What’s Better – Customer Feedback or Vendor Success Stories?
As buyers, we need help making decisions. There are just too many options.
My last post revealed my own decision anxiety, multiplied when there are no customer reviews or success stories for me to rely on.
From personal experience, reviews help us make decisions faster and feel more confident about them.
But what’s the difference between customer feedback a la Amazon or eBay compared to vendor-produced case studies and success stories? And how can companies benefit from both?
Customer Reviews
Smart companies today ask you for your feedback. They email you after a purchase requesting that you follow a link and "rate and review" the product or service.
- Feedback is raw, real, unpolished information right from customers.
- Customers are free to share their negative experiences.
- Any grammar errors or typos are still there, adding to the authenticity.
- It’s free-form, so customers talk about what is important to them, usually without any prompting questions.
- As a short review, it only takes a few minutes.
- There may be a shortage of free-form reviews on higher-end solutions (i.e. $1 million ERP software implementation).
- That content isn’t leveraged beyond showing up on review sites.
- Cheap or free for vendors.
Vendor Case Studies & Success Stories
Case studies and success stories, produced by the vendor company, formally capture a customer’s experience.
- Vendors reach out to their most successful customers, so no negative stories.
- Prospective customers see them as more slick or "commercial" than raw feedback.
- Customers agree to share their story formally and publicly.
- Formal interviews draw out specific aspects of the customer’s experience.
- The story format engages readers in a different way, taking the audience through challenge, solution and resolution – allowing prospects to better see themselves in those stories.
- Results are measured – to the extent possible.
- Once approved, the content can be used in various formats – press releases, stand-alone testimonials, award applications, etc.
- Takes more money and time.
In today’s buying climate, you need these customer experiences to help buyers. What do you choose?
Both. Ideally, your prospective customers can find free-form feedback on the web AND review more formalized, comprehensive, measurable stories about customer experiences.
Customers today benefit from both. The first provides more AUTHENTICITY and the second much-desired DETAIL – both critical pieces of a buying decision.
In fact, make both a part of your marketing plan:
- Give happy customers links to online feedback sites.
- Approach those same happy customers about documenting their stories more extensively in print, audio or video.
- Send prospects to sites with customer feedback (hopefully it’s good!) and to stories on your website.
Regardless of what mix you choose, always ensure that you give prospects access to other customers’ experiences. You can help them get past indecision.
What’s your take? What do prospects gain from free-form feedback versus vendor stories?
Customer Successes – Help Buyers Decide FASTER
All week, I’ve been mulling over a few purchase decisions – comparing specs, prices and especially reading online reviews from other buyers that have gone before me.
Not the impulsive type, my research was going well until one of the purchases on my list hit a wall – NO customer reviews or success stories.
If you’re like me, you’ve grown very accustomed to having real feedback from other buyers on anything from a $10 book to a $20,000 car. A lot is riding on each purchase: a big investment of time in the first case and a chunk of change and safety for the latter.
We’ve come to rely on these "Citizen Marketers" (coined by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba) as our compass for making decisions. Without it, we can feel lost in the woods.
So what’s really going on when a buyer can’t get her hands on other customer experiences?
We make decisions more slowly – or not at all
This week I’m investigating new video cameras and hotels for a spring vacation. Sites like Amazon.com, TripAdvisor, and stories/testimonials on actual websites of hotels and bed and breakfasts have all pushed me closer to buying.
With that rich information, I am MUCH closer to making a decision.
Yet for a business product I’m considering, no such customer feedback is available. So instead, I put off that decision for now.
We buy less confidently
What’s really behind it? I’m just not confident enough in the business product to move ahead. Maybe it’s a fabulous product, but I’m going to need more than the company’s sales copy to help me decide.
I don’t think I’m alone. Buyers today are very accustomed to having that level of information to support their purchases.
Think about it. Are your buyers hesitating without customer feedback? What can you do to change that?
Whether it’s suggesting happy customers post on review sites or capturing the details in case studies or success stories, HELP prospective customers buy faster and more confidently.
And now, I have a few purchases to make…
What was the last significant purchase you made, and how influential was real customer feedback?
Next week: The differences between review sites and vendor-produced case studies and success stories.
Customer Stories…Make a Tractor Interesting?
Most of us – for better or worse – have had a fast-food hamburger. It usually arrives in paper, often drippy and with an already soggy bun. The burger gets the job done, but not memorably.
Compare that to eating the hamburger at an upscale restaurant. The menu talks about "grass-fed" beef, "artisanal" bread and maybe a house-made aioli mayonnaise. Then, someone slides it gingerly in front of you on a modern square plate with toppings on the side that look fresh from the farmer’s market.
They’re completely different experiences – and all in the presentation.
Customer case studies and success stories are just as subject to packaging and presentation. You can lay out just the facts, or you can tell a STORY.
Volvo Construction Equipment gets it. They know they’re not just selling construction equipment. In the story below, they’re selling better, cheaper road maintenance.
The packaging: an intriguing, well-written customer success story. Volvo tells the tale of a rural Alabama county’s plight after receiving 12 inches of rain in a single day.
What does Volvo do right?
Feature-story format – The tale takes the form of an engaging feature story like you’d see in a magazine. It doesn’t go traditional by blocking text into Challenge-Solution-Results sections.
Strong writing – The writing is specific and sets the scene about the toll of the heavy rain.
Authentic quotes – The quotes sound genuinely spoken by the guys in the field using the equipment, which adds authenticity with the audience.
Clear results – Volvo highlights measurable and anecdotal results.
If Volvo can make a tractor sound interesting, then there’s hope for whatever your product or service is.
Whatever you’re selling, you can wrap your customer’s story in cheap paper or present it elegantly.
5 Case Study Take-Aways from “Believe Me”
It’s back to blogging after the long Thanksgiving weekend!
While traveling, I had the chance to read Michael Margolis’ new book, Believe Me: A Storytelling Manifesto for Changemakers and Innovators.
Margolis, a storytelling visionary and president of Get Storied, presents 15 storytelling axioms, along with commentary and quotes from luminaries, including Barack Obama, Seth Godin, and Gloria Steinem.
Believe Me highlights why and how storytelling can help you get others to believe in your product, service, idea or cause. It’s an inspiring, big-picture commentary on the use of story in business.
Here’s my take on how some of Believe Me’s acxioms apply to Success-Story Marketing – marketing with your customers’ stories:
1. Sell an experience.
"People don’t really buy a product, solution or idea. They buy the story that’s attached to it," Margolis says.
In reality, you’re selling an experience. Success stories and case studies on happy customers convey an expected experience to a prospective buyer.
2. Create value for intangibles.
"Stories are the most direct path to harnessing, managing and communicating the value of your intangibles."
If you’re selling something that prospects can’t see or touch, like consulting services or enterprise software, frame your intangibles in the context of a customer’s story in order to create value in the solution.
3. Storytellers – take your job seriously.
"It’s your job as storyteller to decide what part of the experience belongs on the cutting-room floow – without losing the integrity of the message."
You gather a lot of information for customer stories. At the outset, know the goal of any story and make choices that reinforce that goal.
4. Meet prospects where they’re at.
"Your story needs to speak to your audience’s hearts, interests and world view."
We all crave stories that fit with our beliefs.
If you’re trying to change someone’s mind with a story, "find something everyone can agree on."
In a case study, that means recognizing and addressing the audience’s top concerns and needs, and building the story from that standpoint - instead of just telling someone they need to change.
5. Include past, present and future.
"Your audience will experience emotional dissonance unless you can offer the logical stepping stones for them to find their way into the new story."
Customer case studies usually address challenges, solutions and results for specific reasons.
That’s because it’s important to show the evolution of the customer’s path so that buyers see continuity from where they are now and where they’re going.
Pick up more storytelling tips and inspiration in Believe Me.
Buyers Link to Case Studies from Blogs, Wikis
In just the past six months, marketers have really begun embracing social media. They’re blogging, building Facebook fans and Tweeting.
Yet, much of it is still experimentation.
The question is, how do you get people to link to the content on your site from social media venues?
Case studies are a top draw for technology buyers, but mostly linked from blogs and wikis versus other social media, according to a recent report from IDG Knowledge Hub.
The report, Social Media and the IT Investment Process: Linking Social Conversations to Content, includes findings from a survey of 100 information technology buying team members regarding the links they most want to see.
According to the report, the wrong content types can be worse than none at all.
"Over 40% of social media participants are interested in pursuing links to vendor-generated content…Winners’ will be vendors that build a relevant content bridge to draw the conversation towards their own hosted platforms and insight."
What works?
The report points out that preferences vary by investment type, buying role and the type of business impact (technical, financial, business impact).
Here are the top three preferred content items for various social media tools:
Blogs
Case study, advertisement, tutorial/how-to
Discussion boards/forums
Tutorial/how-to, free-event registration, evaluation version
Messaging/live chat
Free-event registration, ROI calculator, presentation
Microblogs
Advertisement, technical knowledgebase, free-event registration
Social networks
Free-event registration, advertisement, ROI calculator
Wikis
Tutorial/how-to, technical white paper, case study
Do you track your content consumption by incoming links? What are you seeing in terms of linkage from social media?
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