A convincing video customer testimonial is played at the interview, not at the editing: one only mounts what has been said. This article gives you the 30 questions to ask, broken down into 5 blocks of a successful interviewthe context before, the trigger, the experience of collaboration, the concrete results and the recommendationwith, for each block, what you are looking to get and examples of good and bad answers. You will also find the recovery techniques that make an intimidated client speak (the silence, the "what is it?", the reformulation) and the three errors that kill spontaneity: send the questions word for word, script the answers, interview without the decision maker. This article is the guide to the questions to ask before turning.
A failed video customer testimonial cannot be repaired during editing. If your client hasn’t said the sentence that matters, it doesn’t exist: we only put together what has been said, and what has been said depends on one thing, the questions asked. This is where a testimony is won or lost, long before the camera turns.
Most customer interviews are short because we improvise three vague questions once the customer sits on the filming chair. He answers with polite generalities (“they are serious, listening, I recommend”) and you leave with forty minutes of unusable rushes. This guide gives you the 30 questions that make a customer speak for real, organized in five blocks, with for each block what you are looking to get, examples of good and bad answers, techniques of relaunching journalists and mistakes that sabotage everything.
Why questions make up 80% of the result
A video testimonial is not a speech that the client recites: it is a raw material that you extract during the interview and then cut during the editing. The quality of the assembly is capped by the quality of the rushes, and the quality of the rushes is capped by the quality of the questions. A good editor can tighten, rhythm, dress; he cannot invent a sentence that has never been uttered.
The stakes are far greater than production. According to Wyzowl, two out of three people say they are more likely to buy a product or service after seeing a video testimonial, and the annual edition of his study State of Video Marketing 89% of consumers say that a video has already convinced them to buy. Nielsen, in its study Trust in Advertising, confirms that the recommendation of a peer remains the form of message that inspires the most confidence, far in front of the advertising of brands. In other words: the testimony is probably the most profitable asset of your company. acquisition strategy, as long as the customer says things that carry.
The reflex to fight first: closed questions. “Are you satisfied?” calls a “yes” and nothing else. “Tell us about the day you decided to change provider” calls a story, with a setting, an issue and an emotion. The table below summarizes the toggle to operate.
| What you want to know | Closed Question (to be avoided) | Open Question (to be asked) |
|---|---|---|
| The starting situation | “Did you have problems before?” | “What did your day-to-day life look like before working with us?” |
| Satisfaction | “Are you satisfied?” | “What has changed in your organization?” |
| The results | “Have you had any results?” | “What numbers have moved since then, and by how much?” |
| The Recommendation | “Would you recommend us?” | “What would you say to someone who hesitates, as you initially hesitated?” |
This upstream work also conditions the shooting itself. Our advice on How to Turn a Video Customer Testimonial Let’s assume that the interview is prepared: light, frame and sound never catch up with a hollow background.
Block 1. Context before: setting the scene
Without a credible “before”, the “after” is worthless. This first block installs the story and puts the customer in confidence with easy questions.
What we are trying to get
A precise and somewhat painful photograph of the initial situation: the problem, what it cost in time, money or energy, and when it became unbearable. The more concrete the starting point, the more spectacular the final transformation will be. We're looking for scenes, not concepts.
- Can you introduce yourself, your company and your role, in a few words?
- What did your day-to-day life look like before working with us?
- What specific problem were you trying to solve?
- What exactly did this cost you every week or every month?
- Have you ever tried other solutions? What happened?
- Tell us about the moment you thought it couldn't go on.
- Weak answer: « We had organizational problems. » Too abstract, nothing to mount.
- The answer we keep: “Every month, two people spent three days consolidating Excel files, and we delivered our customers late.” A decor, a number, a pain: the story can begin.
Block 2. The trigger: why you, why now
This is the block that speaks most to hesitant prospects, because they are exactly where your client was before signing up.
What we are trying to get
The real mechanism of the decision: how the client found you, what they feared, what tipped the scales, and how they convinced internally. The objections he formulates are those of your future prospects: hearing them raised by a peer is worth all the commercial arguments.
- How did you discover us?
- What made you want to contact us rather than another provider?
- What were your hesitations before signing?
- What tipped the scales when deciding?
- Who else was involved in the decision, and how did you convince them internally?
- What did you fear that didn’t happen in the end?
- Weak answer: “We chose them because they were recommended.” True, but interchangeable.
- The answer we keep: “Three brothers gave us the same name. And on the first date, they challenged our brief instead of saying yes to everything: this is where we knew.” Social proof and an actionable criterion of choice.
Block 3. The Experience of Collaboration: Humanizing Evidence
Prospects don’t just buy a deliverable: they want to know who they’re going to work with for weeks or months.
What we are trying to get
Field anecdotes that embody your way of working: a well-managed step, an unexpected absorbed, a positive surprise. A moment of difficulty overcome together is more credible than a perfect unfolding No one believes in projects without a hitch. It is also the block where the know-how ofInterview Makes the difference: you have to dig into the exact scene.
- How was the start of the project?
- Describe a step where you felt you were in good hands.
- How would you describe how we work for someone who doesn’t know us?
- Was there a moment of doubt or difficulty? How was it managed together?
- What surprised you the most, well, during the project?
- How did your teams experience collaboration on a daily basis?
- Weak answer: “The team is very professional.” An adjective that everyone claims.
- The answer we keep: “When our launch was advanced by three weeks, they reorganized the entire schedule in 48 hours, without touching the budget.” Professionalism, demonstrated instead of being affirmed.
Block 4. Concrete results: the heart of the evidence
This is where we look for the numbers. If the customer hesitates, help them compare before and after rather than asking for a statistic in a vacuum.
What we are trying to get
At least one number before/after, a lead time and a human impact. An encrypted quote pronounced face camera by an executive is a sustainable business asset: it then feeds your sales pages, your VSL and your LinkedIn posts for years. If no number exists, look for the sensory comparison: what has disappeared, what has become simple.
- What was the first visible result, and after how long?
- What numbers have moved since then: turnover, lead times, conversion rates, costs, turnover?
- Can you compare your situation before and today in one sentence?
- What impact does it have on your team and your internal organization?
- Is there a result you didn’t expect that made you happy?
- What has changed for your own customers?
- Weak answer: “We saved time.” How much? About what? Unverifiable.
- The answer we keep: “Our sales cycle has gone from four months to ten weeks, and our sales reps are now opening every first appointment with video.” One number, one use, one transformation.
Block 5. The Recommendation: Write the Fall
The last block gives the conclusion of the film: a sentence that the prospect can take on his own.
What we are trying to get
A targeted recommendation, not politeness. “I recommend” says nothing. “I recommend this type of company, for this reason” allows the good prospect to recognize themselves. Question 30, deliberately opened, often delivers the best sequence of the shoot: the client says what he had prepared without being asked.
- What kind of company would you recommend to work with us?
- What would you say to someone who still hesitates, as you initially hesitated?
- If you had to sum up our collaboration in one word, which one would you choose, and why?
- What would make you work with us again tomorrow?
- Would you make the same choice today? Why not?
- Is there anything important that I didn’t ask you to add?
- Weak answer: “I recommend, they are serious.” Likeable and forgettable.
- The answer we keep: “If you’re a midget who’s already been disappointed by a provider, go ahead: he’s the only one who told us no when our idea was wrong.”
Relaunching like a journalist: what separates a flat interview from a convincing testimony
A list of questions is not enough. A good interviewer listens to the answer instead of preparing his next question, and he raises again. Three techniques are enough, plus knowledge of classic traps.
The silence
When the customer finishes his sentence, do not immediately follow. Leave two or three seconds empty, keeping your eyes on him. Most people hate white and fill it with what they really think. It is often in this extension that the most sincere sentence of the shoot comes out.The one the client didn’t plan to say.
The “what is it?”
As soon as a customer drops an abstract word (“effective”, “professional”, “responsive”), relaunch with a simple “that is to say?” or “you have an example?”. You go from adjective to fact. “They are reactive” is worthless. “I called them on a Friday at 6 p.m. and the quote was ready on Monday morning” is worth gold.
The reformulation
Send the client his own idea in a slightly stronger form: “so if I understand correctly, you have divided your deadlines by two?”. Double effect: it confirms and precises, then it reformulates itself face camera, which gives you the clear, complete and editable sentence you were looking for. Filming tip: ask him to include the question in his answer, your questions will be cut during editing.
The three mistakes that sabotage everything
- Send questions in advance, word for word. The client arrives with written answers, read mentally, the look running away. Send the five themes to reassure him, never the exact formulations. Spontaneity does not recover in post-production.
- Scripting the answers. To write what the customer has to say is to make a disguised advertisement: the tone sounds false in three seconds and credibility collapses. If you want a message mastered from end to end, assume instead a corporate film It’s a different format, for another purpose.
- Interview without the decision maker. The happy intern weighs nothing in front of a leader. The testimony that convinces a decision-maker is that of a peer: the person who signed, committed his budget and took the risk. Lock it before blocking a shooting date.
Key takeaways
A video customer testimonial is played during the interview. The 30 questions above cover the five blocks of a story that stands: context, trigger, collaboration, results, recommendation. Ask open-ended questions, track down the number and the anecdote, relaunch with silence, the “that is to say?” and reformulation. Send the themes to the client, never the script, and sit the right decision maker in front of the camera. It is this method that we apply to each customer testimonials what we produce: our Projects and our 10 examples of B2B video customer testimonials It shows what it gives to the screen.
FAQ: Interview questions for a video customer testimonial
How many questions should I ask during the interview?
Prepare the complete grid of 30, but only put 12 to 15: not all are suitable for all profiles. The main thing is to cover the five blocks, with at least one question of numerical results and one recommendation. Better ten questions dug with raises than thirty flown over the chain.
Do you need to send the questions to the client before filming?
Send the five themes (context, decision, collaboration, results, recommendation), never the exact wording. The customer knows what to expect and gathers his figures, without being able to write his answers. A fifteen-minute telephone briefing a few days before filming advantageously replaces a written document.
How long does it take to interview a customer testimonial?
Allow 30 to 45 minutes of conversation to get the two to three minutes of good testimony. The first ten minutes are mainly used to relax the customer: his best answers rarely come straight away. So plan broadly on the schedule, and keep the results questions for when he’s really comfortable.
Who should be interviewed by the client?
The person who made the decision: manager, business manager, manager who committed the budget. It is she who speaks as equal to your decision-making prospects. You can add a daily user to embody the terrain, but a testimony without a decision maker loses most of its commercial weight.
What if the customer answers in one sentence?
Don't go to the next question. Leave a silence, relaunch with a “that is to say?”, ask for a specific example or rephrase his answer for him to develop it. If nothing comes up, ask the same question from another angle later in the interview: the second attempt is almost always better than the first.
