A testimonial nobody sees does nothing. Most small businesses have a phone full of kind messages from customers, sitting in a text thread, and none of them are on the website.
If you’re working out how to use customer testimonials, the short version is this. Put each one next to the decision it helps with, ask permission every time, and be straight about anything you gave in return. The rest of this article covers each of those.
Put each one next to a decision
A testimonial works when it sits where a customer is deciding. Here’s where we’d look first.
- Your website. The home page, and the service page it relates to, near the spot where a visitor decides whether to get in touch.
- Social media. A customer’s comment beside a photo of the finished job gives people something to judge you on.
- Email. A short quote in a follow-up or newsletter reminds past and undecided customers what working with you is like.
- Print. Rack cards, brochures and the folder you leave with an estimate all have room for two sentences.
- Case studies. When a job has a good story, write the longer version: the problem, what you did, and what the customer said afterward. Our client results page works that way.
- Video. A short clip of a customer talking, filmed on a phone, can beat a polished production.
Say a paving company in Easton sends an estimate for a driveway and hears nothing for a week. A follow-up email with two sentences from a homeowner whose driveway they did last year gives that person a reason to reopen the conversation.
What the testimonial says matters as much as where it sits. Say a deck builder in Newtown has two. One reads, “Great job, thanks.” The other reads, “We were told the whole deck had to come out. They replaced three boards and two posts and sent photos of the work.” The second answers the question the next homeowner is quietly asking, which is whether you’ll sell them more than they need.
You get that kind of detail by asking for it. What was going on before you called? What were you unsure about? Was anything different from what you expected? Their own words are usually better than anything you’d write for them, and writing it yourself doesn’t count.
If your website has nowhere sensible to put these, our list of what to include in a business website covers proof from customers.
Ask permission every time
We’re a marketing company, not a law firm, so treat this as good practice and not legal advice. Healthcare practices have patient privacy obligations on top of everything here, and those need your lawyer.
Get a clear yes, in writing. A reply to an email is enough of a record for most small businesses to keep. A private thank-you text isn’t an agreement to appear on your home page.
Tell them where it will appear. Their full name, or a first name and town? A photo of them, or only of the job? Some people are happy to be “Linda from Chalfont” and would rather not see a surname on a brochure.
Say what you gave in return. There are federal rules here. The FTC’s Endorsement Guides say an endorsement must reflect the honest opinion of the person giving it, and that a connection such as being paid or given something of value should usually be disclosed. So trimming a quote for length is fine if the customer sees the shorter version. Rewording it into something more flattering isn’t. If a discount or gift was involved, say so wherever the testimonial appears.
The FTC’s Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, in effect since October 21, 2024, goes further. Its questions-and-answers page says you may offer an incentive for a review, but not on the condition that the review is positive. It also says family members who write one should clearly disclose their relationship to the business.
What you can prepare: a list of each testimonial, who agreed, where it runs, and anything given in return. What a lawyer has to confirm is how those rules apply to your industry and your incentives.
Let them change their mind. If a customer asks you to take a testimonial down, take it down without a fuss. That list of where each one runs makes it easy.
Do testimonials actually work?
The best current evidence we found is about online reviews, which are close relatives. According to BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, a survey of 1,002 US adults, 97% of consumers read reviews online, and 49% trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.
Two cautions go with that. BrightLocal sells review software. And the survey measured reviews on platforms such as Google, where the customer posts and you don’t choose what appears. A testimonial is something you selected, and readers know it. We’d expect it to carry somewhat less weight than an independent review, which is one more reason to keep it specific and attributed.
Do testimonials raise the share of visitors who call or fill in a form? It’s reasonable to expect. We didn’t find a current study we could check at its source that measured it for local service businesses, so we won’t put a number on it.
What we do see is simple. Anything a company says about itself, a customer takes with some caution. What other customers say, they take more seriously. For someone weighing two estimates, a homeowner describing a job like theirs can settle a doubt you didn’t know existed.
What testimonials won’t do alone
They help someone who’s already looking at you decide to make contact. They don’t bring that person to your website. If very few people find you, more testimonials won’t fix it.
They need looking after too. In the same survey, 74% of consumers said they look for reviews written in the last three months. Testimonials age more slowly, but a comment from years ago about a service you’ve stopped offering isn’t helping anyone. Whose job is it to ask for new ones? We find the easiest moment is right after the work is done, when the customer is pleased and the details are fresh.
That part stays with you. We can help with where testimonials go and how they’re presented, including through website design. We can’t know which customer was delighted last Thursday unless you tell us.
Find the three you’d show first
This week, scroll through your texts and email and pull out the three most specific kind messages. Write to each of those customers and ask if you may use their words, and say where. It takes about half an hour and costs nothing.
Then send us what customers say about you, where those comments live now, and what work you want more of. We’ll say what we’d do with them and why. Your first consultation is free. You can get in touch here or call (215) 368-8900.