6 steps to creating testimonials that drive sales

When you get on a website and read a wall of customer testimonials that gush with nothing but praise, it’s not surprising if your first reactions are skepticism or suspicion.

It also wouldn’t be surprising if you went and looked for a more ‘real’ opinion elsewhere—let's be honest: most testimonials suck, and we’ve all learned to sniff out the insincerity from a mile away.

In this piece, we look at how to create good testimonials: the kind that are real, honest, useful, and help build trust by addressing a customer’s objections and fears head-on. We look at examples from brands that do it well, share the story of how we created our own testimonial page, and give you a 6-step framework that you can follow to create testimonials for your own company.

What is a customer testimonial?

A testimonial is a written or spoken account of a customer’s firsthand positive experience with a product, service, or company.

Testimonials can be used as a form of social proof and as evidence that a company is dependable and its products or services valuable. A testimonial page, in its most basic form, is a repository of user testimonials.

How customer testimonials help your business

If you have a business you want to grow, gathering and displaying quality testimonials makes it easier for you to

• Give prospective customers peace of mind: good testimonials are proof that people have tried your products and approve of them. In turn, seeing other customers state “I’ve tried this and it works” can help your prospects feel reassured that they’re making the right choice, too.

• Answer your prospects’ objections: every purchase involves some risk, and valuable testimonials walk the prospective buyer through the initial objections, fears, and emotional ups and downs your existing customers also experienced, and show how they found a solution in your product.

• Find and leverage your unique selling points (USPs): you probably have some assumptions about what makes your products special, but your customers might see things differently. When you ask them what they like about your products or services, you’ll discover what makes you unique from their perspective, and you’ll know to focus on these USPs in your messaging.

• Attract targeted customers: when you know what customer and user personas you want to attract, showing testimonials of people who fit the same demographics and psychographic profile might make your prospective users think "Yes, I'm definitely in the right place."

12 examples of testimonials and testimonial pages that work

So what do effective testimonials and testimonial pages look like? The 12 companies spotlighted below use targeted testimonials that address concerns, tell effective stories, and feature a before-and-after approach to demonstrate their problem-solving powers. When planning your testimonials page, follow their creative lead.

1. Basecamp

Basecamp’s page offers a sea of testimonials that display specific ways users’ lives have improved since they switched to the project management software.

2. Monday.com

Monday designed a minimal customer stories page that is searchable by keyword or category. The page features a wide variety of compelling stories, useful headlines and use cases.

3. EHarmony

EHarmony’s testimonial page features real couples who found love and tied the knot, complete with their ‘I do’ dates. From biracial couples to those of different sexual orientations, it showcases love in all its forms, helping potential customers see that a lasting connection is possible for them too.

4. 5000bc

The testimonials page for the online community run by Sean D’Souza (you'll read more about him in a few paragraphs) naturally follows his own advice: pull quotes, clear before-and-after stories, and prominently featured customer objections.

5. Wix

Wix features colorful pictures and case studies that tell a clear story of how each company used the Wix website-building tool to achieve their business goals.

6. Slack

Slack uses high-profile clients for testimonials and case studies to tell compelling stories about the before-and-after experience of using the company’s product.

7. Contentsquare

Contentsquare’s customer stories shares outcome‑driven narratives showing how organizations across industries use Contentsquare to uncover friction, improve journeys, and drive revenue impact—from boosting conversion and reducing drop‑off to accelerating experimentation and meeting accessibility goals.

8. Twilio Segment

Twilio Segment’s customer page features case studies and testimonials that detail users' challenges and how they used the product to overcome them. Each story emphasizes the before-and-after element, with statistics and pull quotes highlighting Segment’s utility.

9. Algolia

Algolia’s case studies provide the stats upfront, with pull quotes and numbers that instantly help readers understand how customers improved their sites with their search functionality.

10. Intercom

Intercom also uses stats and storytelling to show comprehensive before-and-after pictures of how the company’s live chat solutions have solved customers’ problems.

11. Wistia

Wistia confronts common objections (like comparisons to YouTube) head-on in their testimonials. Because their product revolves around videos, the company incorporates well-made video interviews as well.

12. VoiceSage

VoiceSage’s downloadable case studies front-load the challenges the customer was experiencing and the benefits they experienced from using this communications platform.

6 steps to collect and display better testimonials

We interviewed Sean D’Souza, author of The Brain Audit, for this piece to understand his strategy for creating testimonials that work. Sean believes that the best way to create persuasive testimonials is to tap into the concerns of your potential customers, and then tell success stories that directly address those concerns and illustrate your product’s or service’s utility.

Step 1: understand your customers’ objections

Before you start collecting customer stories, remember the intended result: targeted testimonials that directly address potential customers' doubts about your product. One of the most effective methods of identifying common customer sticking points, such as price, learning curve, or product functionality, is through surveys.

There are a couple of methods for getting this information:

• Use on-site surveys to gather feedback: on-site surveys are simple, short surveys that appear after a designated trigger—for example, the user being on the page for 20 seconds or clicking on a specific button. On-site surveys are an excellent way to get targeted feedback from existing and potential customers about their decision-making process.

• Survey customers via email: If you’re looking for more in-depth answers than a poll can provide, the other option is an email survey. Email surveys give you the opportunity to complete several steps of this process at once: targeting specific users, collecting feedback on customer objections, and asking other survey questions. This is also a great potential first step for identifying future case-study participants.

🔥 Pro tip: use Contentsquare Surveys to create a multiple-choice on-site survey or easily email survey links to your customers to learn common reasons visitors did not make a purchase, and ask targeted follow-up questions depending on which answer a visitor selects. If you don’t know what questions to ask or have writer’s block, let Contentsquare’s built-in AI do the heavy lifting for you.

It generates smart questions and follow-ups based on your survey goals, so you get more out of your users’ feedback.

Contentsquare’s powerful built-in AI makes creating insightful surveys smoother and smarter

Step 2: ask the right questions (in the right order)

A good customer testimonial tells a story. Construct a narrative by asking questions that outline the customer journey, their objections, their pain points, and the positive results they experienced. Here are Sean D’Souza’s 6 questions that help you collect powerful testimonials:

1. What was the obstacle that would have prevented you from buying this product/service?

2. What did you find as a result of buying this product/service?

3. What specific feature did you like most?

4. What are some other benefits of this product/service?

5. Would you recommend this product/service? If so, why?

6. Is there anything you’d like to add?

🔥 Pro tip #1: time your ask. If you ask customers for feedback before they’ve had a chance to get to know you or use your product, the information will be too general. Give customers enough time to know your brand and your product or service before asking them to provide a testimonial.

How long you wait will vary, depending on the industry. If you’re selling a product online, such as a set of headphones, you can probably ask customers for feedback a week after delivery. If you’re a membership site, you’ll probably want to wait at least a month.

🔥 Pro tip #2: ask for feedback first. If a customer has a bad experience with your product, even if it eventually helped them, they may find it difficult to focus on the positive outcome. Ask for feedback before asking for a testimonial. Give customers a chance to complain, so you have the chance to make things right. When you come back later and ask for a testimonial, you’re more likely to get a good one.

Step 3: write your testimonials like a story

A good testimonial should read like a story with a 'before' (the problem) and an 'after' (the solution). In fact, if a testimonial does nothing beyond presenting the before and after of the customer journey, it’s done its job.

Use your customers’ words to tell a story that walks a reader through the initial objections, fears, and emotional ups and downs your customers experienced, and show how they found a solution in your product.

Some people believe that testimonials have to be short. However, in-depth analysis gives customers a chance to dive into the experience. Long testimonials can be effective even when prospects don’t read every word.

Step 4: answer potential objections head-on

Don’t avoid mentioning an objection. Every buying decision comes with some risk (even if it’s just the risk of feeling like a fool), and an effective testimonial will directly address a single, specific customer fear. The key is to acknowledge it and then explain how the customer overcame it.

Step 5: design your page for optimal engagement

If your testimonials page looks like a standard sales page, people will tune out. A few design guidelines to follow:

• Style headlines to look like headlines: a good headline should stand out, both in terms of its content (it has to be compelling) and its style (use a larger font than the body of the testimonial).

• Use pull quotes to emphasize important points: people may not read your pages word for word (they probably skim them), and pull quotes stand out. Carefully choose quotes that combat potential objections and highlight the results of your product.

• Incorporate pictures and videos: use color headshots and team photos to show page visitors who your customers really are, and consider incorporating video interviews alongside the text of your testimonials. Make your customers as real and relatable as possible.

• Make use of white space: even if you have a lot of testimonials to display, don’t crowd them together. White space is an important element of good design and makes your page easier and more pleasant to browse. The more engaging and interesting your page, the longer people are likely to keep reading it.

Step 6: boost your social proof with an abundance of testimonials

When it comes to testimonials, according to Sean, more is better. Which are you more likely to trust: a company that has one lonely testimonial, or a company with enthusiastic user experiences spilling down the page?

Social proof is a powerful part of the decision-making process, and an abundance of testimonials builds trust and credibility. No matter how persuasive your marketing copy, consumers are always going to trust other people more than they trust you.

Incorporate as many effective and persuasive testimonials as you can. If your page starts to look unwieldy, consider adding a search function so that potential customers can filter by use case or demographic to find the reviews that are most relevant to them.

Customers love honesty

The biggest mistake other companies make with their testimonials collection is that they sacrifice authenticity for positivity. Their reviews may look rosy, but they also come across as untrustworthy. Customers will respect and trust you much more if you confront their concerns head-on.