The right moment to ask a home-loan client for a testimonial or referral is right after settlement, when the relief and gratitude are genuine and fresh — and the right way to ask is specific and low-pressure, tied to what you actually did for them, not a generic request for “feedback.” This is the flip side of a conversation I’ve written about before on why lenders don’t ask for the business — the same hesitation shows up here, and it’s solvable the same way: by making the ask specific enough that it doesn’t feel transactional.
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Why lenders avoid asking
Most of the reluctance I see on my team isn’t about the client saying no — it’s about the ask feeling like you’re cashing in on the relationship the moment it’s over. That discomfort is legitimate, but it usually comes from asking the wrong way, not from asking at all. A vague “would you mind leaving us a review?” sent in a generic follow-up email feels like every other request that lands in someone’s inbox after a transaction. A specific ask, tied to something real that happened during their loan, doesn’t feel like that at all — it feels like being asked to help someone who genuinely helped you.
Timing: settlement day, not three months later
The best window is the day settlement goes through, or within a few days either side of it, while the relief of getting across the line is still fresh. I’ve made the mistake of waiting — telling myself I’d follow up “once things had settled down” for the client — and by the time I circled back a month or two later, the specific details of what made the experience good had faded for them, and the ask landed as an afterthought rather than a genuine moment. If there was a point in the process where you genuinely went out of your way — chased a valuer, pushed a lender for an exception, kept them updated when a file stalled — that moment is worth naming when you ask, because it’s what they’ll actually remember writing about.
How I actually phrase it
I don’t ask for “a testimonial.” I ask something closer to: “I’m glad we got that sorted for you before your settlement date — if you’re happy to, would you mind writing a couple of lines about how the process went? It genuinely helps other people in a similar situation trust that this can work.” That’s specific to what happened, low-pressure (“if you’re happy to”), and gives them a reason beyond just doing me a favour. I also tell them exactly how long it needs to be — two or three sentences is plenty — because an open-ended request feels like homework, and people don’t do homework for someone they just finished a transaction with.
The same specificity applies to asking for a referral rather than a written testimonial. “Is there anyone else you know who’s in the same boat you were six months ago — first home, self-employed, whatever their situation was — who might want a chat?” works better than “know anyone who needs a loan?” because it points them toward a specific person in their head, rather than making them scan their entire contact list for someone vaguely loan-shaped.
Make it genuinely easy
Whatever channel you use — a text, a Google review link, a quick voice note back to you — pick the one that matches how that client already communicates with you. A client who’s been texting you the whole loan process isn’t going to want to log into a review site and figure out a password. Match the effort to the relationship you already have, not to whatever’s easiest for you to collect.
Say thank you properly, and mean it
When someone does write something for you, acknowledge it specifically — tell them what you’re going to do with it, or that a particular line they wrote is exactly what you needed. A generic “thanks so much!” reply undercuts the effort they just made. This is the same principle as the actual advice underneath asking for the business in the first place: people respond to being treated as specific individuals, not as a source of five-star ratings. Get that part right, and asking for a testimonial stops feeling like a transaction and starts being just another honest conversation with someone you helped.
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Written by Michael Wignall, Lending Area Manager with 30+ years in banking and home lending across the ACT, Illawarra, and Riverina. Got a question or an idea for a post? Get in touch.
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