BookLife, Publishers Weekly's resource for self-published authors, needed a way to turn author stories into marketing content without booking a single Zoom call. Marketing Consultant Michael Sjostedt replaced their slow record-and-edit process for asynchronous video collection. Read on to learn how this lean operation scaled video collection and boosted growth for a product by 20% and saw a 350% jump in YouTube followers.

We produced more video content in the last 6 months than we have in the last 10 years, and that is all thanks to Vocal Video.

The Challenge: Zoom calls, phone recordings, and an editing backlog

Before Vocal Video, every testimonial meant coordinating a live recording and turning it into a palatable video with an onerous manual process.

"Before Vocal Video we used to use Zoom or have people record things on their phone. And there was a lot more editing involved on our end."

For a team where video production largely falls to one or two people, that overhead capped how much content BookLife could realistically create.

The Solution: Send a video collector, let authors record on their own time

BookLife uses Vocal Video to collect testimonials from the self-published authors it serves and from its own editorial team.

"BookLife uses Vocal Video to capture testimonials from self-published authors. We ask them to share benefits of BookLife products like reviews or the BookLife Prize. And we also ask authors to share the story behind their book or what it's like to be a self-published author. So, it's made our lives much, much easier and the BookLife editors also use Vocal Video to talk about the BookLife Prize or Editor's Picks, favorite books, etc. We love Vocal Video."

The workflow efficiency unlocked how many videos BookLife could create:

"With Vocal Video we're able to send them a collector, some questions, question prompts, and people can just self-service their Q&A and it makes the editing on our end much, much easier. So we are pumping out more videos than ever."

Those clips now feed BookLife's paid social campaigns for the BookLife Prize and BookLife Reviews, plus content for BookLife Biz and BookLife First Look.

The Results

Orders are up, and the tracking proves it.

"We have seen a definite bump in orders for several products. For the BookLife Prize, we've seen 20% growth, and our tag that we use for our social campaigns shows up in the checkout cart. So, it's working. People really, really respond to the videos."

Social engagement compounded.

"We're using it a lot on social and more people are sharing and engaging with our video content, so we're seeing our followers go up, with YouTube in particular, we have seen a really big bump in our followers."

Our Youtube followers jumped 350% in the last month because we've been producing so many new videos.

We use Vocal Video for several of our editorial products with BookLife Biz, BookLife First Look, and a lot of testimonials for BookLife Prize and BookLife Reviews. It's really, really noticeable."

One tool instead of a production chain

Sjostedt describes Vocal Video as collapsing what used to be four or five separate steps:

Vocal Video is really a one-stop tool.

"It allows you to collect video very easily. You don't have to schedule meetings, you don't have to schedule Zooms to record, you don't then have to download that file to edit it, bring it into another system. You can send the collector out, the recipient will record it themselves, you get notified that the video is ready to edit. It's very easy to edit."

That extends to repurposing a single collection into many assets:

"A full video is really easy to splice together other videos into sizzle reels, you can take multiple interviews and put them into one video. It's great to create 5 or 6 second clips. It's very easy to add images, other videos that you upload."

Recommendation

"I have been recommending Vocal Video to many people, especially if you're self-employed, if you are on a small team, if your organization wants to get more into video content, but they're really hung up with all the nuances in the process of recording Zooms, etc. Vocal Video makes it so easy for even just one person to manage and produce a lot of video content."

I recommend getting a trial for Vocal Video to test it out yourself, because you'll be surprised at really how easy and powerful it is to use.

Ready to scale your video program with the team you already have? Start collecting authentic customer videos today.

Fairfax Radiology Centers, provides imaging and radiology care across Northern Virginia. They use Vocal Video to collect and produce employee testimonials and patient stories which are used for Meta ad campaigns, career pages — and even to personalize job offers. Theresa Mazzaro gets you behind the scenes of how she's scaled up video collection for recruitment marketing on both sides of the business: employee testimonials that sell the culture to candidates, and patient testimonials that build trust with prospective patients.

The challenge: Looking professional and authentic at the same time

Before Vocal Video, every video started a lot of logistics.

"Before Vocal Video, creating any kind of a testimonial or any kind of video, was always a bit of a challenge. You could use your iPhone, but then you have to worry about the size of the video, how do you get it to where you need to get it, what file folder, turning it into a link. And how it shows up when you're actually putting it on your website or on your career page."

The bigger problem was the tradeoff that came after. Hiring a crew solved the quality problem and created a credibility one.

The other issue that we've always had has been looking professional but yet authentic.

"Sometimes you actually have to hire an entire team of people to do a video, and it comes out looking a little bit too stiff, not authentic, not realistic, either from the patient point of view for a patient testimonial or the employee point of view for an employee testimonial. Vocal Video has changed all of that."

The solution: One tool, both sides of the table

On the employer brand side, Fairfax Radiology is running a Meta campaign built entirely on clinical staff talking about why they stay.

"Right now, we're actually running a Meta campaign where we're using our clinical technologists — so our MRI techs, our mammography techs, our PET CT techs, and our ultrasound technologists — to say why they love working at Fairfax Radiology. Other instances would be why they were promoted, what makes them stay, and what do they like about the culture and the team here at Fairfax Radiology."

On the patient side, the team sources stories from people who already went out of their way to praise the care they received.

"We're also doing patient testimonials. People that have actually reached out to us and said, 'wow, I had such a great experience, I want to help you spread the word about the great care that you're giving the community here in Northern Virginia' — or people that have done five-star Google reviews."

The newest use case is a career page built around those employee videos.

Right now, we're actually creating a new career page and we're using a lot of our employee testimonials to help sell the culture and sell the feeling of what it's like to work at Fairfax Radiology.

For high-volume roles, star employees record a day-in-the-life so applicants know what they're walking into.

"We've had some of our star employees create a video using Vocal Video to talk about: what do you need, how are you going to be successful in this role, what strengths do you need to have, what do you need to learn, and what's the attitude you have to have to succeed."

The results: ROI measured efficiency gain and canceled agency bills

Theresa's ROI math is a comparison against the alternative — what it would otherwise cost to get the same output.

We measure the ROI for using video testimonials from Vocal Video by the amount of time, energy, and resources it would take to otherwise film, produce, and edit videos.

"There's a cost to having it done externally. And then, of course, there's the cost of time and resources for those that try to do it internally, and it doesn't really come out as good as you'd like it to."

The editing time savings are the clearest number in the story:

I find that editing the videos has just become minutes rather than what would probably take hours to do.

And the quality holds up:

"I know that the ROI for us is just the authenticity that we get and the great results that we get with Vocal Video."

The unexpected use case: Video job offers

One use case Theresa invented on her own — extending offers by video.

"I even have found a way to use a video to make an offer to employees. So I've got a video telling them that we're going to make an offer. I send them the video, I attach, via email, our benefits information, give them an opportunity to review all of that, and now they've got a personalized touch from me or one of the recruitment team members, and they feel like they know us even a little bit more and it feels personal just to them."

Would you recommend Vocal Video?

"I would recommend Vocal Video to anybody. If you are trying to get a message across to somebody about something in your company — be it on the consumer side or on the career side, the employee side, or even to potential applicants — Vocal Video makes it so easy to communicate."

Her one-line description:

Vocal Video is the easy button to recruitment marketing using videos. I think the sky is the limit for Vocal Video use cases, and it's as far as your imagination will take you.

Want to showcase your company culture and client experience with the same tool? Sign up free at vocalvideo.com

If you're evaluating StoryPrompt — or you've hit the ceiling trying to get more video testimonials, the real decision isn't just video collection. All of the vendors we cover collect video with a range of UX for respondents. For many, it's what happens after the video comes back. We'll cover how competing solutions handle collection, which ones create on-brand videos automatically, and rate data privacy and security measures.

Jump to:

• Vocal Video — the upmarket alternative: end-to-end video collection to finished video, trusted by F500 companies
• Testimonial.to — fast, cheap, text-first collection
• Senja — a budget "wall of love" for SMBs
• VideoAsk — conversational video forms and lead capture
• Boast — straightforward video collection

What StoryPrompt is good at — and where it stops

StoryPrompt is a guided video collection tool, which includes some AI for improving your videos like 'um-removal'. You send a respondent a link, they record in the browser, and StoryPrompt's AI adds captions and titles. A built-in teleprompter helps people get through their answer. Pricing starts at $39/month, which makes it an accessible, solo-operator-friendly place to start, as evidenced by the majority of their customers and case studies. If your job is "get a few customers to record and tidy the result," StoryPrompt does it well.

Where StoryPrompt stops matters more as your program grows:

• Video editing is limited. StoryPrompt's AI edits and summarizes the footage you already collected. It doesn't turn a raw recording into a fully produced, branded, subtitled, music-scored video on its own — you're assembling clips, not receiving a finished asset.
• There's no automated requesting. StoryPrompt starts at "record." The outreach — deciding who to ask, sending the request, chasing non-responders — is on you. Collection-only tools skip the requesting stage entirely.
• Video prompts introduce friction. StoryPrompt plays up their video prompts, but having your team record these prompts, and also forcing your respondents to watch these before recording their own reply slows down launch of projects and reduces response rates.
• There are no security certifications. StoryPrompt publishes no security or trust page and lists no SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA compliance. For a marketing widget that's fine; for a regulated buyer or a procurement review, it's a blocker.
• Founders are split between two companies. StoryPrompt is run by a small founding team, who also has a separate video-community product, Swarm — a deliberate two-product pair rather than a company in trouble. It's not a knock on the product today; it's a resourcing question worth weighing before you standardize a multi-year program on it.

Those four gaps are the criteria this comparison uses: production vs packaging · automated requesting · security and compliance · price. Here's how the five alternatives measure up.

Quick comparison of the five alternatives

Competitor pricing is read from each tool's public pricing page and moves over time — re-verify before you rely on it. Vocal Video and StoryPrompt tiers are detailed in the sections below.

Vocal Video

Vocal Video is the alternative for teams that need a truly on-brand and elegant video collection interface, and want the whole job done — because Vocal Video automates the entire loop that StoryPrompt leaves half-open: request → collect → produce → host → distribute, in one platform.

The difference lands in two places. First, requesting can be automated. In addition to providing a link that you can use in your own comms, Vocal Video can send the request — from an uploaded list, as a one-off, or triggered automatically from another app. Automatic reminders anyone who hasn't responded significantly boost response rates. With StoryPrompt the only option is to run outreach yourself.

Second, and this is the line that separates the two tools: Vocal Video produces the polished video, it doesn't just package the clips. The respondent records through a branded, guided, in-browser collector — nothing to install, just a link or QR code, on any device, with a built-in teleprompter and unlimited retakes. Then Vocal Video automatically turns that raw recording into a branded, subtitled, music-scored 1080p video automatically — no video editor, no assembling clips by hand. Want to fine-tune it? You can edit the video by editing its transcript, remove filler words in a click, and clean up the audio, all without opening a traditional timeline. (Note:both Vocal Video and StoryPrompt offer a teleprompter.)

"Vocal Video is extremely easy to use, and the output looks like you spent $25k on each video w/an agency." — Evan H., on G2

That "$25k with an agency" reaction is the point of AI production: it replaces the $20,000–$50,000 a traditional video testimonial service charges to produce a batch — with a self-serve platform that hands back a finished asset in minutes.

Then there's trust. Vocal Video holds ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certifications and offers a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement, and is GDPR/CCPA compliant — a posture StoryPrompt (and most of this category) simply doesn't have. That's why healthcare and other regulated teams can standardize on it. Vocal Video is trusted by 25,000+ companies, including Google, Cisco, Pfizer and Kaiser Permanente, and has collected videos from over 200,000 people that have earned over 450 million views. It rates 4.8/5 on G2.

Pricing (all plans billed annually): Free ($0 forever), Essential ($99/month), Pro ($149/month), Scale ($249/month), and Enterprise (custom, from $1,250/month). Collection is unlimited on every plan, including Free; the monthly allowance is an editing allowance, not a cap on how many videos you can collect.

Best for: teams that are ready to move past one-off video testimonial requests — automated requests, finished branded videos, beautiful on-brand video galleries and enterprise-grade security — rather than a collection widget.

Testimonial.to

Testimonial.to is the fast, low-cost way to gather testimonials, and it's the healthiest basic option in the category. Testimonial.to collects both text and video, publishes tidy widgets and walls of love, and starts at just $25/month — genuinely popular with indie makers and small teams, and still actively adding features like NPS surveys and case-study collection.

The trade-off versus StoryPrompt and Vocal Video is that Testimonial.to is text-first — video is a secondary format rather than the core experience — and there's no documented AI production that turns a raw clip into a finished, branded video. It also carries no security certifications (SSO appears only on the Enterprise tier). If you want a cheap, well-liked way to collect written quotes with some video attached, it's a strong pick; if the proof has to be video-first or clear a compliance review, teams tend to outgrow it. (We cover this one in depth in our Testimonial.to alternatives guide.)

Best for: indie makers and small teams that want fast, affordable text-and-video collection.

Senja

Senja is a polished, affordable way to put a wall of testimonials on a landing page, aimed squarely at solo creators and small businesses. Senja is best known for beautifully designed widgets, strong SEO-friendly rich snippets, and a low entry price starting at $29/month.

Like Testimonial.to, Senja is text-primary — video is secondary — and there's no video-native AI production and no security certifications. It's also built for a different buyer than StoryPrompt's: where StoryPrompt courts teams that care about the story, Senja fits a solo founder who wants an attractive proof widget on a budget. If your program is one person and a wall of quotes, Senja is a lovely fit. If it's a steady stream of video proof across a company, it won't reach.

Best for: solo creators and SMBs who want a good-looking text "wall of love" cheaply.

VideoAsk

VideoAsk is a versatile conversational-video tool, owned by Typeform, that's better understood as an interactive-forms product than a testimonial platform. VideoAsk is genuinely good at async video conversations and lead capture — you can collect a testimonial with it, but it isn't purpose-built for one, and its public changelog hasn't shown a meaningful product update since late 2023.

Against StoryPrompt and Vocal Video, VideoAsk has no purpose-built testimonial workflow — no automated request-to-finished-video loop and no AI production that hands back a branded video. Pricing is metered by processing minutes (aggregator listings put entry tiers around $24–$40/month), and security certifications aren't published at the product level. It's a capable general-purpose tool; teams that specifically want a testimonial program will find it thin.

Best for: interactive video forms and lead capture, not a dedicated testimonial workflow.

Boast

Boast is a no-frills way to collect testimonials in multiple formats that was one of the first vendors on the market in 2013. Boast reliably gathers video and text testimonials, with transparent pricing starting at $50/month annually and a 14-day free trial.

Where Boast stops is the same place most of this list does: collection is the whole product. There's no AI production to auto-edit a raw recording into a finished, branded video, no automated end-to-end requesting, and no published security certifications. You're comparing a solid collection form to a production platform. If you want a straightforward, low-cost collector and you'll handle editing elsewhere, Boast does the job; if you want the finished video to come back done, you'll need more.

Best for: teams that want simple, dependable multi-format collection at a low price.

How to choose

If you only need to collect a few clips, StoryPrompt, Testimonial.to, Senja, VideoAsk and Boast are all reasonable, and the cheapest ones start under $30/month. The moment your requirements include automated requesting, a finished branded video rather than assembled clips, or a security posture a procurement team will sign off on, the field narrows fast — and that's the gap Vocal Video is built to fill.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best StoryPrompt alternative?

The best StoryPrompt alternative depends on the job. For teams that want a complete platform — automated requesting, AI production that returns a finished branded video, and enterprise security (ISO 27001/27701 and a HIPAA BAA) — Vocal Video is the strongest fit and the natural upmarket move. For cheap text-first collection, Testimonial.to ($25/month) or Senja ($29/month) fit smaller, budget-driven teams. VideoAsk suits conversational forms and lead capture, and Boast is a straightforward multi-format collector.

What does StoryPrompt cost?

StoryPrompt offers a free tier plus three paid plans: Starter at $49/month, Pro at $99/month, and Premium at $199/month (with lower rates on annual billing). Pricing is set by StoryPrompt and can change, so confirm the current numbers on StoryPrompt's own pricing page before you decide.

Does StoryPrompt have security certifications?

No. StoryPrompt publishes no security or trust page and lists no SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA compliance. If you work in a regulated industry or your purchase goes through a security review, that's worth weighing. By comparison, Vocal Video holds ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certifications, offers a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement, and is GDPR/CCPA compliant.

StoryPrompt vs Vocal Video — what's the difference?

StoryPrompt and Vocal Video both collect video from a link, and both include a teleprompter. StoryPrompt uses AI to add simple additions to the clips you collected — summaries, titles, and "AI producer" edits. Vocal Video can elegantly automate the whole loop: it requests the testimonial (from a list, one-off, or triggered by another app, with reminders), and its Automagic engine produces a finished, branded, subtitled video from the raw recording — no editor required. Vocal Video also holds ISO 27001/27701 certifications and offers a HIPAA BAA, which StoryPrompt does not.

Ready to produce finished video, not just collect clips?

If you want a testimonial program that requests, collects, and produces branded video automatically — and stands up to an enterprise security review — sign up for a free Vocal Video account. No credit card required.

Upstream recently launched FreeBC, a digital direct-to-consumer platform designed to help people learn about and access birth control. The platform is built around the perspectives of real users and their experiences, paired with guidance from clinicians. This meant the team needed hundreds of authentic and credible videos before launch.

The lean team at Upstream set a goal of 100 videos. Three months later, they had 350. Sophia Stone gets you behind the scenes on their process.

The challenge: Collecting hundreds of clips from real people with wildly different comfort levels on camera

Sophia Stone, Instructional Designer at Upstream, and her team evaluated a wide range of options before landing on Vocal Video.

"Before Vocal Video we didn't have a solution. We thought through a wide range of options. None of them really fit what we were looking for."

The requirements were specific. First, the submission process had to work for everyone — not just people who were already comfortable recording themselves like creators or influencers.

"We wanted a platform that would streamline the video submission process for a wide range of creators with different levels of tech savviness and on-camera comfort."

Second, the team had to be able to handle a high volume of video editing on a deadline.

We also wanted a tool that would make it easy for us to manage, edit, and review hundreds of video clips within a several month period.

There was a third, less obvious constraint: authenticity. The whole premise of the platform was real reviews from real people.

"It was really important to the project to gather really authentic reviews of birth control from real people, including the good, bad, and the ugly."

That ruled out anything heavily produced. The team needed a tool that could scale collection without sanding down the rawness that made the content worth publishing.

The solution: One workflow from request to publish

Vocal Video handled the entire process of collecting, editing and collaboration, and rendering.

Vocal Video made it really easy to manage the video collection process from start to finish, from requesting video submissions, signing consent forms, video editing, managing reviews, publishing.

Because Upstream wanted the videos to stay highly credible, the team deliberately used a light touch on production.

"We wanted our videos to feel as raw, as authentic as possible, with limited editing and polishing, so we didn't leverage every feature in Vocal Video — but we did appreciate the built-in options for branding, closed captioning, and some of the newer AI features."

The results: 350 videos live, against a goal of 100

The numbers speak for themselves:

• Goal: at least 100 video clips
• Delivered: 350 approved, high-quality videos
• Timeline: 3 months
• Result: 3.5x the original target

We had an initial goal of at least 100 video clips on our platform, and within 3 months, we exceeded that goal. We ended up with 350 approved and really high quality videos that are now live on our site.

But volume wasn't the point — coverage was. With 350 clips, Upstream could represent a genuinely wide range of people and experiences.

"It allowed us to showcase a really diverse range of people and perspectives on a wide range of birth control methods, which helps people find perspectives that they identify with and allows them ultimately to make more informed decisions about what's right for them."

Would you recommend Vocal Video?

Yes — with a clear picture of who it's for.

"If you're managing a project with a lot of video assets, if you want your video collection process to be as streamlined as possible, and you're looking for an editing tool that doesn't do everything under the sun, but is very easy to learn and to use, then Vocal Video is a great platform for you."

Need to collect hundreds of authentic videos on a deadline? Sign up free at vocalvideo.com

Our intention in this guide is to cover 11 of the top video testimonial software tools on the things that actually differ between them: how much work the recording asks of your customer, whether you get a finished video back or raw footage, where it lives once you have it, how it connects to your stack, security measures, and pricing. We'll go over:

• How to choose — the six criteria that separate these tools
• A quick-compare table of all 11
• A full review of each one: who it's best for, and where it stops
• Whether you should skip software entirely — and the real cost of the alternatives
• Frequently asked questions

These are the video testimonial apps we cover:

Vocal Video • StoryPrompt • Testimonial.to • Senja • Trustmary • VideoAsk • Bonjoro • Boast • VideoPeel • Gather Voices • OpenReel

Full disclosure: we make one of these tools, Vocal Video. We've tried to keep the reviews fair enough that you'd trust them even knowing that — including saying plainly where three of the other tools do a job better than we do.

How to choose video testimonial software

Collection experience for respondents. This decides whether you get usable footage at all. Good tools provide a link code that opens a guided, in-browser recorder on any device — no app to install, questions presented one at a time, unlimited retakes, sometimes a teleprompter and background blur. The weaker ones hand the respondent a single-screen form or a full-page file upload and hope they figure it out. A clunky recording experience is one of the top reasons for low video testimonial response rates.

AI-native production and editing. After the recording comes the work: trimming, captions, branding, music, formatting. Some tools return the raw clip and leave that to you. A few now use AI to produce videos — automatically turning a raw recording into a branded, subtitled, music-scored video — or to edit it faster (editing by transcript rather than a timeline, one-click filler-word removal, audio cleanup). This is the single biggest dividing line in the category, because a raw clip that sits waiting for an editor is a testimonial that risks never seeing the light of day.

Hosting and distribution. A collected video is worthless until it's shared. Look for ad-free hosting, plus galleries, cards, and embeds you can drop onto a pricing page, a product page, or a careers page — not a folder of files you download and re-upload.

Integrations. The proof is only useful where your buyers are, so how the tool connects to your CRM and marketing stack matters.

Security and compliance. Required for healthcare, finance, or the enterprise, many tools in this category haven't gotten around to robust security measures. A named ISO 27001 certification or a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement is the difference between a tool a regulated team can adopt and one that legal will veto.

Pricing. Look for plans you can try free before ever committing a dollar.

The 11 best video testimonial software tools compared

Here's how the 11 tools stack up on the criteria above. The reviews that follow explain each row.

We set out to make it as easy as possible to differentiate between these tools based on a few factors:

• What it's for — the primary use case for the tool
• Finished video? Does it deliver a finished video or raw footage?
• Video editing capabilities
• Hosting and embedding options
• Certifications — security and data privacy measures
• Cost

Then each tool gets our short and honest review: what it's genuinely good at, and where it stops.

The 11 tools compared

Tool	What it's for	Finished branded video	Video editing	Hosting & embedding	Certifications	starting COST
Vocal Video	The full loop, request to publish	Yes	Full AI editor — edit by transcript, brand-adaptive themes, captions in 100+ languages, filler-word and silence removal, Studio Sound audio cleanup, zoom effects	Galleries, embeds, social formats	ISO 27001, ISO 27701, HIPAA BAA	$99/month
Testimonial.to	Fast, cheap text-first collection	No	None documented	Widgets, walls	None published	$25/month
Senja	A polished text wall of love	No	None	Widgets, strong embeds	None published	$29/month
Trustmary	Testimonials, reviews and surveys in one suite	No — raw clips	None	Strong widget layer	None published	$26/month
StoryPrompt	Guided story collection with AI packaging	No — packages what you collect	AI clip editing	Yes	None published	$49/month
VideoAsk	Conversational video forms, lead capture	No	Minimal	Links, embeds	None for the product	$24/month
Bonjoro	Personal 1:1 video, testimonials as a bolt-on	No	None	Wall-of-Love embed	None published	$20/month
Boast	B2B multi-format collection	No	Basic trimming	Widgets, embeds	None published	$50/month
VideoPeel	Low-cost campaign collection	No	AI analysis and clipping	Embeds	None published	$10/month
Gather Voices	Events, community, associations	No	Limited	Galleries	ISO 27001	Sales-led ~ $20K/year
OpenReel	Enterprise remote capture	No — capture plus post assist	Post-capture assist	Enterprise delivery	ISO 27001	Sales-led ~ $20K/year

Two patterns are worth naming before the reviews. First, only three of these tools carry any named security certification — Vocal Video, Gather Voices, and OpenReel — and only Vocal Video allows you to sign up without going through a sales process. Second, the cheaper tools are typically cheaper because they stop at video collection - no real editing capability included.

Vocal Video

The premium choice for an end-to-end video testimonial tool

Vocal Video is the only tool here that automates the entire loop of collection to editing, and hands back a finished video. You get branded, subtitled, music-scored 1080p videos without anyone touching the tool. When you do want to change something, it's easy to edit video as simply as editing a Google doc: select words to cut the footage, remove filler words in one click, shorten silences, and clean up the audio. No other tool in this comparison auto-produces the finished video at any price tier; most hand back raw clips.

It's also the only true end-to-end platform in the category — request → collect → edit → host → distribute, in one product. The requesting stage is automated, not just the recording: send requests from a list, one at a time, or triggered from another app (a closed-won deal in your CRM can auto-request a testimonial), each with an automatic reminder. Collect-only competitors skip that stage entirely.

The recording experience is why footage actually comes back. Your customer gets a branded, guided, in-browser collector — nothing to install, just a link or QR code, on any device — with a teleprompter you can pre-load, background blur for their privacy, and unlimited retakes. And it's approachable: a marketer with no video skills produces something polished and on-brand. One customer called it "the iPhone of video testimonials" (Nate Corliss, Rollstack), and the G2 reviews keep landing in the same place — intuitive enough that teams without an in-house video expert still ship.

"Vocal Video is extremely easy to use, and the output looks like you spent $25k on each video w/an agency."
— Evan H., G2 Review

The results scale with the tool. NOCD, a telehealth provider, produced 330+ employee videos in three months; Clari went from "just a few" testimonials to 40+ in six months. Publishing is a first-class step too — ad-free hosting, galleries, cards, and embeds cut to the right aspect ratio, built to sit inside your own site rather than link away.

For larger teams, the trust posture is a genuine differentiator: ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certification, a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement on Enterprise, and GDPR/CCPA compliance — a stronger set than most of the category holds, and healthcare is a core enterprise vertical for us. 6,000+ integrations include HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, Klaviyo, and thousands more. And it's used by 35,000+ companies, including Google, Cisco, Pfizer, Novartis, GSK, Kaiser Permanente, Honeywell, Wayfair, and Stanford — collectively, more than 200,000 people have recorded videos through its collectors, drawing over 450 million views.

Pricing (billed annually): Free · Essential $99/mo · Pro $149/mo · Scale $249/mo · Enterprise custom, from $1,250/mo. It's the most expensive starting point on this list, and that's the honest trade: you're paying for the finished video and the automation around it, not the collection step alone.

• Best for: customer and employee testimonial programs that run continuously, teams with no editor to spare, and anyone whose buyers ask about certifications.
• The one limitation: it's priced as a platform, so if all you want is a single text quote on a landing page or a one-off video, a cheaper single-purpose tool below will do that job for less.

Rating: 4.8/5 on G2 and 5.0/5 on Google.

StoryPrompt

StoryPrompt is a simple video collection form, primarily for coaches and solopreneurs. The platform includes some basic tools to edit clips you've already gathered, auto-summaries and titles, and a teleprompter, from $49/mo. If you're very small organization, and need basic video collection and some editing capabilities, it can be a strong choice.

The job StoryPrompt does vs. Vocal Video. StoryPrompt doesn't produce a finished video from scratch, or automate the request. Its teleprompter is now more or less at parity with Vocal Video's. The small founding team splits attention between StoryPrompt and their newer endeavor Swarm.to.

• Best for: guided storytelling where you want basic AI help editing what you've gathered.
• One limitation: no automatic video draft creation, and no security certifications (no ISO or HIPAA), so it's lighter on enterprise trust.

Testimonial.to

Testimonial.to is the healthiest of the low-cost tools and genuinely still improving — it collects text and video quickly, publishes to walls and widgets, and starts at $25/mo. For indie makers and solopreneurs where text reviews carry most of the weight, it's a popular, well-liked pick.

The job it does compared to Vocal Video: it's text-first, with video as the secondary format rather than the core. Its pricing page lists an "AI testimonial video editor" on the $95/mo top tier, but nothing in the help center, blog, or product pages documents it — so treat editing as none documented rather than a feature you can plan around.

• Best for: fast, low-cost testimonial collection where text does most of the work.
• One limitation: no enterprise security posture (no ISO or HIPAA), so teams that need video-first proof or compliance tend to outgrow it. (We go deeper in our Testimonial.to alternatives guide.)

VideoAsk

Owned by Typeform and still sold as a separate product, VideoAsk turns a form into a conversation: branching logic, video or text answers, calendar booking, and payments, all behind a link. For lead qualification, async interviews, or a video FAQ, it's a strong, versatile pick.

The job it does vs. Vocal Video: it's a general conversational tool, not a testimonial workflow — no automated request-to-finished-video loop and no production. Pricing is metered by processing minutes, so a busy month costs more than a quiet one.

• Best for: conversational video forms and lead capture.
• One limitation: its public changelog hasn't posted an entry since late 2023, so the roadmap looks stalled while the rest of the category ships AI editing.

Boast

Boast is an established tool — it's been doing B2B multi-format testimonial collection since 2013 — with transparent pricing (annual Basic $50/mo, Team $100/mo, Premium $208/mo) and a reliable gathering workflow.

The job it does versus Vocal Video: collection is where it stops. There's no AI auto-editing, so producing the finished video is your job.

• Best for: dependable multi-format collection at a low price, when you already have someone to edit.
• One limitation: it's a small, independent, unfunded team, and the founder splits time with a separate web agency — so it's lighter on new development than the tools investing heavily in AI.

VideoPeel

VideoPeel is the cheapest way onto this list, from $9.99/mo, with campaign templates for collection plus newer AI analysis and clipping features.

The job it does versus Vocal Video: lighter production and editing depth than a full platform, and a thin enterprise story.

• Best for: budget-conscious teams running occasional collection campaigns rather than a continuous program.
• One limitation: minimal market presence and no automated finished-video production, so you're still assembling the output yourself.

Senja

Senja makes a nice text "wall of love" widgets with strong SEO snippets, at a low price (from $29/mo). For a solo creator or small team that wants an attractive text display, it's well-designed and cheap.

The job it does versus Vocal Video: text is the core and video is secondary — there's no video-native production. Its ICP is squarely solo and small-business, below the point where most testimonial programs start.

• Best for: a polished text wall of love on a budget.
• One limitation: no video-first production and no security certifications, so it's the wrong shape of tool for enterprise or regulated buyers.

Trustmary

Trustmary is the broadest tool here: testimonials, third-party review aggregation (Google, G2, Capterra), and NPS/CSAT surveys, all behind a strong widget layer with good integrations. If you want social proof of several kinds in one place, that breadth is real.

Read its pricing carefully. The $26/mo headline is a starting point on a build-your-own plan; the tier Trustmary itself recommends is $203/mo, and Business is $463 — so it isn't the budget option the entry price suggests.

The job it does versus Vocal Video: video is one format among many, not the point. There's no AI auto-editing, so you're left with raw clips.

• Best for: teams that want testimonials, reviews, and surveys in one widget-driven suite.
• One limitation: no named security certification and no finished-video production, so video-first or enterprise buyers will want more.

Gather Voices

Gather Voices got its start in events, community, and association video, an enterprise sales motion, and — unusually for this list — ISO 27001 certification.

The job it does, vs. Vocal Video: it's shaped for events and community rather than general testimonial breadth, it's sales-led with no published or self-serve pricing, and it doesn't offer sophisticated video editing tools or automatically created video drafts. Vocal Video covers the full range of testimonial use cases self-serve, and finishes the video for you.

• Best for: basic video collection, some live event support
• One limitation: narrower applicability and no self-serve onboarding or AI auto-editing, so broader or faster-moving programs may want more range.

OpenReel

OpenReel does genuine broadcast-quality remote capture — 4K, multi-device, director-controlled — with marquee enterprise logos and ISO 27001. If your job is a directed remote shoot, OpenReel does something nothing else on this list does.

The job it does vs. Vocal Video: it's capture and production tooling rather than a testimonial-purpose-built workflow, it's sales-led with no self-serve, and its AI is post-capture editing assistance rather than an automated request-to-finished-video loop. Both tools hold ISO 27001, so the difference is self-serve, purpose-built, and AI-native production, not certifications.

• Best for: enterprise teams running directed, high-production remote shoots.
• One limitation: it's now a product line inside Banzai, a parent whose own auditors have flagged going-concern doubt — worth weighing before you standardize a long-term proof program on it.

Bonjoro

Bonjoro is best-in-class at personalized outbound video — the welcome or thank-you message a founder sends a customer. "Bonjoro Testimonials" is a separate, cheaper product that collects testimonials and publishes a Wall-of-Love embed, free for the first ten.

The job it does versus Vocal Video: Testimonials is a bolt-on beside Bonjoro's core personal-video product, not the focus.

• Best for: teams already sending personalized Bonjoro videos who want a simple testimonial wall alongside.
• One limitation: no AI production, no automated requesting at scale, and no security certifications.

Or skip software? The real cost of the alternatives

Most of the market isn't on any of these tools at all. It's hiring a videographer, running a done-for-you service, or improvising with Zoom — so it's fair to ask whether software is even the right category for you. Here's what the alternatives actually cost, grounded in published prices.

An agency or done-for-you service. Testimonial Hero, the established name, lists average costs starting at $6,000 for a single remote testimonial on its subscription; Sayso Video publishes $2,990 for one video. That buys a lot of real human work — a producer runs the interview, their team edits, you get a polished bundle back. But the cost scales with every story: ten remote testimonials from Testimonial Hero is around $60,000. Vocal Video's Essential plan is $1,188 a year for unlimited stories — so at ten stories a year you're looking at roughly 1–2% of the agency cost, and the eleventh story costs you nothing but the sending.

A traditional production shoot. Crew, shoot day, multiple subjects, and post-production run $20,000 to $50,000 for a program or batch (not per video). It produces cinematic quality, but it takes weeks to schedule and edit, and every new batch is a new invoice.

DIY with Zoom or a phone. It's nearly free in tools, but it's expensive in your time — scheduling calls, chasing files, and editing each clip by hand — and the quality is wildly inconsistent. The right software collapses that effort to about the same setup as a Zoom call, without the scheduling or the manual editing that make DIY quietly expensive.

The honest frame isn't one-off versus subscription — some agencies sell subscriptions too. It's cost per story and who does the work. A service hands you deliverables you keep paying for per story; a platform hands you a capability you own and reuse. If you need one hero video a year at the highest possible production value, hire the crew. If you need a steady stream of proof, software wins on cost, speed, and the fact that the next video is essentially free. (We compare these head to head in our guide to video testimonial services.)

Frequently asked questions

How much does video testimonial software cost?

Entry-level collection tools start under $10/mo (VideoPeel from $9.99/mo). Most sit between $25 and $100/mo. Full platforms with automated editing and security certifications start around $99/mo and reach $1,250/mo and up for enterprise. Two things to watch: some tools meter by usage, so a busy month costs more; and a headline price often isn't the plan you'll need — Trustmary's $26 is a build-your-own starting point, and the plan it recommends is $203/mo. Two tools here, Gather Voices and OpenReel, publish no pricing at all and sell through a sales team.

What is video testimonial software?

Video testimonial software is a tool that collects video reviews from your customers or employees and helps you publish them. The narrowest tools stop at collection — they capture a video and give you a widget to display it. A full platform runs the whole program around that: it automates the request and reminders, guides the recording so the footage is usable, produces the finished, branded video, hosts it ad-free, and gives you galleries and embeds to distribute it. The distinction matters most at volume, because collection tools scale your workload alongside your video count and platforms don't.

What's the best video testimonial software for enterprise teams?

For enterprise, start by narrowing to the tools that can pass a security review. Only three on this list carry named certifications: Vocal Video (ISO 27001, ISO 27701, and a HIPAA BAA), Gather Voices (ISO 27001), and OpenReel (ISO 27001). Of those, Vocal Video is the only one that's testimonial-purpose-built with self-serve pricing, automated production, SSO, and org-wide admin — the other two are sales-led and shaped for events and directed capture respectively. It's used by enterprises including Google, Cisco, Pfizer, Kaiser Permanente, and Honeywell.

Is there HIPAA-compliant video testimonial software?

Vocal Video offers a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement on its Enterprise plan, alongside ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certification — healthcare is a core enterprise vertical for us. No other tool in this comparison publishes a HIPAA BAA. If a vendor's HIPAA claim appears only on a third-party listing rather than their own security page, ask them for the agreement in writing before you rely on it.

Do I need video editing skills to use it?

No — but only with a tool that does the production for you. Vocal Video returns a branded, subtitled, music-scored 1080p video automatically, with no manual editing, and when you do want to change something you edit the transcript rather than a timeline. Most other tools in this comparison hand back raw footage that someone still has to cut, even the ones with AI clipping features, so "no editing skills needed" depends entirely on whether the tool produces the finished video or just collects the clip.

Is there free video testimonial software?

Yes — several tools have a free tier, including Vocal Video, Testimonial.to, Senja, and Bonjoro. On Vocal Video's free plan, collection is unlimited and you can publish up to five finished videos (at 720p, watermarked), which stay embedded and hosted for good — a real way to test whether the finished-video output is what you need, with no credit card required. Free tiers elsewhere vary; check whether the limit is on collecting, publishing, or editing, because those are very different constraints.

The bottom line

If you want a text wall of love, lead-capture forms, or personal sales video, three tools here are better at those jobs than we are — buy them without hesitation. But if you're building a testimonial program that runs continuously, the deciding question is who edits the footage: if a raw clip means a queue that quietly kills the program, automated production is the feature you're shopping for, and it's the one thing nothing else here does. Vocal Video is the premium pick precisely because it takes the recording all the way to a finished, published, on-brand video without an editor in the loop.

Ready to see the finished-video output for yourself? Sign up for a free Vocal Video account — collect as much footage as you like and share embed videos using our tools. No credit card required.

VideoAsk makes it easy to record quick videos for video conversations. If your goal is to run a real testimonial program on it (i.e. asking twenty customers to respond, following up with the ones who don't reply, turning what comes back into something you'd put on your website), you may need to look at some other options.

That's not a knock on VideoAsk. It's built to run a branching conversation — qualify a lead, book a call, take an async interview — and it does that well. Collecting and publishing great testimonials is a different job: you're asking people who don't work for you for a favor, chasing the ones who go quiet, and turning whatever comes back into something you'd actually put in front of a buyer. A conversation tool isn't built for any of that, and no amount of configuring makes it one.

So, the tools compared on this page are sorted by what they're honestly best at — conversational video forms, personal video sent from a salesperson, and collecting customer or employee testimonials.

Jump to: VideoAsk • Dubb • Bonjoro • VideoPeel • Boast • Vocal Video

The five at a glance

What VideoAsk is good at

VideoAsk is a simple form that can collect videos: it includes branching logic, video or text answers, calendar booking and payment steps, all behind a link you can drop anywhere. For lead qualification, async interviews, support intake or a video FAQ, it's a strong pick. They have a free plan, with paid tiers around $24 and $40 per month, metered by processing minutes.

The question to ask before you build on it is how long it's been standing still. VideoAsk's public changelog hasn't posted an entry since late 2023 — around two years, over a stretch when the rest of this category shipped AI editing, AI analysis and automated production. It's still sold and still supported as its own separately-priced Typeform product, so nothing is going away tomorrow. But a testimonial program or an interview pipeline is infrastructure you're committing to for years, and a tool that hasn't shipped a visible change in two is a different kind of bet from one that ships regularly.

That's the honest frame for everything below: not "VideoAsk is bad," but "is it the right tool for the job of video testimonials?"

Where VideoAsk falls short for testimonials

It collects video. It doesn't finish it. Everything else follows from that.

A testimonial program has four steps: ask the right people, give them a way to record videos, turn raw footage into something on-brand, and publish it where buyers see it. VideoAsk is built for giving people a simple way to record video.

No automated production. What comes back is a raw clip. Trimming, branding, subtitling and cutting it to length is manual work — your time or an editor's.

No testimonial-specific requesting. There's no built-in flow for sending to a list, reminding non-responders, or triggering an ask when a customer hits a milestone. You assemble that from email tools.

Minute-metered pricing. Plans are priced by processing minutes, so a good month — more customers saying yes — costs more than a quiet one. That's backwards for something you're trying to scale.

If you want personalized videos for salespeople to send: Dubb and Bonjoro

Both of these tools are genuinely good at something Vocal Video isn't. If this is your job, try one of them.

Dubb

Dubb is for putting video inside the sales workflow: a rep records and sends a personalized video into a deal, with tracking on who watched and for how long. It's outreach tooling that happens to use video, not a collection platform.

Best for: sales teams who want personalized video in their outbound motion.

Bonjoro

Bonjoro's core is personalized 1:1 video — the welcome message a founder sends a new customer, or a thank-you after a renewal. It does that well and cheaply.

"Bonjoro Testimonials" is a separate, secondary product that collects testimonials and publishes a "Wall of Love" embed. It's a reasonable bolt-on, but there's no AI production — what you collect is what you publish — no multi-step requesting at scale, and no security certifications. Bonjoro is an independent company in Sydney, founded in 2016.

Pricing (annual): Free for 10 videos · Pro $20/mo · Growth $79/mo · Agency $179/mo.

Best for: small teams already using Bonjoro for personal video who want a simple testimonial wall alongside it.

Built for testimonials, but collection only: VideoPeel and Boast

These two aim squarely where Vocal Video aims — collecting and publishing video testimonials — without the same submitter experience, the automated video production layer, or the same caliber of sharing/embedding options.

VideoPeel

Campaign-style collection with templates, plus some AI analysis and basic clipping features. It's the cheapest way onto this list. The trade-offs are depth and visibility: lighter finished-video production, and a thin enterprise story.

Pricing: Free · Basic $1o/month · Pro $69/month · Premium $149/month, with annual rates of $5/$49/$99 and custom Enterprise plans.

Boast

Boast has been doing B2B testimonial collection since 2013 and is reliable at it: forms, multiple formats, a solid gathering workflow. Where it stops is production — no AI auto-editing, so finished video is your job. It's an independent, unfunded company of around eight people, and the founder splits his time with a separate agency.

Pricing: annual Basic $50/month · Team $100/month · Premium $208/month (monthly $59/$119/$249), Enterprise custom, 14-day free trial.

Vocal Video

Many people looking at VideoAsk are actually looking for a more complete solution to get video testimonials. VideoAsk provides simple video collection, but to really start or scale a video testimonial program, most users need a more robust platform focused on that use case.

Vocal Video is an end-to-end platform that gets you finished videos. Raw recordings are automatically turned into branded, subtitled, music-scored 1080p video automatically — no editor, no timeline, no export queue. No other tool in this comparison does automated post-production at any price tier.

The submitter experience decides whether you get footage at all. Your customer gets a branded, guided, in-browser collector — nothing to install, just a link or QR code, on any device — with a teleprompter you can pre-load, background blur, guided multi-question prompts, and unlimited retakes. Most tools hand a respondent a form and many require that you download their app. Vocal Video's simplicity in the video collection promise means more potential respondents respond.

Editing works on the transcript, not a timeline. Select words to cut them, remove filler words in one click, shorten silences, clean up the audio. There is nothing comparable in this category.

None of which matters if the software is a chore to use. This is the part that doesn't show up in a feature grid: a marketer with no video skills can produce something polished and on-brand, and the app stays powerful enough for someone who does know video. One customer called it "the iPhone of video testimonials," and the G2 reviews keep landing in the same place — "super intuitive… we don't have an in-house video expert on staff." (source: G2 review) Most tools in this category feel like developer side-projects that assume you already know video. That difference decides whether a team actually adopts the thing or quietly stops opening it.

"I don't have to involve my video editor. I can edit and refine the videos all by myself and get them published in no time at all."
— Ting Mei Chong, Advocacy Manager, Quadient

Publishing is a first-class step, not an export. Galleries, embeds and social formats cut to the right aspect ratio, designed to sit inside your own site rather than link away from it. This is a live gallery, created 100% with Vocal Video, and embedded with a simple snippet of code pulling from our own Vocal Video account.

For larger teams: ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certification, a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement, GDPR and CCPA compliance. Integrations run through Zapier's 6,000+ apps rather than one-off native connectors.

Pricing (billed annually): Free · Essential $99/month · Pro $149/month · Scale $249/month · Enterprise from $1,250/month. It's the most expensive option here, so it's not meant for solopreneurs. But the value more than pays off for organizations with more than a handful of employees and customers.

Best for: customer and employee testimonial programs that need to be able quickly collect videos from employees or customers with an excellent video collection experience, and are looking to improve efficiency of editing and sharing videos. Also any buyers that have security and data privacy requirements.

How to choose a video testimonial app

Two questions settle it.

What's the job to be done? Do you need to capture leads through a video form, send personal video into deals, or enhance or create a testimonial program? Those are three different products, and the first two aren't us. VideoAsk, Dubb or Bonjoro can help you with video forms and personalized videos. Vocal Video users are looking to get customer and employee videos at

If it is a testimonial program: how finished does the video need to be, and who does the work if it isn't? If a raw clip is fine because you have an editor, the cheap end of this list works and you should buy on price. If a raw clip means a bottleneck that quietly kills the program by month two, automated production is the feature you're shopping for — and most of this category doesn't have it.

One smaller question worth asking either way: is pricing metered by usage? A per-minute model charges you more in exactly the months your program is working.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best VideoAsk alternative for customer testimonials?

For testimonials specifically, Vocal Video — it's the only option here that automates the loop from request to finished, branded video rather than stopping at collection, and its guided collector is why respondents finish. If your priority is price over finished output, Boast (from $50/mo) and VideoPeel (from $9.99/mo) collect reliably and cost less.

Is VideoAsk being discontinued?

No. VideoAsk is owned by Typeform and is still sold and supported as a separate, separately-priced product. What changed is pace — its public changelog hasn't posted an entry since late 2023, so the product you buy today is not being actively worked on.

Is VideoAsk or Vocal Video better?

They're built for different jobs, so it depends entirely on yours. VideoAsk is better for asynchronous video conversations where a salesperson might send videos to a prospect. Vocal Video is better if you want a complete testimonial platform — automated requesting, a guided recording experience, AI editing that produces a finished branded video, and embeddable galleries.

Can I collect video testimonials without editing them myself?

Yes, but only with a tool that does automated post-production. Vocal Video's platform has always focused on immediately providing draft videos that are branded, subtitled, and include motion graphics automatically. An easy to understand video editor makes it possible to add your own improvements to videos. Most alternatives here — including VideoAsk, Bonjoro and Boast — hand back raw clips that someone else needs to edit.

How much does video testimonial software cost?

Entry-level collection tools start under $10/mo. Mid-market platforms run roughly $50–$150/mo. Full production platforms with automated editing and security certifications start around $99/mo and reach $1,250/mo and up for enterprise. VideoAsk's paid tiers sit around $24 and $40/mo but are metered by processing minutes, so cost moves with volume.

Is VideoAsk HIPAA compliant?

VideoAsk doesn't publish security certifications for the product itself, and its parent company's certifications don't automatically extend to it — confirm directly with them before assuming coverage. If you need a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement in writing, Vocal Video offers one, alongside ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certification.

What's the best tool for employee testimonial videos?

The same requirements apply, with one addition: employee video usually means many people recording once, so the submitter experience decides whether you get usable footage. Vocal Video's guided in-browser collector — teleprompter, background blur, unlimited retakes, nothing to install — is built for exactly that, and nobody in HR needs an editor on standby.

Try Vocal Video

If what you need is finished testimonials to share on your website and social media, rather than raw footage, the free plan is a real test rather than a teaser: collect as much footage as you like, and get access to sharing and embedding features. No credit card required.

Get your free Vocal Video account

Matt Scott is a non-profit leader and Survivor enthusiast. The host of Pod Friends, on Rob Has a Podcast, Matt had a big idea to celebrate 50 episodes: collect 50+ stories from everyday fans about how Survivor has changed their lives. With Vocal Video, he gathered 58 video and audio responses from people all over the world in just two weeks.

Read on to learn how Matt used Vocal Video to amplify community voices and weave them into something that had never been done before in 25+ years of Survivor fandom. (Sidenote: If you've never watched Survivor, which I hadn't, Matt's story and a glimpse of the video he created from videos he collected will immediately make you add the show to your queue.)

Centering the Community's Voice

As a reality TV enthusiast for over 20 years, Matt has been deeply involved in the Survivor community, and he noticed something significant.

"I found that the people in the community have these really powerful stories," Matt says. "For my Pod Friends season finale, in celebration of Survivor 50, I want to collect 50+ stories of how Survivor has changed the lives of everyday people for the better and how it's motivated them in so many ways — whether that's helping them through challenges like grief, loss, transition, and identity, or whether that's with some of the successes they've had and big moments where the show and its characters has motivated them for the better."

Matt put out the call, and the response was overwhelming.

"Over the course of two weeks, I collected 58 voicemails and videos from people all over the world who are talking about all these really meaningful ways that the show has accompanied them on their journey."

"Oftentimes, I think people might think of Vocal Video as just a platform for folks who want to highlight their customers, but it's something that's so much more. It's really giving space for people to show up and to be heard in ways that maybe they haven't been invited to before."

Making It Easy to Share a Story

Throughout his career, collecting video stories from people has been a huge part of what Matt does — and he knows firsthand how difficult it can be without the right tool.

"Doing that over the past 12 years, to find a platform where people could just upload their stories — and not even upload their stories, but film it in platform or record the audio in platform — has really been a game changer," Matt explains.

"It could be so difficult to summon the courage to tell your story or to share something, and to actually have a platform that makes it really easy with the instructions and with the prompts — all of it goes such a long way."

From Individual Stories to a Bigger Narrative

At the heart of Pod Friends is a community of people around reality TV, unscripted TV, and pop culture. But as Matt points out, those community members aren't always the ones being heard.

"Often you're hearing from me, you're hearing from the guests that I interview, but you're not hearing from the listeners and everyday people and their stories and how they're impacted," Matt says. "To be able to highlight those stories — one, is just something I'm so proud of — to engage them, to amplify them, to celebrate them, to highlight how important they are."

But beyond individual stories, Matt found an even bigger payoff: the ability to stitch those responses together into something larger than the sum of its parts.

"I was able to take all of these stories and weave them together into one bigger narrative that paints a picture of just how meaningful the Survivor community is. And as long as the show's been around — 25+ years — there's never been anything like that, that centers the community and its voices and its stories."

The return on investment is helping folks see the power of the community and see that it's something that's great to tune into, but also get involved in.

Matt sees this as a pattern that extends well beyond one project: "Amplifying people's voices has such a way of helping other people see that they should be involved and they could get engaged."

For Matt, Vocal Video's value comes down to something simple but profound — creating an invitation to share your story.

"One reason I appreciate Vocal Video is that oftentimes people are not asked to share their stories, including in the world of podcasting, in the Survivor community that feels so flat at times," Matt reflects. "Sometimes we center certain voices and people, and to create an opportunity for people to be heard and to share their voice and be part of the narrative that you're sharings really goes a long way."

"Vocal Video makes it really easy for people to be heard. Which is simple, but that's really the value of something like Vocal Video.

With Vocal Video they could go from being silent participants and observers to actually being part of the conversation.

Ready to start easily collecting, editing, and publishing customer testimonial videos and video reviews? Get your free Vocal Video account.

We've redesigned the Vocal Video editor from the ground up. It's the biggest improvement we've ever made to how you edit video in Vocal Video, and we’re so excited to have it live for all users.

Editing a video should feel as easy as editing a document, even if you've never touched video production. Now it does: select a word or sentence in the transcript, click "cut", and the footage is gone. Meanwhile, one-click AI tools — filler-word removal, silence shortening, and Studio Sound — handle the parts that used to need an editor. And when you need maximum precision, our new timeline makes sophisticated edits a breeze. It's all wrapped up in an interface that's even cleaner & simpler than our first-generation video editor, with unlimited undo & redo, and improved collaboration tools.

Read on for more on what’s included in this major release. For the full tour, see the complete guide to the new editor in our Help Center.

Transcript-first video editing

The transcript is now the primary way you interact with your video. Select a sentence, cut it,  and that section is automatically removed. You can also fix punctuation and transcription errors, as well as mute words from the video.

Find & Replace across the transcript

Need to fix a company name, swap out a product term, or correct a repeated typo? Find & Replace now works across the captions and transcript for the whole video.

One-click AI polish

Three new toggles do the cleanup work that used to take a real editor.

One-click filler-word removal

Every "um" and "uh" in your video can now be removed in an instant. 

Shorten word gaps with a threshold you control

The new silence shortener lets you compress those pauses with an adjustable threshold. Slide it to your comfort level: tighten things up for a snappy social clip, or leave more breathing room for a longer-form piece.

Studio Sound — AI audio cleanup, on by default

Studio Sound is our new AI-powered audio processing that replaces the old loudness-normalization pass. It does three things automatically: removes room noise and echo, evens out volume levels across speakers, and enhances voice clarity.

Interactive timeline with zoom, filmstrips, and waveforms

A new – and completely optional – timeline includes filmstrip thumbnails on every segment so you can visually scan your video, live audio waveforms, and zoom controls to make precise edits possible. You can also add scenes right from the timeline.

A simplified layout with more WYSIWYG editing

We reduced the number of panels in the video editor, simplified navigation, and made every control easier to find. We want you to have a clutter-free space to put the finishing touches on your videos. 

Movable captions with per-word highlighting

Subtitles and captions can now be nudged up or down on the video to fit your layout, and lower-third titles will automatically move so they don't overlap.

Timestamped comments

Editors and reviewers can leave comments pinned to the exact frame they're referencing. Click a comment, and the playhead jumps right there. As before, @-mention a colleague to bring them into the conversation.

Zoom effects to add visual interest

Zoom effects, borrowed from the editing playbook of YouTubers and documentarians, give your video the visual motion that holds a viewer's attention. Three flavors, three jobs:

Punch in or out — to hide a cut. Every time you trim a filler word, the speaker's head jumps a few pixels in the frame. An instant cut to a tighter crop covers the seam, making jump cuts read as intentional rather than messy. It's the YouTube vlog move.

Quick zoom in or out — for emphasis. A fast, deliberate zoom is a visual exclamation point. Use it on a key number, a surprise, or the line you most want
to land. One or two per video is usually plenty.

Slow zoom in or out — the "Ken Burns" effect. Named after the documentarian who used it to bring still photographs to life, a slow drift adds gravity to emotional beats without ever calling attention to itself. Pair it with the customer's "and that's when everything changed" sentence and let the camera quietly pull the viewer in.

Strength and focal-point controls dial each effect from subtle to dramatic.

And much, much more...

Full undo/redo across the editor

Undo and redo now work across every action in the editor — not just transcript edits, but soundtrack changes, thumbnail selections, and everything else. Made a change you don't like? Cmd/Ctrl+Z your way back. 

See who else is editing — and never overwrite each other

You can now see who else is in the editor at the same time, with live avatars. And if two people are editing simultaneously, the editor protects against one person silently overwriting another's changes.

SRT caption download

You can now download your captions as SRT files for use on social platforms, in your LMS, or for compliance uploads. The captions are generated from the same transcript you've already edited, so they're accurate and ready to go.

New-scene dropdown and smoother video uploads

Adding new scenes is faster with the new dropdown menu, and both uploading video clips and adding image scenes have their own streamlined flows. It's a smoother experience whether you're inserting a title card, a photo, or a new video segment.

Video-details popover

The old title dropdown has been replaced with a cleaner video-details popover. It gives you more room to see and edit your video's metadata without feeling cramped.

Faster preview playback

Editor media now loads from our CDN, which means preview playback is noticeably faster. You'll feel the difference especially on longer videos or when jumping between segments.

A first-class Reviewer experience

Reviewers — the people you invite to approve or give feedback on a video before it's published — now get a dedicated view built on the same editor shell. They get timestamped comments, sharing controls, and can see who else has the video open, without the complexity of the full editing interface.

What's next

This release represents months of work from our product team, and we're really proud of how it turned out. But we're not done. The rebuilt editor gives us a much stronger foundation to ship new features faster going forward.

We'd love to hear what you think. If you have questions, feedback, or just want to say hi, reach out to us at support@vocalvideo.com. For a full list of all the new features and how to use them, see the complete guide in our Help Center.

BookLife by Publishers Weekly helps authors navigate the world of independent publishing. With Vocal Video, the team has unlocked a powerful new way to show how their products make a real difference — and found unexpected use cases along the way. As COO Carl Pritzkat puts it: "Vocal Video has revolutionized our ability to contact our customers and get them to provide us great testimonials."

Read on to learn how BookLife went from zero video testimonials to dozens - and energized marketing initiatives with Vocal Video.

The Challenge: Video Testimonials Were Simply Out of Reach

Before Vocal Video, BookLife had never managed to capture a single video testimonial. The logistics were just too cumbersome.

"Before Vocal Video, we never managed to record these testimonial videos,"

Carl explains. "It was too difficult to set up a Zoom or set up a FaceTime with these people and then record it and then go through it."

The team knew that customer stories could be a powerful marketing asset, but without a streamlined way to collect them, video testimonials remained an untapped opportunity.

The Use Case: A Simple Link for Video Capture

BookLife now uses Vocal Video to collect testimonials from customers across their various products. The simplicity of the tool was a game-changer — for the BookLife team and for the customers recording videos alike.

"Vocal Video is a tool — a link that you can send to people, even people who aren't particularly technically proficient — that allows them to easily record a video on their computer or their phone, which gets automatically sent to you," Carl says.

"It's a very simple, bulletproof, but high-quality tool for collecting videos."

And the team isn't stopping at traditional testimonials. They're already exploring creative new applications, including using Vocal Video for journalism — replacing static email questionnaires with dynamic video responses.

"We're talking about using it for journalism, for instance, sending it out to people instead of just sending them an email questionnaire. They actually respond to our questions on video, and we can then transcribe it and use it in a traditional article. But we can also use it in a video of the article, or in promotions for the article."

The Results: Energized Marketing and Improved Product Performance

The impact has been felt across BookLife's entire marketing operation. The team now repurposes their video testimonials across multiple channels, getting far more mileage out of every customer story.

"Our return on investment with these videos is really through our marketing efforts," Carl shares. "It's completely energized and revolutionized our marketing and has allowed us to demonstrate to the world how great our products are because of these testimonial videos that we're able to provide. We cut them up and do all sorts of things with them so we can promote them on social media and beyond."

And the results speak for themselves: "We've seen the results through the improved performance of the different products we have because of the improved marketing we're able to do."

The Verdict

Carl's recommendation is unequivocal: "I absolutely recommend Vocal Video for anybody who wants a very simple tool for collecting video from customers, from clients — really from anyone. I think anybody who wants a very simple way of getting videos from people will be very pleased with what they get out of Vocal Video."

Ready to start easily collecting, editing, and publishing customer testimonial videos and video reviews? Get your free Vocal Video account.

NOCD is a telehealth platform specializing in OCD treatment that connects members with licensed therapists. To help prospective members feel confident about choosing the right therapist, NOCD creates therapist profile videos that give people a sense of who their potential provider is before ever booking an appointment.

The challenge: Finding a platform with utmost simplicity for respondents

NOCD’s first use case for Vocal Video had two requirements: it had to be easy for therapists to use on their own devices, on their own schedules - and it had to remove the issues that had plagued their previous video platform. Olivia Upton, Clinical Support Specialist at NOCD, says

We were specifically trying to solve the challenge of finding a platform that was user-friendly and also relatively easy for clients to record on their own devices during their own blocks of time.

The previous tool they used created friction on both ends — therapists ran into technical difficulties during recording, and editors spent significant time wrangling the results.

The solution: Vocal Video's guided video collection process

NOCD found that they could streamline the process with Vocal Video by sending a video request through the platform that includes a link to the Video Collector. Respondents then record responses to individual questions on their own time, and the editing team gets clean, organized footage they can work with right away.

One feature that made a particularly big difference: the ability to record answers question by question, rather than in one long take. Olivia explains:

Having different clips that are recorded separately, by question, has been very helpful to allow people to record shorter videos and then be able to redo them — and not feel like they have to redo a full 10-minute video.

Vocal Video's automatic editing and easy to use editing tools makes it fast to trim clips and make changes without back-and-forth.

The editing feature has made it very quick to edit clips and make changes to videos on the end of the editor's side.

The results: Dramatically fewer complaints, faster turnaround

NOCD has seen a dramatic reduction in complaints about usability and technical difficulties with the video platform.

The streamlined workflow also means the team can send video requests asking for the videos more easily, customize the video responder to fit NOCD's brand, and publish polished, professional-looking therapist profiles without the heavy lift that used to come with each one.

Would Olivia Recommend Vocal Video?

Without hesitation.

Yes, I would definitely recommend Vocal Video. It is a quick, easy, and user-friendly way to record videos.

You will have very few complaints from users, and you can send out emails easily, customize your video responder, and also make edits and changes to videos very quickly.

Ready to collect professional videos from your team — without the technical headaches? Sign up free at vocalvideo.com

When Meaghan Sullivan joined Google Cloud nearly five years ago, video testimonials followed a familiar pattern: high-touch, expensive productions reserved for select customer segments. Fast forward to today, and her team at Google Workspace publishes a regular video series featuring everyone from IT admins to C-suite executives—all recorded remotely by customers themselves.

The transformation didn't happen overnight, but when it did, Vocal Video was at the center of it.

The Challenge: Creating Dynamic Content at Scale With a Small Team

When Sullivan moved to Google Workspace to build out their advocacy and reference program, there was a common challenge. Her team was much smaller than her last, but the demand for fresh, authentic customer stories was just as high—if not higher.

"We really needed to be able to create dynamic content channels beyond just traditional customer testimonials, blogs, and case studies," Sullivan explains.

The team wanted to launch a weekly video series showcasing how customers use Google Workspace products like Gmail, Chat, and Meet to connect, create, and do their best work. But traditional video production simply wouldn't scale.

The math didn't add up. Professional video shoots can cost $50,000 to $100,000 per project. Targeting a regular series was impossible.

The Breakthrough: When Everyone Became Comfortable on Camera

Initially, Google Cloud used Vocal Video selectively—primarily for IT admins and SMB customers who were already comfortable with self-recording. Enterprise executives? Those were still high-touch video shoots.

Then COVID-19 changed everything.

"Once we got into COVID, all those lines got blurred," Sullivan recalls. "Everyone got really used to recording videos at home. Right now I have a ring light. Before COVID I did not have one. I am not a social media influencer. But now a lot of us have these tools in our own homes."

The team made a pivotal decision: try Vocal Video with their entire customer base—all segments, all industries, all personas.

The result? Immediate receptivity.

"We have everybody from IT admins to CEOs and founders to CIOs really embracing this record-at-home capability," Sullivan says. Customers felt comfortable re-recording as many times as needed and appreciated the guided prompts that made them feel supported—just like they would with a high-touch experience, but through a scalable platform.

The Rebrand Challenge: Turning a Nightmare Into a Non-Issue

When Google launched their generative AI product and subsequently rebranded it, they faced a content crisis. The team had filmed numerous customer videos featuring the old branding.

With traditional video production, that content would have been unusable—tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain.

Instead, Sullivan's team simply sent new Vocal Video links.

"We were able to do it literally free of charge other than our customers' time, because we already have the subscription with Vocal Video," Sullivan explains. "Because the recordings only take 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how many times you want to re-record, we were able to get brand-new videos with the new rebrand."

That's something you could never do with traditional video workflows.

The Results: A Weekly Video Series and Beyond

Today, Google Workspace's video series runs every week, featuring authentic stories from customers across all segments. The series wouldn't be possible without Vocal Video.

But the platform's impact extends beyond the weekly series. The team has used Vocal Video for:

• DEI initiatives: Capturing stories from women customers for Women's Equality Day and Women's History Month
• Product launches: Quickly creating updated content when products evolve
• Customer advocacy: Scaling social proof across the entire customer journey

Sullivan's biggest lesson? Don't limit yourself based on assumptions about who will or won't record themselves.

"We thought people would be more receptive to self-recording for maybe IT admins or SMB," Sullivan says. "Moving over to Google Workspace, we had a much smaller team, smaller resources and budget. We said, people are used to recording at home—let's try out Vocal Video with all of our customer base, not just a specific segment or persona."

The barrier to high-quality video testimonials isn't who your customers are. It's having the right tools to make the process simple, fast, and professional.

Ready to scale your video testimonial program like Google Workspace? Start collecting authentic customer videos with Vocal Video today →

At Vocal Video, we believe in shipping new features, design improvements, and bug fixes fast & frequently – we deploy product updates hundreds of times each year. But sometimes, to make a more dramatic improvement, we undertake bigger projects that take longer to come to fruition. We just finished one such project and we’re excited to tell you all about it!

AI-powered video collector creation

Vocal Video has long provided video collector templates to give you a good starting point for your video collectors no matter your use case. But, we can only create a finite number of templates. So we thought “what if you could just describe a project in a sentence or two and AI could create it for you?”

Sounds simple, right? But, there’s actually a lot that goes into creating a great video collector. To do a good job, the AI needs to take into account your brand, have knowledge of what your company actually does, and make it match your specific project description! Here’s just some of what the AI sets up for you:

• Relevant, context-specific questions that will elicit great video responses
• Customized intro and thank-you messages
• A strong public-facing title for your collector
• Invitation and reminder emails with effective subject lines, copy, and calls to action (more on these emails below)
• Your company branding is automatically applied (if your brand kit is already set up it won’t be overridden)

If you’re not sure what kind of AI prompt to write, we provide dozens of starter prompts for all of the use cases we support. For example, here are the sample AI prompts for the “marketing” use case:

Just as with our templates, you can use the AI-generated video collectors as a starting point to save you time – you can share them as-is or make any tweaks you want before sharing (all with an even-better interface – see below). And if you don’t want to create your video collectors with AI, it’s just as easy as it always was to pick a template or start from scratch.

(by the way, if you’re using Vocal Video to screen candidates as part of your hiring process, you can even paste in the whole job description and get a perfectly tailored video collector!)

It was a lot of work for our engineering team, but we’re really happy with the results. Let us know how AI-powered collector setup is working for you!

Send branded video request emails via Vocal Video

Something fundamental about how Vocal Video has always worked is “share a link, get videos”. This has meant that you’ve always had to copy a link (be it a one-size-fits-all link to a video collector, a personalized link for an individual respondent, or a QR code), and then send your own invitation emails.

But, sending good video-request emails that convert isn’t easy! Email design, copywriting, subject lines, list management, reminders, handling bounces and opt-outs – it’s a lot. We have a lot of deep expertise in this domain, so we added it to Vocal Video to make life easier for you.

Now, when your video collector is ready for responses, you’ll see a new “get responses” page with three new options: Send a Video Request, Upload a List, and Automate Video Requests. More on each below.

Sending one-off Video Requests

Want to send a well-designed, branded, and effective video request email to someone? Now you can do it in seconds. Just enter your recipient’s name and email, and click send! 

Here are some more details on how it works:

• Your email subject, body, and call-to-action button are customized for you by AI during collector creation. You can override any of these when sending your message, and see a live preview.
• By default, a reminder will go out to people if they haven’t responded within 7 days. You can toggle that on/off and also customize the reminder language.
• Scheduling is built in: set your email to go out now, tomorrow morning, at the start of next week, or anytime you prefer.
• Want to use your own message for multiple recipients? It’s super easy to edit the video collector’s templated first-ask and reminder emails. (you can also edit the “from” name in the email here.)

Sending Video Requests to a List

Sending video requests to a list with Vocal Video is just as easy as sending one-off requests. You’ll need a customer email list in CSV format (any spreadsheet or CRM can export in this format). Upload it, and Vocal Video will automatically identify the columns and map the data to the appropriate fields.

From there, you just preview (and tweak if you want) the first-ask and reminder messages, schedule delivery for now or later, and you’re done!

Automating Video Requests With Integrations

Automating video requests as part of a customer lifecycle or hiring process is one of the best ways to get value out of your Vocal Video investment – once you set it up, you get a steady stream of fresh video content.

Now, it’s easier than ever with triggered video requests. When an event happens in your CRM, ATS, online store – or whatever software you use – you can now easily make Vocal Video send out a video-request email. All the customer/candidate/employee variables you need are passed to Vocal Video and automatically populated into the emails so that each recipient receives a personalized request. Triggered video requests support reminders too!

We have ready-made integrations for over 100 popular apps, and with Zapier, you can set up automated video requests with just about any software platform.

Manage requests and see who’s responded

Want to see who’s responded, who hasn’t, when reminders are scheduled to go out, and maybe reschedule them? We’ve made that super easy with three new dashboards: one for all video requests in your workspace, one for all video requests belonging to a particular collector, and one for each uploaded list.

Generous Video Request Limits

Here are the video request limits for each of our plans:

• Free: up to 50 per month
• Essential: up to 12,000 per year
• Pro: up to 24,000 per year
• Enterprise: custom limits

What about email bounces, opt-outs, etc?

We protect your (and our) email reputation and ensure high deliverability by tracking bounced email addresses, including opt-out links for recipients, and using DKIM verification. We’re email nerds, so you don’t have to be.

To prevent spamming, or just accidentally flooding someone’s inbox, we won’t send another video-request email to someone if they already have an open video request. Keep this in mind if you send test emails to yourself!

A fully redesigned video collector builder

At Vocal Video, we always strive to create the best user experience we can. The video collector creation interface is one of those areas we’ve put a lot of effort into over the years, but we’re never satisfied with “good enough”. With the addition of AI-powered collector creation and video-request emails, we decided it was time for an overhaul.

We’re really proud of the results – with the new wizard panel and streamlined steps, it’s faster & easier to go through the setup process. The redesigned left-hand sidebar makes it easy to go between setup mode and seeing your requests, responses, and more advanced settings. We even managed to free up some screen space so it works better at smaller window sizes, and of course you can still set up, preview, and launch a video collector from your phone!

Questions?

There’s obviously a lot in this product update. Whether you’re new to Vocal Video, or have been with us for years, if you have any questions about the new functionality, let us know!

Chris Barrow, founder of The Extreme Business Academy, characterizes Vocal Video as one of the most important tools in his marketing toolkit. “It's absolutely brilliant. Seamless, easy to learn, easy to operate, and easy for the client at the other end to actually record.” 

The testimonial videos for the Extreme Business Academy embedded on his website with Vocal Video have been viewed over 46,000 times - and counting.

Read on to learn more about how Chris' team uses Vocal Video to collect, edit, and promote testimonial videos across social media channels, as well as using them on their website, blog posts, newsletter and YouTube channels.

How does your organization use testimonial videos?

Chris Barrow: I'm the founder of the Extreme Business 100 Coaching Programme. I provide business coaching for the owners and managers of dental practices both in the UK, Ireland, and overseas.

We've been using Vocal Video to collect testimonial videos from our clients and to use them across social media channels, our website, in blog posts, newsletters, and YouTube channels. We really enjoy using Vocal Video. Prospective clients find it reassuring to listen to feedback from like-minded professionals who encourage them to become part of our group before hiring me as a business coach or join our community.

What challenges did you have with creating video testimonials before Vocal Video?

Chris Barrow: 

Before using Vocal Video, we had extreme difficulty collecting any video testimonials from our clients. 

In the past, there were only really two opportunities to collect video testimonials. The first one would be if I visited the client's dental clinic, and when they had me there working with them, we didn't really have any time to spare to start looking for video testimonials. Nor could I wander around the country with a professional videographer in the back of my car waiting to be called out when appropriate.

Secondarily, we meet with our clients at regular workshops around the United Kingdom and Ireland. And again, when you've got anything from 50 to 100 people in a workshop environment, it can be quite difficult logistically to try to pull them out of the workshop and grab that video testimonial. This was also expensive because I would have had to hire a freelance videographer with all of the appropriate technology to bring with them, and then try to grab the client during a break, take them off to a noisy corner of the conference centre and capture that testimonial. 

The videos were got were expensive, it was logistically difficult. The number of videos that we were able to collect was limited. We contrast that now with:

Vocal Video is a simple, easy, effective solution that allows the client to choose their time and environment for a video testimonial.

What’s the ROI of video testimonials for your organization, and how do you measure it?

Chris Barrow:

Prior to recording my Vocal Video testimonial, I thought I'd go back to my own web page to have a look at the level of engagement that we've had with the videos that we have posted over the last couple of years.

We’ve had over 46,000 views of the client testimonial videos that we have been able to post since we began with Vocal Video.

That's phenomenal when you consider that there are something in the region of 25,000-30,000 dentists registered in the United Kingdom, together with their support teams, but we know that those videos are viewed by overseas visitors as well.

How do you measure the return on investment from a Vocal Video testimonial? Well, in one sense that's impossible. When I listen to new clients describe the journey that they have taken in order to find me, find our community and trigger themselves to become members, very often they'll tell me that they've been reading my blog (which has been published since 2004), they've been following my newsletters (which have been broadcast for just as long), and they also keep tabs with articles that I write in trade journals and talks that I give at trade shows and conferences.

I always like to imagine that as a client or a customer is making their journey towards you, they are stepping on a row of stones across a pond that lead to an island in the middle. Can you imagine that in your mind? One of those beautiful Japanese settings where you've got the stillness of the water and then the pebbles across to the island in the centre. I always think that marketing is like stepping on those pebbles. I read a blog post. I saw a newsletter. I heard a talk. I read an article in a journal. One of those stepping stones as I approach the island, as I get towards the end of my journey, is that Vocal Video testimonial which might be the last stepping stone that I need in order to persuade myself to actually take that final step and reach the island or the coaching community in the middle. The level of reassurance that they get from like-minded professionals who encourage them to become part of our community really is a fantastic final step. 

We don't measure in numeric terms, rather we measure the feedback. For example, someone might say. "I've been following you for years, Chris, I was ready to join your community, but when I watched those testimonials from people who I knew were in the same boat as me, and that you've been able to help them, that was the last convincing that I needed."

Would you recommend others try Vocal Video? Why?

Chris Barrow: One of the questions that we ask our clients on our own Vocal Video testimonial is: 'What advice would you give to people who are considering joining the Extreme Business coaching community?' Without any prompting, pretty much every single video testimonial has somebody saying the same thing. And it's just three words, and those three words are "Just do it." And I would say exactly the same thing about Vocal Video. 

I have 100% satisfaction with Vocal Video, no regrets whatsoever about using it, and intend to continue to be a very happy customer of Vocal Video for a very long time to come.

How would you describe Vocal Video?

Chris Barrow: How would I describe Vocal Video?

Our newest product release allows your video collector respondents to blur their backgrounds while recording videos. However, with our AI Effects, you can also blur or fully replace a subject's background within the Vocal Video Editor!

AI Background Effects can help maintain privacy, reduce distractions, and add a professional touch to your videos. When editing your videos you can leave the video's background as-is, you can blur it, you can remove the background, or you can replace the background with a new background of your choosing. Any AI Effect you choose will be applied to all video scenes in your video, including uploaded video scenes.

Blurring Backgrounds

You can adjust the amount of blur with the slider. Blurring a background can be useful when the backdrop of your video is distracting or private.

Removing Backgrounds

You can remove the background of your video scenes altogether. If you remove the background of your video scenes the default background for the theme of your video will replace the background. 

Replacing Backgrounds

You can also replace the background of your video scenes with an uploaded background scene of your choosing. By choosing the replace the background, one replacement background will be used for every video scene in your video.

For more step-by-step instructions on how to use these new features, check out this help center article.

Sound Physicians’ national, multi-specialty medical group is made up of more than 4,000 medical professionals, practicing in 400-plus hospitals across 45 states. With Vocal Video, Sound Physicians has found a “game-changer” for easily collecting videos from company leaders, partners, and employees to use in internal comms, social media marketing, and to feature on the website.

Read on to learn more about how Sara Lippert of Sound Physicians uses Vocal Video’s automatically edited videos, and realizes a significant ROI from video testimonials.

How does Sound Physicians use testimonial videos?

Sara Lippert: As a fully digital organization, our colleague population is extremely dispersed. The ability to use Vocal Video to collect colleague testimonials or partner testimonials has been really beneficial to our social media marketing and website content.

As someone who takes care of all of our internal communications, I really like to use Vocal Video to collect thank you messages from our leaders that we then send out in emails to our physician population.

What challenges did you have with creating video testimonials before Vocal Video?

Sara Lippert: The biggest challenge when it came to collecting testimonial videos was always the transfer of files. A lot of times video testimonials are too big to pass through emails. You have to go through third parties, or find a way to upload into the same shared folder.

It was always really complicated to explain to people how to submit videos. Now it is so easy!

With Vocal Video, the seamless transition from somebody recording a video on their phone or computer and then me immediately having access to it has been a complete game changer.

Editing is also fantastic now. Though I know how to be dangerous with an Adobe platform, the ease with which I'm able to generate subtitles and add transitions into a video can turn anybody into James Cameron. It's amazing.

What’s the ROI of video testimonials for Sound Physicians and how do you measure it?

Sara Lippert: Most of the ROI that I get to see for Vocal Video is through the internal communications that I send. Our own leaders record short snippets, and we share the videos with our colleague population. I think the biggest ROI is the general interaction with our colleagues.

It's definitely hard to measure how close a colleague feels connected with their organization, but I can track it through clicks on our emails, as well as just hearing directly from people that they appreciate when we send messages out in those ways.

Would you recommend others try Vocal Video? Why?

Sara Lippert: I would absolutely recommend Vocal Video to other organizations or internal communicators like myself.

Vocal Video is pretty unmatched when it comes to seamlessness of video collection and ease of use.

The authenticity that you get from videos submitted with Vocal Video is really refreshing.

It's fun, I guess, to spend a lot of money on a really expensive marketing video shoot, but you really lose out on the true connection of somebody talking to their camera. It is really raw, and I've always really appreciated that over having a really slick well put together video. Which isn’t to say that the videos from Vocal Video aren't well put together, because they are.

You get an air of charm and relatability that you can't replicate in a really polished studio environment. Not to mention it's a lot less expensive to have it done with Vocal Video.

How would you describe Vocal Video?

Sara Lippert:

I would describe Vocal Video as a one-stop shop for creating seamless, authentic, and easily accessible testimonial videos.

Note: Ready to start easily collecting, editing, and publishing customer testimonial videos and video reviews? Get your free Vocal Video account.