I’ve been looking at a number of case studies—or what I prefer to call customer success stories—on B2B company websites lately. I’m disappointed in what I’m reading.
It’s great that so many companies are taking the time to write customer success stories and post them on their websites (although many are so hard to find that locating them is like searching for the proverbial “needle in a haystack”!) Once you do find them, though, you can’t exactly call them complete customer success stories.
That’s because they are missing a key component that is so vital to every worthwhile customer success story.
In fact, what’s missing is that the writers of these incomplete “case studies” don’t even take the time to quote the very customers they are writing about.
Even though it’s clearly apparent that the customer being referenced truly values a particular company’s product or service, not quoting them anywhere in the story gives the reader the impression that the customer really had nothing worthwhile to say about the product or service they are using.
What a terrible shame! Because quoting your customers is what adds life blood to the otherwise bare bones of your customer success stories! Your customer’s quotes are what make your customer success stories unique to your company.
Think of it this way. Publishing a customer success story without quotes from the customer is like serving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a one of your kids, but without the jelly! In other words, the story is not as complete as it should be (and your PB&J fan — including Fido here — will find it a bit hard to swallow at that!)
Quote Your Customers!
Quotes used in customer success stories are literally the unique “voice” of the customer. The customer success story writer obtains the quotes by crafting meaningful and thought-provoking questions that the customer being interviewed can answer in detail.
Not only do strong quotes add vital credibility and life to the story to make it complete (and easier to swallow!), they also serve as that special key ingredient only your customer’s words — in quotes — can provide.
Trust me . . . your readers will truly appreciate the unique quotes provided in your content-rich customer success stories.
