Testimonial software to collect, approve and show reviews

Testimonial software turns customer goodwill into proof that other buyers can see. It handles the four jobs that usually fall between a spreadsheet, an inbox and a designer: asking, collecting, approving and publishing.

1. Asking. You send a link, print a QR code or put a button on your site, so the request reaches people while the experience is fresh.
2. Collecting. A short form captures a star rating, the customer's words and, if they choose, a short video, along with their consent to publish.
3. Approving. New testimonials land in one inbox where you approve, hide, feature or tag them.
4. Publishing. Approved reviews appear on a public wall, in widgets on your website, in share images for social media and on screens in your shop.

CardDeck Reviews keeps all four steps in one place, next to your digital business cards, forms and QR codes, so a customer who scans your card can leave a review from the same deck.

Collect testimonials by asking at the moment the customer feels the result, with the shortest possible form. Most businesses use three channels together.

A link sent by email or WhatsApp

Review requests go out by email from your verified sender address, with a personal message and a visible unsubscribe link. CardDeck skips anyone you asked in the last 30 days and checks your suppression list, so nobody gets nagged. You can add one reminder after a few days. For customers who prefer chat, copy a personal link or send it on WhatsApp.

A QR code in person

Every collection form has a QR code. Print it on a counter card, receipt, packaging or the back of a QR code business card. Use a dynamic QR code if you might change the form later, so printed codes keep working.

A button on your website

Add a "Leave a review" button to any page with a short embed snippet. It opens the same form, branded with your logo and colors.

What to ask

Keep it to a rating and one or two prompts, such as "What problem were you trying to solve?" and "What changed after working with us?". Specific prompts produce specific testimonials, which buyers trust more than "Great service!".

Video testimonials show a real face and voice, which makes them harder to dismiss than text. They also work well on in-store screens and social media, where text is easy to scroll past.

On Pro and above, customers can record up to two minutes straight from the browser on a phone or laptop. There is no app to download and nothing to upload from a camera roll. The recording is stored privately and only appears publicly once you approve it.

Tips for better videos:

• Ask for 30 to 60 seconds, not two minutes. Shorter videos get finished.
• Give one prompt to answer, so people don't freeze wondering what to say.
• Let people choose text instead. A strong written review beats no review.
• Feature your best videos on a video wall layout, and use the rest in share images.

Review gating means asking customers how happy they are first, then sending only the happy ones to public review sites. It makes ratings look better than they are, and it breaks Google's review policies and consumer protection rules in the US and UK.

CardDeck Reviews does not gate. If you add "Also review us on Google or Trustpilot" links to a form, every respondent sees the same links after they submit, whether they gave one star or five. There is no setting that changes this by rating.

That is good for you too. A rating built from every customer is believable, and a few honest three-star reviews make the five-star ones more credible. Use the private reply feature to follow up with unhappy customers by email and fix the problem, rather than hiding it.

CardDeck Reviews is designed around the rules that apply where most of our customers trade. The software handles the mechanics; you still decide what to ask and what to publish, so read the official guidance for your market.

United States: the FTC rule on consumer reviews

The FTC's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) prohibits fake reviews, buying reviews and suppressing negative ones. In CardDeck:

• Consent can only come from the author. Your team cannot mark a review as consented on someone's behalf.
• If you offer an incentive for reviews, mark the form as incentivised. Every review it collects is labelled "Incentivised" on walls and widgets.
• Rating summaries and badges are calculated from every published review in scope, never only from the ones you featured or filtered by star rating.

United Kingdom: the DMCC Act and CMA guidance

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 treats fake reviews and misleading review presentation as banned practices, and the CMA publishes guidance on what that means. When you filter a wall, for example to four stars and above, CardDeck shows an honest selection note such as "Selected reviews rated 4★ and up", and a filtered wall cannot be titled "all reviews".

UAE and elsewhere

Apply the same principles: publish only genuine reviews from real customers, disclose incentives, don't edit what people wrote, and don't present a hand-picked selection as the full picture. Check local advertising rules before running review campaigns.

Privacy: GDPR, UK GDPR and CCPA

Every form shows what happens to the reviewer's details, and the consent wording says consent can be withdrawn at any time. Withdrawing consent removes the testimonial from every wall at once, and an admin can erase it completely, including any photo or video.

Show testimonials with a wall or widget that updates itself when you approve new reviews, so you never edit your site to add one.

1. Create a wall. Pick a layout: grid, masonry, carousel, single quote, rating badge or video wall.
2. Choose what it shows. Filter by tag, rating, featured, video or form, or pick reviews by hand, and set a maximum number of items.
3. Pick a theme. Light, dark or your brand colors.
4. Embed it. Paste the script snippet or a plain iframe into your website builder. The wall also has its own public page you can link to.

Walls only ever show approved testimonials with consent. They load quickly and are cached, so a widget on a busy page won't slow it down.

What about review stars in Google?

Google does not show review stars for reviews a business collects about itself and displays on its own site, so CardDeck doesn't add that markup for general business walls. If a wall is about a specific product, you can mark it as such, and CardDeck adds Product and AggregateRating structured data built from the visible reviews.

A testimonial that only lives on one page is underused. Put your best reviews where people decide:

• Social media. Turn any testimonial into a square or story-sized share image in a couple of clicks.
• In store. Add a review wall to a playlist in CardDeck Screens, so customers see recent reviews on the TV by the counter.
• Email. Link your public wall from your email signature and proposals.
• Sales conversations. Share the wall link after a call, or tag reviews by service so you can send the most relevant one.

To learn what customers keep praising, use AI themes and best-quote suggestions. Quotes must be verbatim parts of the original text, or they're dropped. AI uses your plan's monthly AI credits, or your own AI key for unlimited use.

CardDeck Reviews is included in every CardDeck plan, alongside Connect, Forms and Screens. You pay for one plan, not per app. See pricing for the full comparison.

• Free: 15 stored testimonials, 1 wall or widget, 25 review requests a month. Walls show "Powered by CardDeck".
• Pro ($8 a month, or $6 billed yearly): 1,000 testimonials, 10 walls, 1,000 requests a month, video testimonials, no CardDeck branding.
• Team ($6 per seat a month, or $5 billed yearly, minimum 2 seats): 5,000 testimonials, 50 walls, 5,000 requests a month.
• Business ($99 a month, or $79 billed yearly, 15 seats included): unlimited testimonials and walls, 20,000 requests a month, white-label walls.

Nothing is deleted if you reach a limit. New collection pauses with a neutral notice until you upgrade or remove some testimonials.