Customer Testimonials Part II

by A. Bleecker
Aug. 9th, 2019
Queen Palm Media Insights

How to Write a Customer Success Story That Sells

In Part 1 of our customer testimonial series, we wrote about how to find customers willing to to be featured in success stories produced by your company. Now it’s time to bring your customer’s story to life. Here are four recommendations for ensuring you create a killer piece of customer-validated content:

1) Do your homework

Make it your goal to ask as little of the customer as possible. Before you even speak to the customer, interview everyone within your company who’s touched the account. In software companies, for example, this can be the account manager, product manager, project manager, professional services, and even support. Here are some examples of questions you should be asking these folks:

• What was the problem the customer needed to find a solution for, and how were they managing (or failing to manage) that challenge before ?

• Which companies did you compete against in the sales process, and why did the customer choose you over the competition?

• Were there implementation challenges? How did you overcome them?

• Have you tracked any performance metrics for this customer? Does the customer track performance metrics?

  
  2) Conduct the customer interview yourself (when possible)

  I love interviewing customers because it’s a chance to hear them talk about our clients in their own words. I record these calls because there is always at least one moment when the interviewee says something really great, and by great I mean a comment that touches on a specific point of improvement or quote-worthy anecdote about working with our client. These are the gems you need to be listening for—the sentences you’ll highlight as direct quotes in your success story and beyond (think social media clips, your website, even internal presentations).

  3) Record audio of the interview
  Think like a journalist. Inevitably you’ll miss something or confuse a detail and you don’t want to have to go back to the customer and ask for clarification (remember the goal: ask as little as possible from the customer). Record every conversation, even if that means putting the interviewee on speakerphone so you can record with your cell phone.

If the customer is speaking at a trade show or event you can’t attend, ask an attending colleague to record audio for you with his/her cell phone. The iPhone comes equipped with a basic audio recording app, but I prefer an app called Otter for its auto-transcription feature and easy sharing of audio files.

4) Keep things loose in terms of format
Get the information you need, and then decide the shape the testimonial should take based on the content and what the customer is willing to do. For example, some customers aren’t comfortable putting things in writing so say no to a written success story, but are willing to speak on your company’s behalf at an event or be featured in a video. Some companies consider their operational tools and processes to be a competitive advantage (like a trade secret), and thus their employees aren’t authorized to participate in any marketing material creation. They’re still a happy customer, so ask if they’ll agree to be a reference for prospects in one-on-one calls.

It depends on your industry, audience, and corporate objectives, but I tend to think of testimonial formats in the following order in terms of value:

1. Video testimonial

2. Speaking event (i.e. customer speaking on your behalf at a trade show, for example)

3. Written success story

4. Quote approved for use

5. Reference call

   
   Want more?
   In the third and final post in this series, we share our time-tested strategies for pushing a customer testimonial through the often precarious approval process—with grace. How to Get Your Success Story Approved.