Picture yourself receiving a complimentary email from a customer regarding her experience shopping and purchasing in your store. She raves about her shopping experience and your customer service.

You decide, rightly, to post the testimonial on your website. Here’s what it might look like …

When I came to your store I was so impresed with what you had. So many Beautiful items to choose from. So much in fact thats where I bought the majorety of my furniture from and I have to say the sales associate Maria who helped me and was very pleasent to deal with and so helpfull. Barbara

Barbara, bless her heart, is enthusiastic; but, she makes a few boo-boos with respect to English usage, spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

If a journalist was quoting her, the piece would be full of “[sics].” Sic means the quoted material is exactly as received, errors and all. It might look like this …

When I came to your store I was so impresed [sic] with what you had. So many Beautiful [sic] items to choose from. [sic] So much in fact thats [sic] where I bought the majorety [sic] of my furniture from [sic] and I have to say the sales associate Maria who helped me and was very pleasent [sic] to deal with and so helpfull! [sic] Barbara

As a website owner, you are not a journalist. You do not have to quote a customer word-for-word, mistakes and all, making him or her look uneducated.

Your customers will appreciate you tidying up their testimonials.

When I came to your store I was so impressed with what you had. So many beautiful items! So much, in fact, that’s where I bought the majority of my furniture. The sales associate who helped me, Maria, was very pleasant to deal with and so helpful! Barbara

Notice that I didn’t rewrite her testimonial. I even left in a fragment, not a complete sentence. This helps preserve Barbara’s unique voice, so it’s clear a real person wrote it. I just trimmed and cleaned it up.

One last note. Do pay attention to the presentation of your testimonial. Put a larger, bold pull quote at the top; it will draw the reader into reading the full testimonial.

So the above testimonial now looks like …

“I was so impressed with what you had …”
When I came to your store I was so impressed with what you had. So many beautiful items! So much, in fact, that’s where I bought the majority of my furniture. The sales associate who helped me, Maria, was very pleasant to deal with and so helpful! Barbara

Now compare this with what we started with. See the difference?

If you can add a picture of your customer, even better!

Easy Web Tip 218: It’s perfectly fine and even desirable to tidy up customer testimonials.