Outages, breaches and bad press
Showing Testimonials After a Public Incident
When your service is down or your name is in the news, a quote praising rock solid uptime reads like a joke at your expense. Most of the library can stay, a few lines need to step aside for a while, and the way back needs a plan. Tick through the checklist with your incident still open.
- Which quotes to pull while the incident is live
- What to leave alone so the site does not go blank
- When and how to restore proof afterwards
Incident checklist
Triage your published proof while the incident is open
Work from the top. The first group takes ten minutes and matters most; the last group is for the week after the all clear.
Ticks stay in this browser tab and are not sent anywhere.
The problem, solved
What goes wrong with proof during an incident, and the StoryProof side of the fix
- Problem 1
Our homepage quote says we never go down
Visitors arriving from the news or a status page read it next to the outage, and it costs more trust than the quote ever earned.
How StoryProof solves it
You choose which approved testimonials each widget shows, so the reliability quote can come out of the homepage widget while the others stay.
- Problem 2
Nobody knows which quotes mention reliability
Under pressure, someone scrolls the whole library by eye and misses the one on the pricing page.
How StoryProof solves it
Tag quotes by what they praise, such as uptime or security, before you need it. Tags, moderation and roles are on every plan, including Free.
- Problem 3
Angry submissions are landing in the form
Customers hit by the incident use whatever link they have, including the testimonial form, to complain.
How StoryProof solves it
Nothing submitted goes public until someone approves it, so those messages wait in the queue for a human to read and answer.
- Problem 4
Low ratings arrive and nobody sees them
The people who would reply are busy fixing the incident, and a one star submission sits unread for days.
How StoryProof solves it
From Pro, a rating of 2 stars or fewer can alert your team at once and send that customer a personal apology email.
- Problem 5
Auto approval could publish something raw
If high ratings are approved automatically, a five star note that mentions the incident could reach a page unread.
How StoryProof solves it
The Pro auto approval only passes 4 and 5 star testimonials with text and leaves the rest in your queue. During an incident, read even those before they go out.
Keep, pause or restore, by kind of quote
A starting point for the person who owns proof during the incident.
In StoryProof
Set this up before the next incident
- 1
Tag what each quote praises
Add tags such as reliability, security or delivery to published testimonials, so the risky ones can be found in a minute.
- 2
Know which widget sits on which page
Keep a short list of widgets and the pages they are embedded on. StoryProof does not report where a widget is embedded, so this list is yours.
- 3
Rehearse the swap
Pick one widget and practise removing a quote from its selection and adding it back, so nobody learns it during a bad day.
- 4
Turn on the low rating alert
With the alert in place, a burst of low ratings reaches a person instead of sitting in the queue.
What happens next: Add a line to your incident runbook that points at the checklist above and names who owns proof.
Before you start
What this page cannot do for you
What this does not cover, and what to check on your side. Better to know now than after launch.
- 01
No incident switch
StoryProof has no single button that hides a group of testimonials across every widget. Each widget’s selection is changed on its own.
- 02
Other channels are yours to stop
Scheduled posts, ad campaigns and newsletters that quote customers live in other tools. Pause them there.
- 03
The Wall of Love shows what you approved
Every plan includes a Wall of Love: a hosted page of your approved testimonials with its own link. Check it along with your widgets, since it is a page people can reach directly.
- 04
Not crisis communication advice
This covers testimonials only. What you say about the incident itself belongs to whoever runs your communications.
FAQ
Questions people ask
Short answers to what usually comes up next.
Should we take all testimonials down during an outage?
Usually not. A blank space where proof used to be looks like hiding. Pull the quotes that contradict the news and leave the rest, especially those about support and results.
How long should reliability quotes stay off the site?
Until there is a reason to believe them again: the cause is fixed, the explanation is public and the service has been steady for a while. Set the condition before you set a date.
Can we ask customers to praise how we handled the incident?
Later, and only those who saw it handled well. Asking while customers are still affected looks tone deaf. Let them describe it in their own words rather than suggesting the angle.
What if a testimonial author was hurt by the incident?
Pause their quote and ask before it returns. A customer who lost data last week may not want their name next to praise for your backups.
Does StoryProof hide testimonials automatically during an incident?
No. You decide which approved testimonials each widget shows and change that yourself. Tagging in advance makes the change quick.
Still have a question? Ask the StoryProof team or book a demo.
Proof you can adjust on a bad day
Tag your testimonials, control what each widget shows and keep every new submission behind approval.
Last updated 2026-11-12.