When my co-founder Wilson first created Senja it was because he wanted a simple way to collect and share testimonials on his current project. He found existing solutions slow, ugly and expensive, and Senja was born.

As we approach our first year, we're still using our own tool to collect testimonials, this time for Senja itself. So if you're struggling to collect testimonials or just want an inside look in how self-proclaimed experts do it, read on.

You can also read how 13 indie makers collect testimonials.

Where we collect testimonials

In our chatbot 💬

For us, this is probably the best place to collect testimonials. Our chatbot leads to good (and occasionally bad) customer interactions. Once the customer says thank you for the support, we point them to our testimonial collection form and ask them to left a testimonial.

The key here is that it's an active request after a good interaction.

In our email signature 📧

Me and Wilson both have a link to leave a testimonial in our email signatures, which generates the occasional testimonial without any ongoing work.

However, just like with the Senja chatbot, if we have a positive interaction with a user or customer over email, we ask them to leave a testimonial in the email itself.

In our Twitter DMs 🐦

We're lucky enough to receive compliments from followers and users on our social channels, particularly Twitter (me, Wilson). We usually follow up on these with a request to leave a testimonial.

In our customer community

We have a private Slack community for our customers and advocates. They can use it to share ideas, report bugs, and see early product changes. We can also ask members of this community to leave us a testimonial. Plus we created a channel where founders can solicit a testimonial from other founders.

How we collect testimonials

We use some of Senja's advanced collection features to improve the quality of our testimonials

With multiple forms

We use Senja to create multiple testimonial collection forms. This allows us to collect customer testimonials focused on different things - like our pricing, customer support, tips for getting started, or product. We can also use forms to collect only text or video testimonials.

Here's some of of the forms we currently use:

A standard form for existing customers
A form that asks customers how they're using Senja - a more traditional testimonial collection form.

A form for our onboarding flow
A form that asks customers for their top tip getting started with Senja. We can share the results with new sign ups, so they get to success more quickly.

An incentivised form
A form that asks for a testimonial in return for a 10% discount on Senja for the first month or year.

A form collecting video testimonials only
A form that asks customers to leave a video testimonial, without a text option. This allows us to create an embed of video testimonials on our landing page.