your feedback is really helpful. I will put something together for you and send it to you by email. Is that okay?	Thank for your time. Your feedback is really valuable, and I’ll make sure to share what you’ve said with (NAME) *If there are any issues that need to be addressed after the call, the relevant person can contact the client

9. FORMATTING AND WRITING THE CASE STUDY:

Use the following format: A. What the client issues were B. What you actually did for the client/how they used your product or service C. What tangible results the client achieved by using your product or service We like the case studies from https://www.hubspot.com/customers 1. Combine the answers to create a case study using the format, A,B,C 2. Ensure that your grammar is correct and that the text reads smoothly and logically 3. When possible, use the client’s language and terminology as this gives more credibility 4. Bold sections that stand out from the case study such as result 5. Add the name of person including job title, name of business, their picture and their website 6. You can usually find the persons picture on Linkedin or by doing a Google search 7. Send your completed case study the client by email for a final review 8. Only once they approve it can you put it on your website. If they request changes you must do this and then you can resend the case study for approval