The Step-by-Step Guide to Get Your First Testimonials (With Examples!)

Testimonials and reviews help customers find your business. Once you have a few testimonials or reviews, it’s easier to get more, but getting your first testimonials can be a challenge. Let’s take a look at how new businesses can get their first testimonials, step by step.

How to Get Your First Testimonials (Step by Step)

You’ve opened your business, started working with your first clients or customers, and you’re wondering how to branch out. Since your business is new, new customers might not be sure if they can trust you, or might not be sure if your business is right for them. Whether you’re running a new online business, a small brick-and-mortar business, a large factory, an upscale service enterprise, or something else, trust is essential. To get your first testimonials, it’s helpful to have a plan. Let’s take a closer look, using fictional examples of business owners.

Beta Testers

Not all businesses will be able to bring in beta testers to get their first testimonials, but a few will. If you’re selling a particular product, a software platform, or something similar, your first testers may also be your best first reviewers. As you ask your beta testers about your product, how you can improve, what they enjoyed, and other questions, ask if they would consider writing a review or testimonial.

Example Testimonial Request from Beta Testers

Ada has developed a software program to make small-business billing and bookkeeping easier than ever. As she’s perfecting her product, she’s worked with a small group of business owners, and integrated their feedback into her platform. As she gets ready to launch her software product publicly, she makes an announcement to her beta testers. She thanks them for their help, rewards them with free access to the platform, and asks for their support to help her product grow. She sends the following message to her beta testers:

“Hello everyone!

I can’t thank you all enough for your feedback over the last few months; you’ve helped to make Best Bookkeeper the absolute best it can be! I’m excited to announce that we’re ready to release Best Bookkeeper to the public! You can continue to use Best Bookkeeper as normal, and please keep providing feedback, so we can keep improving.

To help with our upcoming launch, we’d love to get your review of the product, so others can see what we’re about! If you could submit your testimonial, this would be a huge help in growing Best Bookkeeper. Use the form at this link and you can submit a testimonial in less than a minute by text or video!

Thank you all so much for your help!

Cheers,

Ada”

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Grand Opening

A grand business opening is another great way to get your first testimonials. This is an especially helpful strategy for brick-and-mortar businesses, but online businesses might also host a grand opening remotely using an online chat session or online conferencing tool.

At your grand opening event, harness the enthusiasm and excitement around your new business, and ask your first customers to submit their reviews or testimonials. You might do this using a tablet in kiosk-mode at your physical location. Or, you might set up a landing page on your website where your first customers can submit their reviews.

The following example shows how you might go about this in your store. Keep in mind that incentivizing reviews with free samples, coupons, or similar gifts isn’t allowed by most third-party sites, but it’s a great way to collect reviews on your own website or online store.

Example Testimonial Request at a Grand Opening Event

Hasan has just opened his soap store on a busy downtown street. After informing local media of his grand opening event, showcasing the event on social media, and informing all of his followers through his newsletter, the grand opening is busy, with customers coming in all afternoon. During the event, he approaches customers to provide free samples, and encourages them to try his soap. When customers remark about how good their skin feels and how good the soap smells, he asks them if they’d be willing to tell others about the soap, in exchange for a coupon. With a kiosk set up, he uses the following to ask for reviews:

“I’m so glad you like it! Our soap is different from others; it doesn’t dry out your skin, and it’s scented with all-natural essential oils. Would you share your thoughts in our reviews? This would really help other customers find us. It takes less than a minute, and you’ll get a free coupon!”

Talk to Your Best Customers

Within your first few weeks of opening, it will probably be clear who your best customers are. You might find this from simply seeing some customers more than others in your store, looking at your online sales and seeing who your top buyers are, seeing who interacts with your brand most on social media, or some other way. These customers are likely to be your top supporters as well as your top customers. They’re also likely to provide positive testimonials and reviews if you ask them.

You might ask your best customers for a review or testimonial online or in-person in your store. It’s helpful to have a link or QR code a customer can use, so they can easily submit their review in a few clicks from their phone. In this example, let’s consider a shop owner talking to a regular customer in-person. For this example, note that it’s within the terms of use for most third-party review sites to ask for review, though generally not acceptable to provide incentives or pay for reviews.

Example Testimonial Request from a Great Customer

Chris has a coffee shop, and they see many regular customers at the same times each week. Chris has been trying to get more Google reviews for their coffeeshop so they can bring in more new visitors. When they see a friendly regular come in, they ask for a review using the following:

“It’s great to see you again! You know the coffee shop pretty well, and I was wondering if you’d share your thoughts on Google. A lot of people use Google to find new places, and having more reviews helps us get more customers. You can just use the QR code here; it takes less than a minute, and it would help out the coffee shop a lot!”

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Offer a Discount or Free Trial

Even your most supportive customers are busy, and might need some incentive to provide reviews and testimonials. A discount, free trial, gift, or something similar can help you gather more testimonials for your website or marketing materials. Keep in mind that third-party websites like Google don’t allow incentives for reviews, but these can be great to use for your own marketing campaigns, on social media, on your ecommerce site, and more.

You can offer a discount or gift in your store, through email, on social media, and other ways. In this example, our business owner will offer an incentive to customers directly, in-person.

Example Testimonial Request With a Discount

Song owns a landscaping company and, though she has many regular customers, she’s struggled to collect testimonials for her marketing materials. To try and get more testimonials for her website and brochure, she sends an email to her customers:

“Hello from Song’s Landscaping!

We’re so happy to have you as a customer! Through every season, we strive to provide the best landscaping services possible, and we hope you’ve been pleased with our work! If so, we’d love to get your feedback! Your testimonial helps other customers find us, so we can grow our business, grow our team, and provide more services.

Use the following link to submit a text or video testimonial. If you submit a testimonial, we’ll give you 20% off your next landscaping service to show our appreciation!

Cheers!

Song’s Landscaping”

Get Your First Testimonials

If you don’t have any reviews or testimonials yet, or you just have a few, try these strategies to start getting more social proof. With a landing page set up, you can gather testimonials easily on your website, or ask customers to submit testimonials to a third-party review site. With more reviews and testimonials, you can show new customers what your business is about. Start collecting testimonials on your website today with a free trial of Boast!