Sales & Conversion
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
So you've just finished an amazing project for a client. They're thrilled with the results, telling you how much you've helped their business. Now comes the awkward part: "Hey, would you mind writing a testimonial for me?"
I used to dread this conversation. Like most freelancers and agencies, I'd send a polite email asking for a review, maybe follow up once, and hope for the best. The response rate? Pretty terrible, honestly.
But then I accidentally stumbled upon something that changed everything. While working on a complete website revamp for a Shopify e-commerce client, what started as a simple branding update turned into a lesson about automated testimonial collection that doubled my email reply rates.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience:
Why the traditional "review request" approach kills response rates
How e-commerce testimonial automation can work for any business
The exact email template that gets people replying and helping
Why being human beats being perfect every single time
When to use AI automation vs personal outreach
Let me tell you about the day I broke every "best practice" for testimonial collection and accidentally discovered what actually works.
Industry Reality
What every business owner keeps hearing about testimonials
Every marketing guru and business coach will tell you the same thing about customer testimonials: "You need them!" And they're right. Customers are 92% more likely to trust peer recommendations over advertising.
The conventional wisdom for collecting testimonials follows a predictable pattern:
Send a professional email asking for a review
Include clear instructions about what to write
Follow up politely if you don't hear back
Make it easy with direct links to review platforms
Offer incentives like discounts or gifts
There's even an entire industry of testimonial collection software built around automating this process. Tools like Senja, Testimonial.to, and Trustpilot promise to streamline everything with automated review requests, branded collection pages, and video testimonial features.
This advice exists because testimonials genuinely work for building trust and driving conversions. The social proof principle is one of the most powerful psychological triggers in marketing.
But here's where the conventional wisdom falls short: it treats testimonial collection like a transaction instead of a conversation. You're asking people to do work for you (writing a review) without addressing the real reason they don't respond - it feels impersonal and like another marketing task on their to-do list.
The result? Most businesses struggle with low response rates, generic testimonials, and frustrated clients who feel like they're being used for marketing purposes.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
OK, so here's what happened. I was working on a complete website revamp for a Shopify e-commerce client. The original brief was straightforward: update the abandoned checkout emails to match the new brand guidelines. New colors, new fonts, done.
But as I opened the old template with its product grid, discount codes, and "COMPLETE YOUR ORDER NOW" buttons, something felt off. This was exactly what every other e-commerce store was sending. Generic, corporate, forgettable.
The client mentioned something during our call that stuck with me. They said, "Our customers keep asking for help with the payment validation, especially with the double authentication. It's frustrating them and they abandon the cart."
Now, conventional testimonial wisdom would tell you to send a separate review request email weeks later. But I was looking at this abandoned cart situation and thinking - why not solve their actual problem first, then naturally lead into testimonial collection?
So instead of just updating colors, I completely reimagined the approach. I ditched the traditional e-commerce template and created a newsletter-style design that felt like a personal note. I wrote it in first person, as if the business owner was reaching out directly.
The email didn't start with "You forgot something!" Instead, it opened with "You had started your order..." - acknowledging what happened without the guilt trip.
But here's the key part: I added a troubleshooting section addressing the actual pain point:
Payment authentication timing out? Try again with your bank app already open
Card declined? Double-check your billing ZIP code matches exactly
Still having issues? Just reply to this email - I'll help you personally
That last line was the game-changer. Instead of automated testimonial requests, we turned cart abandonment into customer support.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
What happened next completely changed how I think about testimonial collection. The abandoned cart email became a customer service touchpoint, not just a sales tool.
Customers started replying to the emails asking questions. Some completed purchases after getting personalized help. Others shared specific issues we could fix site-wide. But most importantly, they felt heard and supported.
Here's the exact playbook I developed from this experience:
Step 1: Address the Real Problem First
Instead of immediately asking for testimonials, solve an actual customer pain point. In this case, payment validation issues. For service businesses, it might be implementation questions or feature confusion. The key is showing you care about their success, not just their review.
Step 2: Make It Personal, Not Corporate
I rewrote the email as if the business owner was personally reaching out. No marketing speak, no corporate templates. Just: "Hey, you started an order but didn't finish. Here's how I can help."
Step 3: Create a Support Conversation, Not a Review Request
The magic line was "Just reply to this email - I'll help you personally." This opened a dialogue instead of sending people to another platform to leave a review.
Step 4: Solve Their Issue, Then Naturally Ask
After helping them complete their purchase or solve their problem, testimonials became natural. People were already grateful and engaged. Asking for a quick testimonial felt like a normal part of the conversation, not an additional burden.
Step 5: Make the Ask Conversational
Instead of "Please leave a review on our website," I'd say something like "Your situation might help other customers - would you mind sharing how we solved this?"
The key insight was treating testimonial collection as part of customer success, not marketing. When people feel genuinely helped, they want to help you back.
Cross-Industry Learning
Taking e-commerce customer support tactics and applying them to B2B testimonial collection
Human-First Communication
Writing like a person helping another person, not a brand requesting marketing content
Problem-Solving First
Address their actual challenges before asking for anything in return
Conversational Collection
Turn testimonial requests into natural support conversations rather than formal review processes
The impact went beyond just recovered carts. Over the next few months, this approach completely transformed our testimonial collection process:
Customers started replying to emails asking questions and sharing their experiences naturally. Some completed purchases after getting personalized help. Others provided valuable feedback we could use to improve the entire customer experience.
But most importantly, the testimonials we received were authentic and detailed because they came from real conversations, not form responses. People shared specific challenges and how we solved them, which made for much more compelling social proof.
The response rate increased dramatically because we weren't asking people to do marketing work for us - we were having genuine customer support conversations that naturally led to testimonials.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from this experience:
Address problems before asking for favors - People are more willing to help when you've already helped them
Personal beats professional every time - Human communication gets better responses than corporate templates
Support conversations trump review requests - Solving issues creates natural testimonial opportunities
Cross-industry solutions often work best - E-commerce customer service tactics can improve B2B testimonial collection
Timing matters more than tactics - Ask for testimonials when people are already grateful and engaged
Authentic conversations beat automated processes - Real dialogue produces better testimonials than form submissions
Solve first, ask second - Leading with value makes every subsequent request feel natural
The biggest realization? Most businesses focus on optimizing the ask instead of optimizing the relationship. When you genuinely help people, testimonials become a natural byproduct of great customer experience.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies specifically:
Address onboarding challenges before requesting testimonials
Turn support tickets into testimonial opportunities
Use customer success conversations as natural review moments
Write testimonial requests like personal support emails, not marketing campaigns
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores:
Include support offers in abandoned cart emails
Address common customer pain points proactively
Turn customer service interactions into testimonial conversations
Make review requests feel like sharing solutions, not marketing tasks