3 Ways Customer Success Stories Help Land Awards

Our culture rewards awards.

Everyone wants to have award-winning products, hire award-winning people, or deliver award-winning service…

Every day you go head-to-head against competitors, but it’s nice to get extra recognition from independent parties that you are doing a good job.

Often, those awards turn into multiple mentions in industry publications and online, getting your name out there.

In many cases, awards applications even require examples of actual product or service implementations.

What better to fulfill that than with a powerful customer success story?

Here’s how one company uses its stories for awards.

Zebra Technologies Corporation, which makes printers, supplies, RFID products and software, has won multiple awards based on information culled from customer stories.

Most recently, the company and two of its partners won the Innovative Solution Award for Quick Service from a couple of key industry associations.

Their cool solution utilizes RFID (radio-frequency identification) kiosks to provide retail customers in schools and offices with greater self-service options, including lunch and snack items for customers who would otherwise have to go offsite to find refreshments.

Tim Dreyer, public relations manager, says that Zebra used a case study on the customer, Sterling Services, which makes the Fast Track Convenience solution.

The award application went more smoothly because of the case study,” he said. “We just pull and edit from what’s already there.”

In turn, news of that award was picked up on multiple sites across the web.

That award came just weeks after the company won a major award from RFID Journal for an implementation of RFID technology at Vail Resorts in Colorado. Again, Zebra used the case study to include rich information in the application.

With that inspiration from Zebra, here are the 3 ways that customer case studies and success stories support your awards efforts.

1. Text is ready to go!

You may have to act fast to submit an application. With a written customer story, you can simply cut and paste the text you need.

We often hear about awards one to two weeks before the deadline,” Dreyer said. “Without a case study already, we may need to scramble to find a customer, then do the phone interview and get it written up.”

2. Answers are already eloquent.

You want your application to be polished. A strong customer story already has all the pieces you need – eloquently said – to answer various questions on the application, from what the customer does to the challenge to the benefits of the product or service.

3. Results are quantified

Awards programs love measurable results. But trying to gather strong, customer-approved results is tough on a tight timeline.

Gather those results for customer case studies and they’re ready to go as soon as a hot award comes up.

BONUS BENEFIT!

Customers get excited

Your customers love awards too. Not only does your product look good, but your customer gets exposure for doing innovative, noteworthy things.

Tell a customer that you might submit their case study for an award, and they may be more likely to agree to be featured.