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Editing customer words

Shorten a testimonial without putting words in your customer’s mouth

Customers ramble, repeat themselves and bury the best line in the middle. You can tidy that up. What you cannot do is change what they meant. Score any edit below before it goes on a page.

  • Seven checks drawn from the FTC Endorsement Guides
  • A specific fix for every check that fails
  • A table of edits that are fine and edits that are not
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Score: Edit check
  • The edit says what the customer meantYesPartlyNo
  • Anything in quotation marks is the customer’s exact wordingYesPartlyNo
  • No qualifier was removedYesPartlyNo
  • Lines from different answers are not joined as one sentenceYesPartlyNo

7 checks. Each one you miss comes with a fix.

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The problem, solved

Where honest editing goes wrong in a team, and how StoryProof keeps it straight

  • Every answer arrives as one giant paragraph

    A single open question invites a customer to say everything at once, and pulling one line out of that block is exactly where meaning gets lost.

  • A colleague published the unedited ramble

    When anyone on the team can push a testimonial live, the raw version and the trimmed one both end up on pages, and readers see two different quotes from one customer.

  • We forgot which trims the customer signed off

    Months later, nobody remembers whether the short version was cleared or just written, and the email thread is in someone else’s inbox.

  • Cutting a video changes what they meant

    Splicing two halves of a clip can shift the tone even when every word is real, and a viewer cannot see where the cut was made.

  • The customer now dislikes our shortened version

    Once a customer objects to a trim, every page still showing it is a quote they no longer stand behind.

Flip the switch to see how StoryProof handles each one.

Scorecard

Is your edit still honest?

Put the original and your edited version side by side, then answer each line. Anything short of a clear yes comes with the fix.

The edit says what the customer meant
Anything in quotation marks is the customer’s exact wording
No qualifier was removed
Lines from different answers are not joined as one sentence
Any result it mentions is typical, or the typical result is stated
Any gift, discount or relationship is disclosed
The customer has seen and agreed to the edited version

Scores are worked out in your browser and are not stored or sent.

Common edits, and whether they are fine

A quick reference for the edits marketers make most often.

General guidance based on the FTC Endorsement Guides. Not legal advice.
EditFine?Why
Fixing a typo or a spoken filler wordYesIt does not change the opinion or the experience described.
Cutting a long answer down to its strongest sentenceUsuallyFine when the sentence stands on its own and no qualifier is lost.
Swapping "good" for "amazing"NoIt overstates the customer’s view, which is the distortion the rules forbid.
Removing "for a small team like ours"NoThe qualifier tells a reader who the experience applies to.
Joining two answers with "and"RarelyOnly with an ellipsis or the customer’s approval of the combined line.
Translating into another languageYes, labelledSay it is translated, and keep the original on file.

In StoryProof

Keep the trail in StoryProof

The less you edit, the less there is to check. Most of the work happens at collection.

  • You will need
  • A StoryProof workspace
  • A place to keep the customer’s reply approving any edit
  1. 1

    Ask questions that produce short answers

    Two focused prompts on your collection form ("what changed?", "what would you tell a peer?") give you lines that rarely need trimming. Customers can answer by video, audio note or text.

  2. 2

    Review the original in your queue

    Everything waits for approval, so nobody publishes a raw answer before the edit has been checked.

  3. 3

    Record the customer’s approval of the edit

    Once the customer agrees to your trimmed wording, tag the testimonial (for example "edit-approved") so the next person knows it has been cleared.

  4. 4

    Publish only what has been cleared

    Add testimonials to a widget one by one, so a version still waiting on the customer stays off your site.

What happens next: If the customer later asks you to change or remove their words, take them out of every widget the same day.

Before you start

What this page does not cover

  • Not legal advice

    It summarises the US federal guides as written. Your industry or country may add rules, and regulated fields such as finance or healthcare have their own.

  • Video is harder to trim honestly

    Cutting a clip changes tone as well as words. Prefer choosing a shorter testimonial to splicing a longer one.

  • The scorecard checks the common traps

    It does not replace a person reading the original and the edit side by side.

  • One approval covers one edit

    If you trim the same testimonial again for an ad or a smaller widget, the customer’s yes to the first version does not carry over. Send them the new wording too.

FAQ

Questions people ask

Short answers to what usually comes up next.

Do testimonials have to use the customer’s exact words?

Not always. The FTC guides allow rewording, but not presenting it as a quote, taking it out of context, or changing it so it distorts the customer’s opinion or experience.

Can I combine two things a customer said into one quote?

Only if the combined line still says what they meant. Show the gap with an ellipsis, and ideally get the customer’s approval of the combined version.

What if the testimonial mentions an unusually good result?

Either state the result customers generally get alongside it, or use a testimonial about the experience rather than the outcome.

What if the customer never replies to approve my edit?

Treat silence as a no. Publish their original wording unchanged, ask them for a shorter version in their own words, or choose a different testimonial.

Should I keep the unedited original?

Yes. Keep it with the approved edit, so anyone who later questions the wording can compare the two and see what changed.

Still have a question? Ask the StoryProof team or book a demo.

Collect testimonials that need less editing

Better prompts mean shorter answers, and an approval queue means nothing raw goes live.

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Sources

  1. 16 CFR 255.1: General considerations (Endorsement Guides), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Checked 2026-11-04.
  2. 16 CFR 255.2: Consumer endorsements, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Checked 2026-11-04.
  3. 16 CFR 255.5: Disclosure of material connections, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Checked 2026-11-04.

Last updated 2026-11-04.