«Return to Blog List Case Study Interviewing – Team up for One Power Interview
If you’re making full use of a customer’s success story, you’re telling that story in multiple places – case studies, success stories, press releases, videos, webinars, white papers, and more.
Most likely, more than one person is involved in creating content with the customer’s story. If you’re not careful, the customer will be asked the same questions again and again.
That’s why it’s critical to approach the customer in an organized way with the goal of minimizing the customer’s time. Ideally, that means one “power” interview to get all the details you need.
Right now, I’m working on a case study project where the customer will also be featured in a white paper. Instead of two separate interviews, the white paper writer and I are teaming up for a single interview to collect all the information we need for our respective projects.
The alternative – two separate interviews in a single week, with duplicate questions – would likely be very annoying for the customer.
To take best practices a step further, retain the raw transcript, audio or video for any future uses of the customer’s story to ensure you don’t need to engage more of the customer’s time unless absolutely necessary.
In short, always make sure you’re gathering the customer’s story with an eye toward broader usage. When possible, knock it out with one power interview.
For other ways to keep customers happy during the case study process, check out Michele Linn’s great recent post, Handle with Care: 10 Tips on Interacting with Case Study Customers.
