My template for customer testimonial interviews
The exact format and questions I ask
Alrighty, follow these steps and you’ll have a superb customer testimonial that can be turned into pull out quotes, PDFs, success stories, whatever you want.
Step 1: Internal knowledge dump
Fill out as much information as possible about the customer before reaching out to them/conducting the interview. If you have a customer success manager, definitely go through this with them, and really dig deep into the “have they said passing comments in meetings” that we should remind them of and get official quotes for.
When did we start working with them and why did they sign up
Major projects (e.g. onboarding users)
What was the original brief
What were the original goal and metrics
What was the end result (qualitative and quantitative)
Did anything happen during the duration of the project, e.g.
Unexpected challenges + how they were overcome
Changes to brief/scope/team
Anecdotes, comments during meetings or in emails, or other positive messages from the customer
Basic customer info gathering (for convenience when putting end result together)
Customer full name + job title + headshot (if required)
Customer website URL
Logo
PR and approvals contact info (who to CC) and process
Step 2: What is our goal for the testimonial
What do we want to highlight of our own work, and why this customer? E.g. could be a technical showcase, creative, collaboration, communication, etc. What part of our work do we want to highlight? Are we highlighting this customer because we want more customers similar to this one?
What do we want this testimonial to do? E.g. attract more inquiries/customers, in which case, consider on-page CTAs and what format the final case study will take.
From here you can plan out what materials you’ll need to make after the interview, such as if you need to change anything on the website (like featured content on the home page or something like that).
Step 3: Question prep + outreach
Contact customer via email to request an interview and send the question in advance so they can prepare. I used to have a copy/paste email I sent out that was pretty generic. It went along the lines of “we’ve seen how well you’re using our product and want to highlight your success so that other customers can be inspired by the way you use it/the results you’ve gotten”. Flattery goes a long way.
Questions:
In your own words, introduce yourself and what you do, and what [company name] does.
Follow up questions could include things like “you recently went through a digital transformation/restructure/new team/other - could you tell me about that?”
Make sure you get them to tell you what their personal KPIs/metrics are
Can you tell me a bit about how the need for a [generic category that your solution fits into] came up internally? What was the challenge you were trying to overcome that made you initially start searching for a solution?
This is more of a narrative question - get the emotions
Try to get a really good “before” out of them here
What was the outcome you were hoping to achieve?
This is more of a metrics question - get the quantitative answers
What made us the right solution for you?
How has your day-to-day changed since using our solution?
You want to get as much of a high contrast before/after here. Before your solution, their day-to-day was hard, after, it’s easy.
What have been the results since implementing our solution? What has changed or improved?
If any, do you have future goals for improvements you’d like to work towards?
After the before/after, it’s nice to have a future looking piece that can help you sell “we’re a long term solution, with constant improvements, so you can use us for a long time”
Is there anything else you’d like to mention that we haven’t covered?
This is potentially the most important question, always ask it
Step 4: Conduct the interview
Here are some basic interview tips which I have shared in Mehdeeka before;
You, as the interviewer, should not do a lot of the talking. If you find yourself talking a lot, stop and let the interviewee speak. If you find yourself explaining or clarifying your questions, stop and think and clarify in your head before you speak (and then prep your questions better next time). You’re interviewing customers to get as much value out of them as possible, so give them the floor to speak (and respect their time by not wasting it).
Be ok with silence. Let your interviewee take time to think about their answer if they want to. After your interviewee has ‘answered’ your question, give them 10 seconds of space before you start speaking and ask the next question - the silence might prompt them to offer a longer or more in-depth answer.
Do not be afraid to circle back to previous topics, ask for more detail on an answer, or ask a question you hadn’t planned because the interviewee brought up something you didn’t expect. Likewise, don’t be afraid to bring them back to centre if they start going on tangents.
At the end of the interview, thank them for their time and let them know next steps, e.g. it’ll take 1-2 weeks to do the write up, they’ll get a draft and have the chance to make any requests or changes, and then will be sent the final version for approval before it gets published. Also tell them where you plan on using it e.g. it’ll be published on the website, available as a pdf, may be used in emails, and posted on social media (this covers most bases).
Make sure you record the interview. Both audio and video is best (in person or over zoom), but get at least audio if video isn’t possible.
Step 5: Proper documentation
Store the recording of the meeting somewhere secure where it won’t get deleted, as well as a word-for-word transcription of the call. This will be something you refer back to many times, so don’t skip this step.
Next, find the narrative you’re looking to tell, and pull out information from Step 1 and quotes from the interview that will form the basis of the information and emotional elements of the narrative.
Write your draft, and send to client for changes/approval.
Remember that there might be a great quote which doesn’t fit into the narrative well, but you want to use anyway - this could be used elsewhere on the website, e.g. a testimonial quote on the home page that links to the testimonial page, or as a pull-out or hero quote on the page separate from the narrative/body text. Make sure you also send this for approval.
You may want to screenshot the email with the approval in it and store it with the transcript for future reference.
And now, here’s some examples of great customer testimonials!
Dovetail - Safety Culture good layout of the before/after
Perkbox - HOYTS short and sweet narrative
Propeller Aero - Sukut (I can’t link directly to the video I want, you have to scroll down a bit, but this one is 10/10 for the high contrast before/after)