Cap Your Interviews with This Question
If you cook, you know that the ingredients matter. Use the highest-quality ingredients and the end product tastes better than it would with lesser-quality materials.
The same goes for a customer case study. The better the information you gather in the interview, the stronger the story.
That’s why my interviews are typically very thorough. Yet still, at the end, I always ask one question to make sure that I haven’t missed anything.
"Is there anything else that you would like to add that we haven’t talked about?"
It’s the catch-all question to make sure that no stone has gone unturned.
About 50 percent of the time, the person will mention something else, or cap our conversation with an excellent summary quote. No matter how thorough the interview, there’s always a chance the customer might add a final thought, which will make your story even stronger.
Are you asking the questions that will yield a 5-star case study or success story? Learn more about interviewing and writing cases that get results in the upcoming teleclass, "Writing a Compelling Case Study – Start to Finish."
Lessons from a Bad Case Study – Too Much Narrative
Ugh. I just came across a bad case study.
On this day before Valentine's Day, I would rather be sharing the love, but this case study provides too many learning opportunities.
What makes the case study so bad? It breaks many of the rules of creating compelling customer stories. The next few blog posts, I'll address the sins of this case.
Sin #1 - Too much narrative
I often talk about the importance of telling a story in customer success stories and case studies. But there's a line you cross where it's too much storytelling.
As with anything that you write, every word and every statement should contribute to the overall message. This particular case study provides a lot of extra narrative that doesn't reinforce the overall story or have any value for the reader.
The audience is incredibly busy. In this case, the target is CIOs and VPs of IT. A case study is not the time to construct a really verbose and flowery narrative. Readers will simply stop reading and be frustrated that the case study wastes their time.
Keep the writing tight and always relevant to the overall message.
In this case, the writer spent four paragraphs making a point that could have been expressed much better in two paragraphs.
Stay tuned for Sin #2 - Don't Make Customers Look Bad
For more tips on creating compelling customer stories, check out Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset.
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