How to ask for a testimonial — templates and a generator

The reason most testimonial requests go unanswered is not that people are unwilling. It is that you have handed them a blank page and an unbounded task. Every fix below is about making the ask smaller and more specific.

The five things a request has to do

• Ask at the moment of the win, not at the end of the quarter. Response rates collapse with distance from the result.
• Name the specific thing you want them to talk about. "Anything you like" is the hardest possible brief.
• Bound the effort. "Two or three sentences" and "about two minutes" both work; "a testimonial" does not.
• Remove the blank page by including prompts or offering to draft it for them.
• Give exactly one link. Every additional option costs completions.

Offering to draft it for them

This feels uncomfortable and it roughly doubles response rates. The honest version is: you write two or three sentences based on what they have already told you, send it for approval, and make clear they should change anything that is not right in their own words. What you must never do is publish a draft they did not explicitly approve.

When to follow up

Once, about a week later, and then stop. A single gentle nudge recovers a meaningful share of non-responses — they meant to and it got buried. A second nudge converts almost nobody and costs goodwill with a customer who has already told you no by not replying.

Common questions