Not every happy customer uses you exclusively. Plenty of them run your product next to a competitor's, splitting the work — your tool for one job, the other for another — because each does something the other doesn't. Teams tend to skip these customers when collecting testimonials, assuming a divided customer can only give a divided endorsement. That instinct costs you some of the most persuasive proof you can gather. A customer who chose you for a specific job, over an alternative they also pay for, is telling prospects exactly why you win — and that is far more convincing than a customer who has never seen the alternatives.
Why partial-use customers give the strongest testimonials
A testimonial from an exclusive customer answers "do you like it?" A testimonial from a customer who also uses a competitor answers a harder, more valuable question: "why this, and not that?" The second answer is the one prospects are actually asking. Most of your buyers are already using, or evaluating, an alternative. A customer who has genuinely lived with both and can articulate where you win speaks directly to that comparison in a way no exclusive user can.
This is the difference between a vague endorsement and a specific, decision-shaping one. "We love it" is pleasant. "We tried doing this in [Competitor] and kept it here because the workflow is faster" is a reason to buy. Partial-use customers hand you the second kind almost by default, because comparison is already part of how they think about you.
The real fear: a lukewarm or divided quote
The reason teams avoid these asks is the worry that the customer will damn you with faint praise — "it's fine for what we use it for" — or, worse, spend the testimonial explaining what the competitor does better. That fear is reasonable but easy to design around. A divided answer is almost always the product of a divided question. If you ask "how do you like our product?" a split-stack customer will honestly describe the split. If you ask about the specific job they chose you for, they describe a clear win.
You are not trying to get the customer to pretend they use you exclusively. You are directing the testimonial to the part of their experience where you are unambiguously the better choice — which is real, because otherwise they wouldn't pay for you at all.
Step 1 — Anchor the ask to the job you win
Open by naming the specific work the customer relies on you for: "You've been using us for [specific workflow] for a while now — I'd love to capture what makes that work for your team." This frames the entire testimonial around your area of strength before the customer has a chance to zoom out to the whole stack. You are not hiding the competitor; you are focusing the lens on the ground you own.
Step 2 — Ask a comparison-aware question, on purpose
Rather than avoiding the competitor, use the comparison as your best material. Ask: "For [this specific job], what made our tool the right fit over the other options you had?" This invites exactly the reasoning that persuades prospects, and it gives the customer permission to be honest about being a multi-tool shop while still delivering a pointed win. Customers respect a vendor confident enough to ask the comparative question, and the answer is almost always more specific — and more quotable — than a generic praise prompt.
Step 3 — Keep the capture frictionless and scoped
Send a single link that captures the testimonial in under a minute, with the prompt already scoped to the job you win. The less blank space you hand the customer, the less the testimonial drifts into a full stack review. A focused prompt — "what made us the right choice for [job]?" — collected through a dedicated flow keeps the answer tight and on-target, instead of turning into an open-ended essay comparing every tool they own.
Step 4 — Edit for focus, not for spin
When the testimonial lands, you may get a sentence that acknowledges the competitor — "we use [Competitor] for X, but for Y this is far better." Resist the urge to cut the acknowledgment entirely. A testimonial that admits the customer uses another tool and still prefers you for the relevant job is more credible, not less: it reads as honest, and honesty is what makes the endorsement land. Trim for length and focus, but keep the comparison that does the persuading. Never rewrite it into a false claim of exclusivity — a customer who spots a doctored quote is a customer you lose, and trimming without changing what the customer meant protects the relationship.
Step 5 — Route the comparison quote to where buyers compare
A partial-use testimonial earns its keep on your comparison pages, your competitor-alternative landing pages, and anywhere a prospect is actively weighing you against a named alternative. "We run both, and for [job] we choose this" is the exact reassurance a comparison-shopping buyer needs. Tag these testimonials by the comparison they speak to when they land in your library, so you can surface them precisely where the head-to-head decision is being made.
The customers you share with a competitor aren't a weaker source of proof — they're a sharper one. They have done the comparison your prospects are about to do, and they picked you for something specific. Ask about that something, keep the capture focused, preserve the honesty, and a divided stack becomes one of your most convincing arguments.