How Not to Write a Customer Success Story (Part 2)

I closed my last post by suggesting that your customer stories really should be about your customers, and not about you.

“Duh,” you say, “that’s obvious. It’s a customer story. That’s why their name is at the top of the page…” And you’d be right, but let’s go beyond the obvious. In what respect is it important for your success story to be about your customer?

To answer that question, you need to take a step back. Think about the reader of your customer story. After all, the whole point of customer success stories is to influence and persuade readers who are prospective customers. In fact, I believe every success story should communicate one simple message to that reader, which is:

We understand your problem. We have solved this problem for people in situations similar to yours. We can solve it for you too.

I mean, isn’t this what you’re trying to accomplish? And if so, how does a success story provide support for those claims?

I think you influence and persuade best by telling your customer’s story from their perspective. In that spirit here are a couple of story features to consider:

Legacy. Your customer didn’t open their doors on the day of your first meeting, nor were they in suspended animation until you came along. They had a history. They accomplished things. They had customers of their own. They beat competitors to win those customers because there was something they did better.

You need to document this. Capture your customer’s history, their brand, their scope of influence, their customers. Describe their successes and explain how they win.

Why is this important? First of all, including that information shows basic respect on your part, indicates that you were pleased and honored to serve your customer. In that relationship you were the lucky one, not they. Even if the absence of this attitude in customer stories isn’t always noticed, your reader, someone looking for help, will definitely appreciate your stated respect and admiration for your customer.

Secondly, providing this background helps your reader better to relate to your story. “We have solved this problem for people in situations similar to yours,” doesn’t just refer to industry or programming language. It also speaks to company maturity, processes, struggles, aspirations and pride.

Finally, highlighting your customer’s history and successes rubs off on you. Position your customer as a company that makes good decisions, because this smart, successful company chose you.

Context. As much as we’d all like to believe the contrary, most customer stories involve relatively parochial issues that are the concern of relatively few people. But if your claim is true, if you really did understand the customer’s problem, then you also understood that your solution was part of something bigger on the customer side than your champion’s parochial issue.

You need to place your success in the context of that bigger effort.

Say, for example, your customer was a national drug store chain facing competition from discount online stores and decided to pivot its online and in-store focus to health and wellness. Your community software was chosen to add a social experience to the brand.

Do not make your customer story solely about why you beat your competitors for the deal or community features the customer is using. You had a role in the success of a strategic business model shift. Make sure the reader knows that. And knows that you know that.

Why is this important? First of all, your reader will almost certainly not find themselves in exactly the same situation as your customer. The facts won’t line up, which creates friction. Your reader has to work to extrapolate from the customer’s facts to his or her own.

Fortunately, your reader, like the customer in your story, sees any problem they have in a bigger business context. They do that because they inhabit the business, they understand the higher-order objectives that drive day-to-day decision making, and they probably get rewarded when the higher-order objectives are met. By documenting the customer’s more strategic motivations you create more that a reader can relate to.

Solving the reader’s problem, they believe, will move the needle on a bigger corporate objective. They will want to know that your company can understand, appreciate, and operate in that context, even if your overall contribution is minor.

And every reader is looking for the smoothest, easiest path to a solution to their problem. If you clearly demonstrate that you are sensitive to context, that you can be savvy and strategic, it means less work for them.

There’s much more to be said here, but I want to shift the focus even more to the reader of your customer stories. “Reader” doesn’t tell us much, does it? Let’s get into that next time.

It’s hard to tell a story with a particular set of facts in a way that resonates with a broad audience. I’d love to hear how you do that, in the comments below. And as always, you can reach me directly at don.roedner@c2bsuite.com.