The Complete Guide to Requesting Feedback & Testimonials from Your Interior Design Clients
Updated September 2023
For many interior designers, a large source of business comes from past and current client referrals. I mean, of course! Who better to ask when hiring someone to help with your most important investment (your home) than a trusted friend who’s actually gone through it with your company?
It goes without saying: having an amazing client experience will have clients referring you from the day they sign on to years after they work with you, so it’s important to focus on delivering your services in an elevated and thoughtful way from day one. This way, when it comes time to ask for a formal testimonial, your clients will already have been singing your praises all over town so the ask won’t be a difficult one.
In this article, you’ll learn:
Who to collect reviews from (even if you’re just starting!)
What kinds of questions to ask to get great insights and testimonials
Where to actually collect and house your testimonials
When to ask (even if it feels like your projects never end)
How to logistically collect them
Ways to elevate the feedback process to make offboarding feel exciting and fresh, rather than boooooring and drab
Who to collect testimonials from
Whether you’re just starting or have been doing this for years, you should request testimonials from more than just your clients.
Industry partners
Think about all the vendors, real estate agents, showrooms, contractors, and professionals you speak to daily or have worked with throughout the years.
Ask them for a testimonial about what it’s like to work with you, and in return, you’ll do the same for them. Peer reviews and testimonials from local industry pros are great for building your reputation and positioning you as the go-to interior designer in your area.
Your favorite clients & projects
When it comes to your client list, if it was a great project and you enjoyed working with the client and delivered them an excellent result, definitely ask them for a testimonial. However, if it’s a project you don’t want more of or a service you won’t be offering again, then asking for a testimonial isn’t as important.
TIP: I often see dated testimonials on designers’ websites that speak to things they offered when they were just starting but now they no longer offer them. Things like: “She gave me her discount”, “She answered my text messages 24/7” and “The unlimited revisions were great”.
You’ll definitely want to remove any testimonials from your website and marketing materials if they speak specifically about a service you no longer offer or if they highlight something you don’t want to be known for.
What kind of questions to ask to get great testimonials & feedback
When you’re preparing the questions for your testimonial and feedback requests, you’ll want to keep a few things in mind:
Make it as easy as possible for people to leave you feedback. This means using a fillable form with specific questions that are easy to answer.
Let them know how long it will take them to fill it out. Keep it short. Five or ten minutes is reasonable. An hour? Not so much.
The best testimonials tell a story. How the client was feeling before they hired you. How they are feeling now that the project is done. What surprised them during the project? What was stressful during the project?
You’ll also want to make sure any questions you ask are ones you will act on. So be sure to ask yourself, “If their response to this question is negative, will I change anything in my business?” If not, you’re wasting your time and theirs.
And don’t forget to let them know in your onboarding questionnaire that you’ll be asking for feedback throughout the project and at the end, and if they’ll be open to providing you with feedback. Again, it’s all about setting the expectation.
TIP: If you’re asking for reviews on Google My Business or another review site that has a star rating system, gently nudge your clients by asking for not just a review, but a FIVE-STAR review.
Where to collect testimonials
Here’s the thing: review sites like Houzz and Yelp typically aren’t where high-end luxury clients are doing their research. They’re asking their friends and colleagues and looking on Google.
This being said, you’ll want to prioritize the platforms that are bringing in good clients (keyword: GOOD!) and collect reviews on those platforms. So if Facebook is a great lead source for you, be sure to collect reviews there.
BUT, you should absolutely collect reviews on your Google My Business Account (in addition to other platforms that bring you quality leads). Because many prospects begin their search on Google for local interior designers, it’s up to you to make sure your Google My Business account is up-to-date and highlights your unique business and services. Just like when someone goes to your website or Instagram account and experiences your beautiful imagery, fonts, colors, and language, you should do the same on Google.
Setting up a business profile on Google My Business is free and easy to do. Go now and set up your account.
Keep in mind, Google has an algorithm just like social media platforms do and new reviews and content you post are considered "fresh content". Fresh content helps to keep your business showing up in local searches when someone searches for “Interior Designer + Your City State”.
And, when you have an updated Google My Business profile, it shows clients you’re still in business and current with the times (for example: if you found two designers on GMB and one had recent pictures and a link to book a call and one had pictures from 10 years ago and no website link, you’d probably make a judgment or two about the businesses and which you’d prefer to work with).
Setting up your Google My Business page
Once you set up your Google My Business page, you’ll want to personalize your profile with your hours, services, photos, blog posts, press links, and more.
TIP: Don’t dump all your photos in right away. Every few days, add a search engine optimized image to your GMB profile so you always have fresh content. This means don’t just upload a portfolio image that’s titled “img_247_kmr”. Make sure the image is named “White kitchen with shaker style cabinets by Interior Design Company Name in City State”.
Also, don’t ask for 100 reviews all at once. Google will flag this as spam and may not post the review at all. Not good! Spread the requests out.
Where to showcase your reviews
Once you have reviews, it’s time to leverage them. Showcase them throughout your website as standalone testimonials, in your social media, and in your portfolio specific to that project.
For example: if you do a write-up for each project, you can include the client testimonial right within that portfolio page to help tell the story of the home and how you helped the client go from point A to point B.
You’ll also want to update your marketing materials (like your investment guide, email sequences, lead magnets, etc.) to include any new amazing testimonials that speak to the results you get for your clients.
TIP: Rather than create a single testimonial website page and add it to your nav bar, it’s better to have testimonials sprinkled throughout your site. You can certainly create a testimonial page and link it in your footer, but it’s best practice to have testimonials on every page. Bonus: you won’t clutter up your navigation bar!
When to collect feedback & testimonials
We have a lot of clients who feel they can't ask for a testimonial because the project isn't 100% done (they're still waiting for one or two pieces to be delivered, there's a punch list of items that needs to be fixed, etc.).
I still recommend asking right after you hand over the deliverables, or the client enjoys their big reveal, or a majority of the project is complete when things are fresh in their mind and they’re happy. Simply let them know you'd love their feedback while everything is fresh and that even though the project is officially wrapped, you'll still handle the remaining open items, and you’ll email them with updates/progress.
As for feedback, you can ask for feedback throughout the project, especially when things feel tough, after a big milestone, or if the client is frustrated. This can be as simple as having clear communication and asking your clients how things are going throughout the process. And if issues arise, ask the client what their ideal solution would be. These insights and including them in the solution can be very helpful for refining your process and avoiding issues in the future.
How to collect feedback & testimonials
ASK FOR REVIEWS AND FEEDBACK BY EMAIL
Email your client during the process and once the process wraps. Create an offboarding workflow with a series of emails delivering their Closing Packet and any final deliverables, and include the link to leave feedback and/or a review.
Be sure to thank them personally once they submit a review, and be sure to thank them publicly on the review site as well. Obviously, if there is negative feedback, you’ll want to address that right away.
Here are four ways to ask for testimonials by email:
Send a feedback form with a text box for leaving a testimonial.
Send the link to your Google My Business account.
Prepare a testimonial for your client based on things they said or shared with you throughout the process, or based on their feedback (if you send a standalone feedback form). Then, send it to your client for review and ask them to post it to your preferred review site if they are happy with the testimonial.
Provide a fill-in-the-blank testimonial template and send it to your clients to make it easy on them. Something like this could be perfect and oh-so-simple: “Before working with [Design Company Name], we were feeling x, y, and z about our design project. During the process of working with them to [do this type of work in our home], we were so impressed by a, b, and c. Now that our project is complete, we feel 1, 2, and 3.”
If you’re sending a feedback or testimonial form, the three ways I recommend doing that are:
Create one in Google Forms (which works great but leaves much to the imagination when it comes to the overall design). Make sure you have notifications set up, instructions here.
Use the questionnaire feature in your CRM so you can trigger a thank you email once they do hit submit!
Create a hidden page on your website and use the form feature to build your feedback form. This way you can add imagery, use your fonts and colors, and keep everything on brand.
BONUS: If you create a hidden page, once they hit submit on the feedback form on your site, you can have the page redirect to a beautiful thank you page. You could even offer a little treat as well: the link to book a 20-minute follow-up call, the option to download a design guide you’ve created that otherwise would cost money, a shopping list of your favorite gifts or styling pieces so they have them in their back pocket going forward, a list of your favorite local vendors so they know who to reach out to if they need to handle something on their own. You get the idea! Just think: What would your clients want/need after the project wraps that you could incorporate as a nice surprise?
And just because they didn’t formally provide feedback doesn’t mean they aren’t sharing it during conversations, meetings, presentations, etc. Be sure to save any emails or messages with positive language so you can share them on social media and in your content.
ASK FOR REVIEWS AND FEEDBACK IN PRINT
As part of your Install Day Process, you can add your Google My Business or Feedback Form as a QR code to your Closing Packet. Then, print the Closing Packet and leave it at your client’s home so they can easily snap a photo and submit their review. Here’s a simple tutorial on how to turn any link into a QR code.
You can also mail them a handwritten thank you card or photo album after their project wraps and print the QR code to your Google review site on the note you send them. They’ll be even more inclined to leave a review when they see photographs of their home displayed in a beautiful coffee table book made just for them.
ASK FOR REVIEWS AND FEEDBACK IN PERSON OR OVER THE PHONE
You can schedule a follow-up meeting or call with your client after their installation day or final walk-through. During this meeting, you can ask them the same questions in your feedback form. The benefit of this is you’ll be able to dig deeper into their responses to gain more insights into how you can improve or highlight certain features in the future.
Definitely ask how you could have done better. There is nothing better than a client to give you constructive feedback to help make your client experience better. Sometimes the things we think are valuable aren’t, and vice versa. The only way to know where to double down (or simplify) is to ASK!
Don’t let your project wrap up and then fizzle into nothing, leaving you feeling awkward that it ended so abruptly and your client confused because they’re not sure if you’re done yet. Instead, use the offboarding phase of your process as an opportunity to continue to surprise and delight your clients. In turn, you’ll surely feel more professional and buttoned up with every project you complete.
If you need help creating a process so good clients are referring you from day one, be sure to check out my Client Experience Templates in The Design Library. Feedback forms included, of course!
