A prime customer has just agreed to participate in a case study for your product--great news!
But it can be tempting to turn what should be a focused case study interview call into an extended grilling of the customer for every bit of product feedback you can get.
That's a mistake for two reasons:
- The customer may lose patience with the process and back-out of the case study. The result: you lose the much higher marketing value of a full case study for just a few more data points that could be better collected in an online survey or a separate customer satisfaction call.
- It may be harder for the writer to get the big-picture, business-focused story during the interview if the questions continually prompt a customer to discuss details of the product implementation or your company's support activity.
I know it can be very hard to get a customer on the phone for an interview, so you want to maximize the information you get during that call.
The best way to do this is to work from a predefined list of questions and let the writer guide the interview. A good case study writer will keep one ear to the conversation and one eye on the clock to make sure all of the information needed to write a complete case study is gathered during the allotted interview time.
Yet a good writer will also probe for the examples, data points, decision factors, implementation plans, etc. that add depth and interest to the case study. And it's likely this information will give you the useful customer insights and product feedback that you seek.
If time is still available after the writer has gone through the standard question list, then you can ask the customer for any other details or if they would be willing to participate in a separate feedback call or online survey.
By remembering what delivers the highest value for your company, a case study interview call can produce both effective marketing content and useful information for improving your product.
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