How do you write better customer case studies and success stories? Get better at interviewing.
Ahhh, the customer interview. The holy grail for many marketers. It's the social proof many of us need to validate our existence. "See? Company XYZ agrees that we're the bees knees! You don't have to take our word for it, listen to what everyone else is saying about how great we are!"
We spend hours, days, weeks even chasing down ostensibly satisfied customers in hopes they'll be willing to go on record to tell the world how much ass we kick.
Over the years, I've personally sent thousands of emails to customers in databases inviting them to participate in a co-marketing opportunity (read: case study or video testimonial) certain to "raise their profile as a thought leader" or "elevate their company's brand," all in the name of getting customers to talk positively about whatever product or service I'm helping to promote.
The chase can be exhausting. Which is why when you finally get someone to say yes — to volunteer as much as an hour of their work day to talk about your business helping theirs — it's imperative that you don't screw it up.
So, here are 5 suggestions for getting more value from your customer interviews and using your customer's time more wisely.
1. Do your background research ahead of time
Right off the bat, my absolute least favorite thing about many customer interviews is how much time is wasted on basic housekeeping questions. Things like what is your title or how many employees do you have can easily be found on LinkedIn, on their website, or in any number of other places.
If I were being interviewed, few things would make me rethink accepting your interview invitation quite like wasting my time on information readily available all over the interwebs.
Instead, gather background information about title, industry, and company size and simply ask them to confirm that the data you have is correct...and then move immediately on to higher value topics.
2. Send your questions before the interview
Admittedly, this wasn't always my standard practice. My friends at RO Innovation first recommended it to me as a way to eliminate the element of surprise from the interview. I thought I'd always done a good job extracting the most salient points of a customer's story, but often struggled to get those exact measurable outcomes, like how much time/money/anxiety they saved or how much they improved sales, customer satisfaction, etc.
Turns out, the element of surprise — not knowing which questions are going to be asked —is actually counterproductive in a customer interview. It makes what should be a friendly conversation feel much more like an interrogation, which is clearly not what you're aiming for (I hope).
A good practice is to compile a standard list of questions to use for every customer interview, regardless of who's going to conduct it. Adapt the list for each customer, product, or use case by adding questions specifically relevant to their situation or removing questions that don't really apply. Then, send it to the customer a few days ahead of the conversation so they can prepare themselves to answer your questions fully.
This is especially important when you're trying to collect quantifiable benefits because, believe it or not, most of your customers won't know that information off the top of their heads and will appreciate a little extra time to dig it up before the call so they don't have to spend even more time doing so after the interview is over.
3. Ask questions in the same order as your story
Everyone and their sister is a "storyteller" these days. And why not? The human brain is wired for stories because the structure of a story helps direct our attention so we can follow along and understand the nuances or finer details.
This is also the case when recalling a story. Still, many interviewers bounce around from question to question with no semblance of purpose or structure. There tends to be a lot of "Oh! by the way, tell me about..." type of questions or an emphasis on very fine details that don't much matter without the greater context of a story arc.
The result is usually some high-level, fill-in-the-blank type responses that could apply to any customer rather than the insightful, compelling, and salient answers they were hoping for. If you really want the goods, arrange your questions in the order the story will follow. Most commonly, this will be a Challenge, Solution, Benefit structure.
Order your questions in a way that gets your customer in the mindset of thinking how life was before they found your company and the challenges they faced without you, what their experience was like during the purchase and implementation processes, and how much easier their job is or how much better their life is after your company came along.
You'll almost certainly see an uptick in the quality and detail of their responses because you're allowing (forcing?) them to relive the experience from start to finish.
4. Get good at probing (questions)
It's hard enough coming up with a strong list of questions to ask without going overboard. Seeing a list of 50+ questions before an interview is enough to give any participant anxiety, but as the interviewer, you want to leave as few stones unturned as possible.
But rather than writing out every question you could possibly ever want to ask, there's an easier way: get comfortable asking "why" and "how." These types of probing questions are second nature to salespeople who really want to get to the root of a customer's pain points when trying to close a deal. Marketers interviewing customers in hopes of surfacing their pain points as part of a compelling narrative should learn to employ the same tactics.
It's not enough to simply ask a customer what challenges their business or team faced before finding your product or service. To get to the juicy bits — the stuff prospective customers are going to want to know — you'll need to ask precisely how those challenges affected the business on a daily basis, how it would have impacted the business further if nothing had been done, and why the customer finally decided to take action to resolve those challenges.
If part of your marketing goal is to generate more customer stories, then how and why will become your best friends as an interviewer.
5. Lead the witness
Marketers often fall into the trap of letting the customer control the conversation in an interview, taking whatever they say and using it as verbatim quotes in a case study or story. Inexperienced interviewers can feel afraid to challenge a customer's answer when it's incomplete or doesn't serve the purpose of the story, fearing they'll appear too biased or subjective or even confrontational and adversely impact the quality of the information they're gathering.
Except, this is marketing and content isn't supposed to be unbiased or objective. It's supposed to be persuasive and supportive of a particular marketing agenda. To that end, it's not only encouraged but also best practice to steer the interviewee toward the answer you want them to give.
Of course, it's not advisable to put all the responsibility on your customer to give a perfectly complete quote during an interview. That onus is on you to massage their answers into a quote for your story that captures the essence of what they mean. But asking your primary question and following up with phrases like would it be accurate to say that.... or would you agree that... are great approaches to gently guiding your customer to the response you want them to give without coming right out and asking them to repeat after you.
Quality in, quality out
Customer marketing — references, advocacy, or whatever other name you want to give it — is an increasingly important element to modern marketing strategies. And organizations that can generate the most relatable, impactful, and engaging stories will benefit most.
But the quality of those stories is directly tied to how thoroughly and strategically the initial interview is conducted. And the interviewers who best assert control over the interview and are comfortable guiding their customer toward the "right" answers will usually produce the most memorable stories that sell.