It happens on almost every good customer call. Someone says, "Honestly, this saved us hours every week — I tell everyone about it." It is specific, it is warm, it is exactly the kind of line you would put on your homepage. So you ask, "Would you mind sending that to me in an email?" — and the energy drains out of the room. They say "sure," and then nothing arrives. Ever.
This is not rejection. The praise was real. What you ran into is the gap between saying something and committing to writing it, and once you understand that gap you can close it without ever asking the customer to draft a single sentence.
Why the written version never shows up
The spoken compliment cost the customer nothing — it was a natural reaction in a conversation. Your request to "send it in writing" quietly handed them three jobs they did not sign up for: remember to do it, decide on the exact wording, and take responsibility for a public-facing quote. Any one of those is enough friction to push the task to "later," and later rarely comes.
There may also be a real constraint behind the hesitation: some employees are not allowed to give vendor endorsements without sign-off, and "I'll send it over" is a polite way to avoid saying so. You will not know which it is until you make saying yes nearly effortless.
The fix: you write it, they approve it
The single most effective move is to flip who does the drafting. The customer already did the hard part — they had the opinion and said it out loud. Your job is to hand it back in finished form so all they have to do is reply "yes."
If you can, capture the words in the moment. On a call, jot the exact phrase down or, with permission, note that the call is recorded. In person, repeat it back — "That's a great way to put it, mind if I quote you on that?" — which both confirms the wording and plants the idea that it may be used.
Then send a short follow-up that does the work for them:
"You mentioned on our call that we saved your team hours every week and that you recommend us to others. I'd love to feature that. Here's how I'd write it up — would this be okay to use, and is this the right name and title?
"[Product] saved our team hours every week — I recommend it to everyone." — Jordan Lee, Operations Lead, Northwind Co.
Happy to adjust anything, or drop the company name if you'd prefer."
Now the customer is not writing — they are editing, which is far easier — and they are not deciding wording from scratch, only confirming yours. Most people reply within a day.
Make the "yes" as small as possible
Every option you offer the customer lowers the bar to approval:
- Offer attribution choices. Full name and company, first name and title only, or "Operations Lead at a logistics company." Letting them dial down the exposure often converts a hesitant maybe into a yes.
- Pre-write the quote tightly. A clean one or two sentences is easier to approve than a paragraph they feel they should improve.
- Ask one yes/no question. "Okay to use this?" beats "What would you like to say?" every time.
- Give them an easy out. "No problem at all if not" removes the pressure that makes people avoid replying entirely.
The goal is to reduce the customer's task from compose and commit down to read and approve.
Get the consent on the record
A verbal "sure, quote me" is gracious, but for anything you publish you want a written trace. The approval reply to your draft is that record — an email or message where the customer confirms the wording and the attribution. Keep it. It protects you if anyone ever asks whether the quote was authorized, and it documents exactly which version they signed off on. If their reply is just "looks good," that is enough; you are holding their consent to the precise text you will display.
When the answer is genuinely no
Sometimes the hesitation is a real policy: the customer cannot be named, or cannot endorse vendors at all. Respect it immediately and look for the lighter-weight version of the same proof. An anonymized quote ("Operations Lead at a mid-size logistics firm") often clears internal rules that a named one does not. A logo, a metric, or a case study framed around results rather than a personal endorsement may also be allowed where a quote is not. Ask what would be okay rather than pushing on what is not — you will usually find some form of proof they can say yes to.
The takeaway
Warm verbal praise is not a failed testimonial — it is a finished testimonial that just has not been written down yet, and the customer is rarely the right person to write it. Capture the words while they are fresh, draft the quote yourself, offer flexible attribution, and ask a single yes/no question. You will convert far more of those throwaway compliments into published proof than you ever will by waiting on an email that is not coming.