Radio Interview: The Why and How of Customer Success Stories
This week I was honored to be interviewed by Wayne Hurlbert on his Blog Business Success radio show.
Now on demand, the one-hour interview covers the role of customer success stories in building trust and sales. We also get into the steps to take in creating customer stories, interview tips, and ways to get customers to say yes to being featured.
Hurlbert also reviewed my book, Stories That Sell, on his Blog Business World blog. He says…
For me, the power of the book is how Casey Hibbard demonstrates the power and relative simplicity of customer story telling as an organizational credibility building technique. The author shows the reader step by step, how to utilize stories to transform everyday sales and marketing programs to great ones, that really connect with the customer on a personal level.
Getting Measurable Results on the Hard-to-Measure
In customer case studies and success stories, specific results impress. But not every product or service is easy to measure.
Coaches, consultants and other service providers, for example, often provide services that lend themselves to qualitative benefits, rather than measurable.
If you think you can't measure what you do, there's hope.
Lisa Koss, president of International Advantage, has found a way to measure her clients' results.
The organizational development consulting firm works with medium-sized to large companies in cross-cultural environments on organizational change, team development, or individual development - all areas that aren't simple to measure.
Before each client project - typically several months long - Koss performs a pre- and post-climate survey. She asks the exact same set of questions at the start of the engagement and upon completion.
The survey asks customers about their feelings on certain areas by indicating “dissatisfied,” “very satisfied,” or varying levels in between on a scale of one to 10, hitting on important but hard-to-measure improvements such as employee satisfaction and teamwork.
From there, Koss determines the changes between the pre- and post-survey results to come up with percentages representing improvement - a very clever way to put numbers on what she does.
This was particularly valuable when Koss created a customer story about a major project. The client improved significantly in seventy-five percent of the areas surveyed. Instead of nebulous discussion about improved productivity, the survey showed exactly where and how much of a leap the customer made.
When conducting your follow-up survey, be sure to pick the best point in the relationship to reassess. Choose a point when the customer has had enough time to experience benefits but not enough time to forget the impact of what you delivered.
It’s not only valuable data for customer stories, but also helps you and customers clearly see the impact of the solution. Look for the most impressive gains between the before and after.
Consider performing this assessment with every customer and using this as a basis for which to feature as case studies.
How Case Studies Get Done – One Leg at a Time
Ever played a carnival horse racing game?
To get your mechanical horse to move forward toward the finish line, you have to roll a ball into little holes, hoping to consistently hit the top hole and make your horse go faster than the others.
The ball keeps coming back to you and you have to roll it as fast as possible again to keep your horse moving.
It usually takes 8-10 rolls to get to the finish line.
Likewise, customer case study projects usually take 8-10 steps to get them over the finish line.
At any given time, I've got case studies or success stories in every phase of the cycle, from gathering initial background to securing final customer signoff.
It feels like this horse race game - inching forward one step at a time. Sometimes the race is fast and easy, and other times long and frustrating.
What can you do to keep the horse moving?
Keep the ball moving
It's about never sitting on the ball. When the ball comes back to you, act on the next step as soon as possible. I know it's hard when you have so many projects in the works but try to keep it moving.
That means setting up interviews as soon as you can, in case contacts are about to travel or about to start a major project. Integrate edits or change requests and shoot the story back to reviewers. Answer questions or concerns from customers quickly.
Know roadblocks
Ask whether customers will be out of the office at any time in the near future. Sometimes you can't change your project schedule but maybe you can.
You might be able to move a project up to avoid sending the customer a case study for review just as they're leaving on a big vacation.
Set expectations early
When you start a project, let customers know if you'll need it for a specific opportunity like a trade show or event and get their feedback on whether it's doable on their end. You might remind them throughout the process about that target date.
If this specific customer can't meet those deadlines, choose another for your upcoming opportunity and come back to the first customer at a better time for him or her.
Be persistent but also sensitive to the fact that customers have their jobs to do as well.
One step at a time, your projects get ever closer to that finish line. Keep them moving!
‘Stories That Sell’ Takes Home Gold in Axiom Business Book Awards
I'm excited to announce today that Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales and Marketing Asset has won Gold in the Advertising/Marketing/PR/Event Planning category of the 2010 Axiom Business Book Awards.
This week, Jenkins Group Inc. announced the results of the second annual, 2010 Axiom Business Book Awards, designed to honor the year's best business books and their authors and publishers.
The Axiom Business Book Awards are intended to bring increased recognition to exemplary business books and their creators, with the understanding that business people are an information-hungry segment of the population, eager to learn about great new books that will inspire them and help them improve their careers and businesses.
Stories That Sell, authored by Casey Hibbard and published by AIM Publishers, introduces a proven process for leveraging customer success stories into new sales. It offers Success-Story Marketing™ best practices from me on creating and managing customer stories, with insight from organizations such as Sage Software, SAP, Toyota, Kronos, Amdocs, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and dozens of other businesses, independent consultants, and nonprofits.
Kudos also to my friend and fellow writer Peter Bowerman for winning Silver in the Business Reference category for his The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Commercial Freelancer in Six Months or Less. Peter is a multiple award winner for his Well-Fed series of books, which I highly recommend.
Check out the full list of award winners.
Creating Case Studies? The Math You Have to Master
I have a confession. I'm bad at math.
Writers and marketers out there, I know some of you are with me. We were the spelling bee champions, the honors English students and the school newspaper editors.
But algebra was not our thing. Sure, there were some kids talented at both, at which I'm always amazed.
After elementary school, my attitude become one of, "I'll never use this stuff. I'm going to be a writer!"
Well, here I am in a career mostly about writing and I'm Googling my math questions, or instant messaging a quick story problem to my computer science/math husband.
If you are a mathlete, then stop reading here, or forward this to your "word" friends.
Persnickety Percentages
Customer case studies are about documenting results, showing that actual customers experienced the benefits that marketing and sales promised.
Whether you're a marketer, business owner or writer producing case studies, there are likely times when you have to do the math on your own. It's fairly rare that featured customers come ready with all their numbers worked out about how your solution made a difference.
So what do you need to know? Percentages!
In case studies, it's all about the before and after. How much did the customer reduce costs? How much time are they saving? By what percent did their sales grow?
Percents are sometimes the fallback approach when you can't name actual dollar figures. Customers will let you mention percentages instead, so you have to know how to calculate them.
Percentages can be easy if you're going one direction with them, but not other directions.
Fortunately, I found a handy guide for the math-challenged among us. This page gives you a simple formula no matter which number you're missing and how to do your calculations. There are even problems to test yourself.
.jpg)
Love it. It's easier than Mrs. Swafford's approach in 6th grade. (They probably learn this in 3rd grade now.)
Bookmark the page. I know I have. You simply have to do the math in this job sometimes.
Just today, I needed to determine what percent 1752 is of 1,807,125. Can you?
Order from this site and get TWO bonuses!
Companion ebooks to Stories that Sell!
Get the most out of Stories that Sell with The Marketer's Toolkit AND The Writer's Toolkit. These additional resources provide proven tips to help you succeed with success stories.
Recent Comments