A customer testimonial video is one customer saying, in their own words, what the problem was and what changed. Everything else about it is production. This page is the shape of the thing: the brief you send, what actually gets recorded, and what you cut it down to: written for the business that has to ask rather than the crew that gets booked. The arithmetic behind it is the same as every other ask on this site: on the worked example 42 requests a year return 18 testimonials and 3 of them on video.
The brief is three questions, not a script
What was the problem before, what did we do, what is different now. Send them in the ask, so the customer has thought about the answers before the camera is on. A script produces somebody reading; three questions produce somebody talking, and only one of those is worth publishing.
What gets recorded
Ninety seconds to two minutes, on whatever camera the customer already has, in a quiet room with a window in front of them rather than behind. The two things worth insisting on are decent audio and a landscape orientation if the film is going on a page, plus a vertical crop if it is going on social.
What you cut
One clear claim and one specific detail. A customer video that names a number: the weeks saved, the jobs won: outperforms one that says the team was lovely, and the number is usually already in the written testimonial they gave you first.
Questions people ask about customer testimonial video
Should I write their answers for them?
No. Beyond the fact that it sounds fake, the FTC's rules are about endorsements reflecting the endorser's honest opinions; putting words in a customer's mouth is the thing this product exists to make unnecessary.
What if they are nervous on camera?
Send the questions first, tell them a retake is fine, and take the second attempt. Nearly everybody is better the second time.
How long should it be?
Under two minutes. The written quote does the work on the page; the video is the proof that a real person said it.